Hi, I have a question. If I would take a famicom cart connector and solder it onto a pal nes, skipping (or grounding) security and expansion pins, would such nes play famicom games? Provided of course that the lockout chip on nes would be properly disabled (grounded).
I'm looking at this pinouts as a reference:
http://www.jandar.net/famiconv/rom.txt
http://www.jandar.net/famiconv/fam_pinout.txt
Cheers!
Sure. Ignore unused outputs, and wire ground (or VCC) to the unused inputs, and that would do it.
Seems like a painful way to plug in a cart though. There are NES adapters for FC carts, though I don't know where to get one.
That's nice to hear. I'm thinking about it mostly because I don't know where to _easily_ find an adapter here, and because I have a load of famiclone carts which could be fun to play on a real NES (hi quality pads with long cables, multitap). And I have a spare NES too. Not mentioning the joy of soldering...
I presume using a famiclone cart connector (and games) instead of an original japanese famicom ones is not a problem?
Looking forward to playing 999999 in 1 on a NES
Cheers!
You can probably find an adaptor on eBay, though I haven't looked myself.
If you insist on doing it the hard way, I would recommend mutilating a Famiclone, especially the "Super Joy" variety. The would could always use less of those.
BMF54123 wrote:
You can probably find an adaptor on eBay
eBay has long had a
policy against them.
Well, that figures. Can't have those dirty old Famicom games corrupting our youth, I guess.
(I understand it's a blanket policy meant to eliminate sales of modchips, but it's silly to include passive adapters for a system that's over 20 years old. Why not include Famicom games and systems as well, since we're clearly not supposed to be using them over here?)
BMF54123 wrote:
I understand it's a blanket policy meant to eliminate sales of modchips, but it's silly to include passive adapters for a system that's over 20 years old.
You say 20 years. That's the patent term. Copyrights and trademarks last longer than this:
- 20 < 95. Games are copyrighted, and adapters circumvent access controls in violation of 17 USC 1201(a) (and foreign counterparts in the case of eBay sites in other countries).
- 20 < forever. Console names and game titles are trademarked.
Quote:
Why not include Famicom games and systems as well, since we're clearly not supposed to be using them over here?
eBay is way ahead of you. Its
policy on the importation of goods lists "A video game player or software that is the Japanese version of the player or game and not intended for use in the United States" as an example of a potentially infringing item.
I bought mine on ebayz off this guy for a couple bucks
CLICK ME
you would want one that goes the other way though, or i guess old gyromite carts or similar one have an adapter already inside them.
Yes, I actually purchased a Yobo Famiclone that included a 72-to-60 converter inside of it. 72 to 60 converters aren't hard to find at all. However, it took me a really long time to find a 60 to 72. I found it inside an old Stack-Up cart. I actually bought a Gyromite cart because I heard they came inside of those, but to my disappointment, I opened it to behold a plain old NES board with no converter.
If you do find a cart with a converter inside of it, you'll have to saw these things off the sides of the converter in order to stick a famicom cart with it's case on in it. If you don't remove this things from the side, you'll have to take famicom games out of their case in order to put them into the converter.
tepples wrote:
lots of stupid crap
Yes, I know all about those God-forsaken infinite copyrights. That's practically all I ever read about here anymore. I
personally think it's extremely stupid and pointless to restrict sales of adapters and games for a system that has not even been in production for 15 years (at least in the US).
I guess it's a good thing I don't use eBay anymore.
BMF54123 wrote:
I guess it's a good thing I don't use eBay anymore.
What online person-to-person sales venue do you recommend now?
Quote:
I guess it's a good thing I don't use eBay anymore
What online person-to-person sales venue do you recommend now
I've been looking for an alternative to ebay for some time. Specifically for video games and systems. Ebay seriously sucks now, and I avoid it as much as possible. If there is no alternative, its time for ebay to get some competition.
tepples wrote:
What online person-to-person sales venue do you recommend now?
I haven't actually used any for a couple of years now. I don't buy used computer hardware anymore, and most of my import gaming needs are met by either
Pink Godzilla or people I know online.
The famicom adapters are not Mod chips, Game enhancers, or boot disks.. So I don't see how they are covered by that statement.
They sort of hint that any device allowing play of an imported game is against their policy (the "these devices" is kind of ambiguous), but I'm pretty sure they don't blanket all devices that allow play of import games.
They sure don't seem to mind people selling crappy famiclones. I purchased my game converters from someone on ebay, and I've seen coverters of both direction come up there once in a while.
There's an up and coming gamers auction site called chasethechuckwagon.com that is pretty good. I don't think there is much (if any) import stuff on it right now, but it's quickly growing. Prototype cartridges and the like can be sold/bought there, so I don't see why imports couldn't be as well.
EDIT: edited for my poor grammar hehe
crade wrote:
The famicom adapters are not Mod chips, Game enhancers, or boot disks.
The Famicom adapters are shaped much like a Game Genie, which is a game enhancer. They share the same feature as Freeloader, which is a boot disk. They contain a mod chip to freeze the CIC.
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They sure don't seem to mind people selling crappy famiclones. I purchased my game converters from someone on ebay, and I've seen coverters of both direction come up there once in a while.
eBay staff happened not to find those listings.
Roth: Thanks for the tip.
What would be the legal status of modifying a cart like "Just Breed" and using the english patch?
Is there any way to have a legally patched english cart?
Quote:
Is there any way to have a legally patched english cart?
I guess you just have to buy the actual game. Tepples should confirm that however.
The closest thing to legal would be a "Lock-On" cart, similar in shape to a Game Genie or a Sonic & Knuckles cart, that watches for MMC5 bankswitch requests and patches the data as needed. I seem to remember one revision of Bases Loaded doing something like this. But if you try to sell these Lock-On carts, Square Enix still has more lawyers than you.
But as long as you're not planning to sell repros, you can probably get away with buying a Just Breed cart, dumping it yourself, patching your dump, burning it to flash, and soldering the flash into the cart.
tepples wrote:
They contain a mod chip to freeze the CIC.
So a few off-the-shelf resistors and capacitors jury-rigged together is considered a "mod chip?"
What if one were to sell just the adapter--a circuit board with traces and edge connectors--without the lockout-defeating components? (wait, never mind, I bet I know the answer to this one!)
What if I were to sell a piece of bread shaped like a Game Genie? Is it still considered a "game enhancer?"
BMF54123 wrote:
tepples wrote:
They contain a mod chip to freeze the CIC.
So a few off-the-shelf resistors and capacitors jury-rigged together is considered a "mod chip?"
As far as I can tell, the resistors and capacitors become a mod chip once they are soldered to the adapter PCB. The fact that they're not in an IC package doesn't matter because eBay's servers are private property, and the company has the right to prohibit any listing it wants.
Quote:
What if I were to sell a piece of bread shaped like a Game Genie? Is it still considered a "game enhancer?"
No, because it doesn't sit between the game and the console, either physically or (in the case of boot discs for disc-based consoles) logically.
Tepples, are you a lawyer? Just curious.
Quote:
The fact that they're not in an IC package doesn't matter because eBay's servers are private property, and the company has the right to prohibit any listing it wants.
This is really the bottom line with Ebay auctions. They aren't consistent. it's up to them what they want to allow people to put up for auction, and they decide on a case by case basis (usually when there is a complaint) which auctions to disallow. They don't need a good reason for them to cancel your auction or do other nasty things to you as a seller. It doesn't do any good to try to say "my product doesn't technically fit into anything you have in your dissalowed list" once they have decided to cancel your auction (or whatever).
Being in the dissalowed list isn't a death sentence either. A quick search for game genies will show you Ebay doesn't care if people, and ebay stores put up autions for game genies despite the fact that it says "game enhancer" right on the label and on the subject line of the auctions. I doubt that you would be able to get these auctions pulled if you complained that they technically violate policy document X by being a game enhancer.
They want to cover everything so they can pull any auction they want, but in the end it's entirely subjective.[/quote]
clueless wrote:
Tepples, are you a lawyer? Just curious.
"IANAL but I play one on TV." I read Slashdot's "Your Rights Online" (YRO) section, which links to articles written by lawyers and paralegals, and sometimes I read a
lot of statutes and analysis while trying to understand the background behind a given article. So I'd guess you could call me an "armchair paralegal". And I've had to read eBay policy for my job.
BMF54123 wrote:
What if I were to sell a piece of bread shaped like a Game Genie? Is it still considered a "game enhancer?"
What if you sold a Game Genie with a likeness of the Virgin Mary on it? What a dilemma for Ebay!
Well the NES one lets you do like 5 patches, but the Game Cube one basically lets you write an entire program to memory and run it with 1000s of patches. So that could be the reason for the blanket ban.
Instead of ebay you could try a local video game store (not a chain...), some of them have mountains of old junk like that lying around. Including a Gyromite cart with the adapter board inside.