Hi!

I got a small problem, and you fellows will be able to help me.

I (you) know there is region locout on NES Controllers. US-models of the NES allow all kind of controllers, EU-models of the NES just allow EU-Controllers: Nintendo added some resistors to the controllers and child-boards to the controller-jacks. (see http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1841.0 if interested)

I got a US NES and lots of EU Controllers. 
They work fine together.

But I got a EU FourScore too.
US.NES + EU.FourScore + EU-Controller: Does not work.


Now I am looking for high-res-images/photos of the US Fource-Score PCB to find the differences in design and remove the differences with my beloved soldering iron.

Hope someone in here will be able to solve my problem.

ninn

Let me know if these aren't good enough, I can put the board in toaster oven to pull off the connectors.


http://www.nespowerpak.com/images...
http://www.nespowerpak.com/images...
http://www.nespowerpak.com/images...
http://www.nespowerpak.com/images...

Mmmmmmm, PCB poptart

Bunnyboy, thanks for your quick help! Those pictures look very promising, I will compare them to my euro-fourscore in the evening, telling you about progress!

Thanks a lot, great help! :-D

ninn

Yeah, I'd be great to get rid of that annoying regional lockout. I got both versions, but if I remember correctly I couldn't see any difference between the two, except for some text. In case anyway else wants to take a look a took a couple of pictures:

PAL:











NTSC:











I'd be happy to take more pictures if anyone thinks they've spotted a difference!

I have a four score PAL and a NTSC system and controllers. They don't work together the only thing that does work are the turbo buttons, looking at your pics they may have different resistors in D6-D9 though I can't really tell.

Has anyone had any luck with this??

Hi,

Did you solve this problem??

Unfortunately, i have the same probelm. ??




;;; nintendo;;;;;;

This deserves a big bump, i'm at the crossroad of either modding every single controller or just the Four Score from PAL to NTSC.

Visually they seem to be identical, the only difference i can see is the 22 pin chip.

PAL name: FPA-PAL-S01 (9112 B)
NTSC name: FPA-92-S01 (9019 B)

..but i can't find any information on these chips at all

You could do some measurements with a multimeter on all the ic chip pins on both boards and see if there is any difference. Not sure you will be able to figure anything out by doing that though. maybe you can bypass something and have them function the same, if it is the chip that determines if its PAL or NTSC.

I have a theory about the 4 score differences. I don't have a EU 4 score, so I can't test at the moment.

The signature that tells the NES the 4 player adapter is connected is probably different.
I can't think of anything else the difference could be, just the 8 bit signature that is sent after the player 1 and 3 bits are sent ( or the 2 and 4 bits.)

This pretty much explains how the 4 score works. The Hori 4 player adapter for Famicom is a different story.

http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.ph...

Hi,

so anyone managed to make US.NES + EU.FourScore work?

There must be a way to solve this right? I mean Micro Mages is here any day now and I wanna play 4 player coop. But that Four score wont work because of the region lock.

I have some more info on this. I was going through my collection of nes controllers and found out that I have one NES-004E controller.
That contoller together with my European Four Score (NESE-034) worked fine on my SCN (Pal) Nes.

As far as I know the SCN (Pal) Nes have the same controller region lock as a (NTSC) Nes. That suggests the four score could me modded with diodes the same way a console could?

So heres a list of what combos that will work:

Controller NES-004E (Pal) > Four Score NESE-034 (Pal) > Console (PAL) (NTSC) (SCN)

Controller NES-004E (Pal) / NES-004 (NTSC) > Four Score NES-034A (Ntsc) > Console (NTSC) (SCN)


edit: Tried bridging the 9 diodes in the Pal Four Score. That didn't work.