Original NES and SNES controllers

[007ELmO]

My order was "complete" as well, lol.

I told them to cancel it. They said they would do it shortly (but it didn't happen yet, lol). We know what their definition of in stock and "complete" are, so what's their definition of "shortly"? Haha!

Sigh. I feel bad for them, and us, lol.

 

[007ELmO]

CzRoe/Ichinisan/Fallen Kell,

Are there any NES games in particular you're still looking for?

You have helped me out greatly in getting back into retro gaming, so I will purchase you each 1 NES game for Christmas.

Thanks,
ELmO

 

[CZroe]

CzRoe/Ichinisan/Fallen Kell,

Are there any NES games in particular you're still looking for?

You have helped me out greatly in getting back into retro gaming, so I will purchase you each 1 NES game for Christmas.

Thanks,
ELmO

Ha ha! Too many. How about Stadium Events? J/K

You really don't have to do that. I only just started a "want" list yesterday but it's still woefully incomplete. I got side-tracked and started making a "buy if you see it cheap" list of valuable games instead (flea market cheat-sheet). I did go ahead and make a simple list of all the games I could find (some are still missing).

Also, I finally picked out the dupes you requested but I've been working ridiculous holiday hours and I'm working a 15 hour shift today so I can't finish cleaning and testing until late tonight. I'll send pics and you can let me know if they are good enough for you.

 

[Ichinisan]

CzRoe/Ichinisan/Fallen Kell,

Are there any NES games in particular you're still looking for?

You have helped me out greatly in getting back into retro gaming, so I will purchase you each 1 NES game for Christmas.

Thanks,
ELmO

Stadium Events. Full/original box please.

I will also accept gold Nintendo World Championship. Cart-only is fine.

Kidding. CZroe and I rarely seek-out any particular titles. We usually just collect what we come across. There was a recent exception to that: A friend was in Akihabara and asked if I wanted her to pick up anything. That's when we got the Sharp Twin Famicom...which I just love. My brother bought an eBay lot with bunch of random Famicom games, and then we came across a couple more in a flea market lot (which also included a bunch of Super Famicom games). Still waiting to come across a cheap FDS game since I haven't tested that part of the Twin Famicom.

CZroe and I discussed a few strange omissions to the collection recently, but my memory is so bad I don't remember the particular titles except for Super Mario Bros. 2. We used to have that one, but it probably disappeared when my friend's apartment building burned down. My friend was borrowing one of my NES units and a bunch of Mario+Zelda games at the time. I'm pretty sure that included a mint boxed copy of Zelda (the less common re-release in the gray cart). I had duplicate copies for most of the games he borrowed. He had a lot of my tools and computer parts too, but I can't really complain. He lost everything.

I love that you're spreading the 8-bit bug to your friends and family. This might be the start of some big retro revival. One of my coworkers also rediscovered his love for classic NES games in the last 2 months. I was making several trips anyway to an out-of-town flea market and game shop, and I had lots of duplicate titles, so we were able to build a pretty good library for him. It sounds like you're both going to have a great 8-bit Christmas

 

[007ELmO]

I got a decent Christmas bonus from work for working my butt off this year, but Stadium Events is a little out of my budget for you guys - HAHA!

Yeah the 8-bit bug bit me hard the last couple months, mainly because of you guys lol. I'm so happy I didn't go down the emulation route.

I got the bitboxes last night, I'm ordering 8.5x14 legal paper to print out the covers from the cover project or stone age gamer. I'll say the bitboxes (to be a perfectionist), are not perfect - lol. The majority of the bitboxes have a wave in the exterior cover. I'd say 10% have no wave. I don't know if that will affect the cover, yet.

So check this, once again if you think about something too much, inevitably it will happen. I found someone in New Zealand who happens to have 2 unopened BLW mods for her RGB and eventual HDMI NES, that she doesn't have time to use while she's getting her PhD. I described to her how it was a Christmas Present, and she's shipping them to me in a few hours. I tipped her a bunch though, and it's $60 just to ship from NZ to Ohio...that's OK.

So did I hear you guys are somehow missing Super Mario Brothers 2?!

 

[Fallen Kell]

Wow, how can you be missing SMB2? I keep meaning on getting a more complete list together, but just never get around to it (too many projects going on at the moment).

That said, I flashed my Analogue NT last night with Kevtris's HI-DEF NES board update. The system is a LOT more stable now (hasn't crashed once since the update where-as before the update it would periodically crash depending on the game).

 

[007ELmO]

Did he release an update past the V2 that I think my hi-def boards have right now? Thanks for the info! I think the Analogue NT had V1 of kevtris stuff originally.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yes it was V2 firmware for the Analogue NT since that had an earlier version installed. I fired up my Everdrive N8 to use it to install the update (took a little doing to get a proper version of the Everdrive software that worked with the HI-Def NES board in the Analogue NT). I have been meaning to test out some of the expanded audio capability (especially for the Japanese version of Castlevania 3).

 

[007ELmO]

Yes, I read the V2 "fixed" Castlevania 3. Good news for you!

I want an Analogue NT, I may pre-order the second version for the heck of it. Is it possible to be "too much" into retro? Are we addicted?

 

[Fallen Kell]

To be honest, the Analogue NT really isn't any better than a Hi-Def NES. About the only real benefit it gives is the ability to play both NES and Famicom carts in the same system without needing adaptors (well, it also has new caps, and new connectors for the controller ports).

I really wouldn't recommend it if you have a Hi-Def NES already. You are better off on keeping the $600 and putting it towards cleaning up/modding a NES system with the Hi-Def NES kit (once they go on sale, which is very soon I believe). Before the Hi-Def NES became a reality, the Analogue NT was a product that had some value.

 

[007ELmO]

Got a swingline papercutter and did the covers for my sister and brother in law's games!

 

[007ELmO]

Added:

• Battletoads
• Dr. Mario
• Kid Icarus
• Zelda 2 [Gold]

Tetris and TMNT 1 were bundled; I will give the dupes to someone in my family.

 

[007ELmO]

Here are 3 of the modded hi-def NES' and one of the ones I used for parts.

Here are the OEM NEW old-stock NES controllers I got from Ebay:

I got a couple BLW mods from someone in New Zealand, it took only 1.3 days to get here (it helps that it had to go back in time to come here, lol):

 

[CZroe]

Edit: I see you've since obtained some of these. Let me know what you might still be interested in. Also, the resolution on the Tapatalk-formatted pics leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully imgur does a bit better.

My work schedule has been crazy due to expanded holiday hours. I finally got half the day off yesterday after working open to close for 10 days straight (up to 15 hours) so I finally got to clean and test these before running back to work. I know it's been days but this was my first opportunity to share the results:

Cleaning really helped. Check out my before pics!

Both copies of "Battletoads" are about the same: Good, but the label is not very glossy. Removing the old adhesive residue cleared up "Blades of Steel" but it's missing some of the plastic coating and has a ripple. "Castlevania" looks almost flawless... better than my other copy but the seal doesn't match my box. "Kid Icarus" cleaned up so well it's now better than my CIB copy too. "Dr. Mario" has a strange, slightly darker color. "Off-Road" has a bit of label damage showing white paper in what is already a blank white area of the label. Take your pick of "SuperSpike V'ball:" one has a crack on the front with corresponding label damage. The other copy has very strange discoloring on both sides.

 

[007ELmO]

Hi,

I will pick up some of those and a couple other dupes you have when you have time to clean them! I'll get them for my sisters.

So the hi-def NES that was having power issues (red light doesn't turn on half the time), is still having issues with the new BLW connector we just installed. I emailed Jason about it, he'll hopefully have it fixed, but his diagnoses of the 72pin connector being the issue was probably wrong...Mario 3 boots up fine and plays on the other hi-def NES, but on this one the red light doesn't come on, and when it does - it freezes/reboots itself.

That's too bad, it was for a Christmas gift. I kind of blame him because this is the 2nd faulty hi-def NES from him and he blamed the 72pin connector on this one and said the BLW would fix it...

 

[Ichinisan]

Hi,

I will pick up some of those and a couple other dupes you have when you have time to clean them! I'll get them for my sisters.

So the hi-def NES that was having power issues (red light doesn't turn on half the time), is still having issues with the new BLW connector we just installed. I emailed Jason about it, he'll hopefully have it fixed, but his diagnoses of the 72pin connector being the issue was probably wrong...Mario 3 boots up fine and plays on the other hi-def NES, but on this one the red light doesn't come on, and when it does - it freezes/reboots itself.

That's too bad, it was for a Christmas gift. I kind of blame him because this is the 2nd faulty hi-def NES from him and he blamed the 72pin connector on this one and said the BLW would fix it...

Some crappy luck there.

My power button is getting worn and feels a bit crunchy sometimes. Wonder if it's going to fail soon...

 

[CZroe]

Some crappy luck there.



My power button is getting worn and feels a bit crunchy sometimes. Wonder if it's going to fail soon...

A few days ago your NES did the exact same thing he described. It also did it last year when we made this video:
https://youtu.be/36uocRNwLnw

It happens just after 3 minutes. This is what your NES is doing right, 007ELmO? Share this video with Jason if you need to show him what it's doing. The first time it happened was shortly after the power button started to feel funny so it may be something physical.

I've literally only seen it happen a few times ever out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of power cycles but it's obviously worse on yours. It's possible that he never experienced it. If I sold him my Nintendo which does this it's doubtful that he would ever encounter it in testing before modding and selling it.

 

[CZroe]

Hi,

I will pick up some of those and a couple other dupes you have when you have time to clean them! I'll get them for my sisters.

They're all cleaned/tested. Let me know which you'd like and I'll take it to PMs.

 

[007ELmO]

A few days ago your NES did the exact same thing he described. It also did it last year when we made this video:
https://youtu.be/36uocRNwLnw

It happens just after 3 minutes. This is what your NES is doing right, 007ELmO? Share this video with Jason if you need to show him what it's doing. The first time it happened was shortly after the power button started to feel funny so it may be something physical.

I've literally only seen it happen a few times ever out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of power cycles but it's obviously worse on yours. It's possible that he never experienced it. If I sold him my Nintendo which does this it's doubtful that he would ever encounter it in testing before modding and selling it.

Yes, but now after I took it apart (to just uninstall/reinstall the BLW mod), it now doesn't work with any game.

Interestingly, with no game, the power LED intermittently doesn't light up. I would expect it to light up and have a gray screen, every time.

TMNT2 was working consistently before I redid the BLW mod, now most of the time nothing outputs, and sometimes the game will start but after a couple seconds it will immediately reset.

I see a corresponding orange light near the HDMI output that blinks/fades in conjunction with the video output resetting. For example, if you have no HDMI cable plugged in, the orange light blinks quickly. This to me seems like it's part of the Kevtris mod, and the LED is emitting debugging signals to anyone who knows what it's trying to say.

Both my hi-def NES and my sister's are modded with BLW and they are being intermittent with cartridges that were supposedly taken apart and cleaned (I can see the pins in the ebay auction photos).

At this point I'm a little annoyed at the NES(es), lol. Do you guys think I'll see these problems with a top loader NES? I might need to tell Jason he needs to take these back and mod me a top loader if that's the case. I've sunk a lot of money and now missed the Christmas gift (not a big deal), but would like to get it right. Jumped the gun and bought too many games to not be able to play them.

I can record what I'm seeing but the red power is intermittent even when no game is inside. I confirmed the BLW is installed correctly, I tried tightening its screws, I tried loosening its screws...no luck.

Is it possible the motherboard pins are dirty as hell? I read/heard it's usually the game cartridge side of the connector that gets gunked up (which makes sense).

Because games are failing (more often than not) to play on both hi-def NES modded with BLW now, it's either..I installed the BLW mods wrong (doubt it, lol), the games are dirty (a possibility but they were supposedly all cleaned and polished), or I need to give up on the NES-001 and go toploader - if that honestly has the best chance of just letting me play NES again in your guys opinion (but I'd need Jason or someone to mod the hi-def, again) - I'd do it.

I'm going to have to go toploader (or even worse) - Analogue NT (lol). I'll just jump on the pre-order and try to get Jason to refund me, if you guys think the toploader won't solve my problems.

ELmO

 

[Ichinisan]

Yes, but now after I took it apart (to just uninstall/reinstall the BLW mod), it now doesn't work with any game.

Interestingly, with no game, the power LED intermittently doesn't light up. I would expect it to light up and have a gray screen, every time.

TMNT2 was working consistently before I redid the BLW mod, now most of the time nothing outputs, and sometimes the game will start but after a couple seconds it will immediately reset.

I see a corresponding orange light near the HDMI output that blinks/fades in conjunction with the video output resetting. For example, if you have no HDMI cable plugged in, the orange light blinks quickly. This to me seems like it's part of the Kevtris mod, and the LED is emitting debugging signals to anyone who knows what it's trying to say.

Both my hi-def NES and my sister's are modded with BLW and they are being intermittent with cartridges that were supposedly taken apart and cleaned (I can see the pins in the ebay auction photos).

At this point I'm a little annoyed at the NES(es), lol. Do you guys think I'll see these problems with a top loader NES? I might need to tell Jason he needs to take these back and mod me a top loader if that's the case. I've sunk a lot of money and now missed the Christmas gift (not a big deal), but would like to get it right. Jumped the gun and bought too many games to not be able to play them.

I can record what I'm seeing but the red power is intermittent even when no game is inside. I confirmed the BLW is installed correctly, I tried tightening its screws, I tried loosening its screws...no luck.

Is it possible the motherboard pins are dirty as hell? I read/heard it's usually the game cartridge side of the connector that gets gunked up (which makes sense).

Because games are failing (more often than not) to play on both hi-def NES modded with BLW now, it's either..I installed the BLW mods wrong (doubt it, lol), the games are dirty (a possibility but they were supposedly all cleaned and polished), or I need to give up on the NES-001 and go toploader - if that honestly has the best chance of just letting me play NES again in your guys opinion (but I'd need Jason or someone to mod the hi-def, again) - I'd do it.

I'm going to have to go toploader (or even worse) - Analogue NT (lol). I'll just jump on the pre-order and try to get Jason to refund me, if you guys think the toploader won't solve my problems.

ELmO

I think the BLW's CIC chip is in PAL mode. You have to do something with the reset button to change region and get it into NTSC mode.

 

[CZroe]

When you say that the power light works "intermittently" do you mean flashing on and off or sometimes not lighting up at all?

An NES-101 toploader will never flash because it doesn't have a CIC lockout chip. It also doesn't have a power light, though Jason usually adds one when he does any other modding.

Are you using the same power plug with these different problematic units? The power plug recently turned out to be the problem for Ichinisan's coworker. IIRC, the system would seem to turn on but had to be reset to work. It sounds like a cap problem but it went away with a different power brick (both official NES).

Edit: Ichi corrected me saying that reset wouldn't help when it was doing this.

 

[007ELmO]

Very good information on both notes. I am using "used" official NES power bricks, BUT this BLW mod is coming form New Zealand. The power brick in question is shared between both NES when I'm testing, but interestingly both are starting to have issues - I have 2 bricks I can use to test, I'll try playing around with them.

The BLW mod that I put in from someone else's NES on ebay seemed to work OK, but I didn't rigorously test it until tonight, and it seems to be malfunctioning too, but it might be the power brick.

I'll talk to Jason about PAL and NTSC for the one I got from New Zeland, he's communicating over email at this late hour too - thanks for a helpful tip!

The thing is, doesn't PAL run in 50hz? I do see a 1080p/60hz signal flash up repeatedly and go back to "no signal" many times.

When I say the power LED is intermittent, I mean it doesn't come on at all sometimes. Sometimes it comes on for a couple seconds and goes off. Sometimes it doesn't come on at all. Other times it comes on and stays on, but right now that's not a guarantee the game will boot up.

With no game in the system, in the "PAL" BLW (we'll call the New Zealand one that for now, lol) - sometimes the power button won't go red, or only for a split second when I hit the power button (then goes off). It seems odd to do that with no game inside it. I'm really hoping it's a PAL issue, but it did work briefly at some point, which is strange.

I passed the info on to Jason while I'm googling how to change PAL to NTSC on BLW.

 

[CZroe]

Very good information on both notes. I am using "used" official NES power bricks, BUT this BLW mod is coming form New Zealand. The power brick in question is shared between both NES when I'm testing, but interestingly both are starting to have issues - I have 2 bricks I can use to test, I'll try playing around with them.

The BLW mod that I put in from someone else's NES seemed to work OK, but I didn't rigorously test it until tonight, and it seems to be malfunctioning too.

I'll talk to Jason about PAL and NTSC, he's communicating over email at this late hour too - thanks for a helpful tip!

The thing is, doesn't PAL run in 50hz? I do see a 1080p/60hz signal flash up repeatedly and go back to "no signal" many times.

It's really more of a region lock in this regard.

The CIC lockout chip region setting has nothing to do with the video signal. There are different, incompatible, lockout chips in PAL consoles. Actually, there are two different PAL chips that aren't even compatible with each other due to Mattel and Nintendo each making their own incompatible version of the NES (PAL A, PAL B)

A BLW in PAL mode is configured to boot only a PAL system. It's simulating the companion chip that is supposed to be in a PAL cartridge so your NTSC NES rejects it. I've never used their special multi-region CIClone before and I don't know how to get it in NTSC/USA mode but I read somewhere that it involves the reset button. I'm sure that info is on their site somewhere. I'd prefer they just sell it without the CIClone so I could just disable the one in the NES and not worry about it. Originally they charged extra for it but now they include it for everyone.

 

[Ichinisan]

Very good information on both notes. I am using "used" official NES power bricks, BUT this BLW mod is coming form New Zealand. The power brick in question is shared between both NES when I'm testing, but interestingly both are starting to have issues - I have 2 bricks I can use to test, I'll try playing around with them.

The BLW mod that I put in from someone else's NES on ebay seemed to work OK, but I didn't rigorously test it until tonight, and it seems to be malfunctioning too, but it might be the power brick.

I'll talk to Jason about PAL and NTSC for the one I got from New Zeland, he's communicating over email at this late hour too - thanks for a helpful tip!

The thing is, doesn't PAL run in 50hz? I do see a 1080p/60hz signal flash up repeatedly and go back to "no signal" many times.

When I say the power LED is intermittent, I mean it doesn't come on at all sometimes. Sometimes it comes on for a couple seconds and goes off. Sometimes it doesn't come on at all. Other times it comes on and stays on, but right now that's not a guarantee the game will boot up.

With no game in the system, in the "PAL" BLW (we'll call the New Zealand one that for now, lol) - sometimes the power button won't go red, or only for a split second when I hit the power button. It seems odd to do that with no game inside it. I'm really hoping it's a PAL issue, but it did work briefly at some point, which is strange.

I passed the info on to Jason while I'm googling how to change PAL to NTSC on BLW.

My friend's NES was using the same power brick I had used when I tested it and I had no problems with it. While he tried to use the system at his home, it became increasingly difficult to get games to work until they just wouldn't work at all anymore. We tried a Retrobit NES/Genesis/SNES adapter (which has 2 output leads) and he said it suddenly seemed to resolve all the problems he had. Very strange that the original NES adapter seemed to go bad on him, or it just didn't like the electricity in his home after it had worked fine in my own apartment.

Whether the CIC lockout chip is in PAL mode or not, it won't affect the video output mode of your NTSC NES. It would simply fail to pass the security lockout and the game wouldn't boot or it would reset continuously.

 

[007ELmO]

My friend's NES was using the same power brick I had used when I tested it and I had no problems with it. While he tried to use the system at his home, it became increasingly difficult to get games to work until they just wouldn't work at all anymore. We tried a Retrobit NES/Genesis/SNES adapter (which has 2 output leads) and he said it suddenly seemed to resolve all the problems he had. Very strange that the original NES adapter seemed to go bad on him, or it just didn't like the electricity in his home after it had worked fine in my own apartment.

Whether the CIC lockout chip is in PAL mode or not, it won't affect the video output mode of your NTSC NES. It would simply fail to pass the security lockout and the game wouldn't boot or it would reset continuously.

The power brick is an interesting idea to look into.

The bold is is exactly what's happening right now, after I reinstalled the BLW mod on one of them (I need to concentrate on debugging one hi-def NES at a time, lol).

It just won't boot, or it resets continuously with getting a 1080p60hz --> no signal, repeat.

I don't know if that's related to why the power red LED sometimes doesn't come on with no game plugged in, either?

The funny part is you guys have given me way more documentation on BLW than found on their website, lol. Looking for their official forum if they have any...