Original NES and SNES controllers

[007ELmO]

So to "power cycle" the NES, you have the NES powered on - and you hit the RESET button. I definitely did that a couple times while testing some stuff out earlier.

This FIXED my TMNT2 issue! Unfortunately, every other game I've tested after this still does not work. I tried power cycling for them too (even though the chip should already be in NTSC once TMNT2 worked?), but that didn't help. Their red light either flickers to off immediately or stays on but nothing is visible on the screeN (no signal).

Is it truly possible all the other games are dirty, even though I bought almost all of them from the same seller who disassembles then and cleans the pins?

 

[007ELmO]

Are you kidding me?! I tried the other OEM Nintendo power cable, and every game is working on the first try. Same power outlet, same plug! Awesome --- and also crazy.

Seems like I should get some high quality power cables and perhaps use a line conditioner (?). I don't think those even existed back in the day, lol. What power cables do you guys suggest if not OEM Nintendo?

I really need to buy you guys Mario 2 or some games for helping.

 

[007ELmO]

So the most hilarious part of all of this (and probably why we shouldn't debug something at 2-3AM). Apparently I was using one of the power warts from an NES I bought off ebay for parts. Looking at it closer, it's not an official Nintendo wart!

Woops. The official used one makes both hi-def NES work...I noticed Mario 3 flickered once on stage 1-1, but it never reset or did anything else weird in the rest of the first world.

 

[Ichinisan]

Awesome that you've made progress. It sounds like there may be a plague of old / bad power bricks.

The recent experience with my friend was an authentic original power brick that went bad. That one had a broken tension reliever where the cord comes out of the brick, so that might have had something to do with it going bad. The Retrobit cord was like $6 and he said it worked fine.

You can also use some Sega Genesis power bricks (if output is 9v).

The original NES power brick outputs AC, but the NES immediately passes the input power through a rectifier and converts it to DC. So the NES is OK with AC or DC input as long as the voltage is 9v.

 

[CZroe]

Are you kidding me?! I tried the other OEM Nintendo power cable, and every game is working on the first try. Same power outlet, same plug! Awesome --- and also crazy.

SUCCESS!

Seems like I should get some high quality power cables and perhaps use a line conditioner (?). I don't think those even existed back in the day, lol. What power cables do you guys suggest if not OEM Nintendo?

LOL! You seem to have a tendency to take things to the extreme.

I went through a few official NES plugs and at least a couple official SNES plugs when I was a kid because they'd keep developing shorts. I guess I carried them around to friends' on my bike too much, but Nintendo's power plugs seemed particularly bad about it. A universal one with switches for voltage and polarity worked great on the NES for years and never developed similar issues.

Like their RF modulators with no solid core on the coax or their N64 control sticks, I think they deliberately engineered them to go bad in ways that can't be repaired. The GB Pocket/GB Color AC adapter would develop problems almost right away which... surprise surprise... a new adapter would fix for a little while. With sometimes only a few days of *pampered* use a brand new one would be impossible to play a game without batteries installed because just touching the DC connector would reset or power off the Gameboy. It felt as is some contact inside the tip of the plug was being pushed deeper inside by the very pin it was supposed to contact. None of my third-party plugs did this and all of my first-party ones did. It's a PORTABLE so it stands to reason that it will be carried around places. Even so, I never managed to stave off the issue even when I would baby/pamper it right out of the package.

When Nintendo designed the SNES with a non-standard power jack you can't replace and made the Virtual Boy use the same plug with an AC Adapter Tap, their little scheme became clear as day to me: Replacement controllers and power adapters are a revenue stream.

We seriously don't need anything for helping. We like talking about this stuff and spreading the love. Speaking of which, LMK which of those dupes you're still interested in and I'll total it up for you at opportunity cost as determined by pricecharting.com, which pretty much determines the low market value I'd be able to trade for elsewhere.

 

[007ELmO]

Yes, Apple knows the power adapter is a revenue stream idea very well! Haha.

I'm wondering if the hi-def mod actually is attempting to draw more amps than perhaps a measly 3rd party power adapter is capable of providing. The red light would actually DIM sometimes and stay dimmed while not performing (and other times just not light up). It sort of makes sense that the NES now needs more power than before with modifications done to it?

It's funny to think something is created to deliberately fail, but usually it's more engineering process to save costs than anything else - i.e. why don't we all drive the same car for 50 years?

So far the adventure of NES-001 has been just that, an adventure. My sister seemed surprised/happy about it after explaining it tonight, but I said they'll need to wait on the official power wart and one last check through me (i.e. another hour of playing games on their system, lol) before I release it back to them.

I will look at your game list later today during NFL games and let you know which look good!

The retrobit on Amazon, many reviews say it does not do as advertised for Sega/SNES but it works for NES just fine. For now we'll try to live with OEM old adapters.

Thanks for the help.

 

[CZroe]

Yes, Apple knows the power adapter is a revenue stream idea very well! Haha.

I'm wondering if the hi-def mod actually is attempting to draw more amps than perhaps a measly 3rd party power adapter is capable of providing. The red light would actually DIM sometimes and stay dimmed while not performing (and other times just not light up). It sort of makes sense that the NES now needs more power than before with modifications done to it?

It's funny to think something is created to deliberately fail, but usually it's more engineering process to save costs than anything else - i.e. why don't we all drive the same car for 50 years?

So far the adventure of NES-001 has been just that, an adventure. My sister seemed surprised/happy about it after explaining it tonight, but I said they'll need to wait on the official power wart and one last check through me (i.e. another hour of playing games on their system, lol) before I release it back to them.

I will look at your game list later today during NFL games and let you know which look good!

The retrobit on Amazon, many reviews say it does not do as advertised for Sega/SNES but it works for NES just fine. For now we'll try to live with OEM old adapters.

Thanks for the help.

I can say that it worked for me on NES and Super Famicom but it was super light-weight and I didn't trust it. The weight thing is easy to explain though: it uses modern techniques to step down the voltage (flyback transformer in a switching power supply instead of an inductive step-down transformer). It could've looked like a modern phone's USB wall charger. The only reason they made it as big as they did was for nostalgia so it looks like an old/traditional power brick.

I hear that the Hi-Def NES actually replaces your NES's voltage regulator with more modern tech. The old regulator bleeds off excess power as heat in order to regulate it down to the 5V the system actually uses. Not sure what they replace it with but it's probably much more efficient and capable. I doubt it requires more power but it could still be finicky and less tolerant of bad power.

I'm going to the flea market tomorrow so let me know if I need to keep my eyes open for anything else you're looking for.

 

[007ELmO]

I should be looking at flea markets too! I'm looking for River City Ransom, Contra 1, Tecmo Super Bowl. The latter couple are found on ebay, but a good RCR copy is likely rare.

I think that power cable was definitely bad power, it was also significantly lighter/smaller than the OEM. Either way, I hope the OEM one I get from amazon next week rectifies all the issues on their system as well - I think it will based on what I saw from earlier playing, but it seems like Mario 3 would flash the TV (to a blank screen) on 1-1 and come back (i.e. it would lose video output for about 1 second). I don't know if the mod was trying to set the resolution for some reason during that time - but the rest of the world 1 gameplay was OK with no blanking out/resetting/glitches.

I got the 25 or so games I have now into their bitboxes. Now to think about how to store them.

 

[CZroe]

I should be looking at flea markets too! I'm looking for River City Ransom, Contra 1, Tecmo Super Bowl. The latter couple are found on ebay, but a good RCR copy is likely rare.

I think that power cable was definitely bad power, it was also significantly lighter/smaller than the OEM. Either way, I hope the OEM one I get from amazon next week rectifies all the issues on their system as well - I think it will based on what I saw from earlier playing, but it seems like Mario 3 would flash the TV (to a blank screen) on 1-1 and come back (i.e. it would lose video output for about 1 second). I don't know if the mod was trying to set the resolution for some reason during that time - but the rest of the world 1 gameplay was OK with no blanking out/resetting/glitches.

I got the 25 or so games I have now into their bitboxes. Now to think about how to store them.

Ha ha! I was already on the look out for Contra for a coworker and Tecmo Super Bowl because I still have my box/manual (another one borrowed but never returned). Only reason I'm not also looking for Contra for myself is because I have this:

Crossing my fingers.

 

[007ELmO]

Wow, how big is that cartridge!? Hah.

I just put NES Playaction Football into my eBay cart. That game rules, and for $4-5 it's a good buy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8oZ0cOolK8

One of the few 4 player NES games as well.

 

[Ichinisan]

I took pictures of all games in the $3 section when I went to a flea market vendor on 12/19. Finally uploaded the pics to Dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1f9gzvc3vesm5fj/AADjWPrIySnwmPPWKfomh_b2a?dl=0

 

[007ELmO]

I skimmed everything there. Not sure I need anything from there yet. My current mission is to figure out how to get my NES setup going along with a wall shelf to store the games nearby.

I got another OEM power adapter from amazon and my sister's hi-def NES now performs flawlessly. I defeated world 1 in Mario 3 with unfortunate ease. Granted there are no saves in Mario 3, so maybe that's why the world was so easy - I forgot how short the levels were. That, or my skill level as a child was horrible.

Then again World 1 was probably a training level before the real game/difficulty truly began.

 

[Ichinisan]

I defeated world 1 in Mario 3 with unfortunate ease. Granted there are no saves in Mario 3, so maybe that's why the world was so easy - I forgot how short the levels were. That, or my skill level as a child was horrible.

Then again World 1 was probably a training level before the real game/difficulty truly began.

It's fun to just screw around in Grass Land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySUfZOE5kWw

 

[007ELmO]

Got the TV moved. Going to have to make my own shelves to house NES games I think, this is about 30 games. I'm not hooking everything up until tomorrow, after I pick up a battery backup/surge protector for the TV and NES.

 

[CZroe]

Got the TV moved. Going to have to make my own shelves to house NES games I think, this is about 30 games. I'm not hooking everything up until tomorrow, after I pick up a battery backup/surge protector for the TV and NES.

Lookin' good! I know it's tough to get four people together for NES Play Action Football or Super Off-Road, but should I be on the look out for an NES Four Score or NES Satellite? I saw a sealed BNIB one for surprisingly cheap recently but I bet they have opened ones for cheaper.

 

[007ELmO]

I saw some NIB 4 scores, so I did some research on the # of 4 player NES games and it was disappointingly low (lol).

NES Play Actoin Football sounds like it would be fun 2 on 2.

So I just bought an SNES Mini modded with RGB off ebay with OEM SNES Power Adapter. I'll be researching SCART and XRGB Mini Framemeister for it now to get HDMI out of it, if you guys have any additional information that would help! Thanks.

 

[CZroe]

I saw some NIB 4 scores, so I did some research on the # of 4 player NES games and it was disappointingly low (lol).

NES Play Actoin Football sounds like it would be fun 2 on 2.

So I just bought an SNES Mini modded with RGB off ebay with OEM SNES Power Adapter. I'll be researching SCART and XRGB Mini Framemeister for it now to get HDMI out of it, if you guys have any additional information that would help! Thanks.

I plan to S-Video mod the four I have and offload them. I've never desired better than S-Video on SNES. Heck, when used with a GameCube the same S-Video cables look better than Component on my XBR910. Obviously it's not the purist approach, but neither is RGB (most mods seem to be dark or have other color issues).

BTW, Jason's video about the S-Video mod being too dark even with the capacitor added was incorrectly comparing the title screen of Killer Instinct to the character select screen. The character select screen is intentionally darker so that it can have the lightning flash effects!

I believe the homebrew community has made many 4p games. I'm curious to know if they have or would ever be able to hack/patch an existing game to support 4p, like Super Dodgeball.

That said, there is some additional utility provided by the NES Satellite/Four Score: wireless/wired extension and turbo with any controller.

I think it's cool that Super Off-Road supports 4p when the original arcade only supported 3p.

Who am I to talk though? I just bought a broken NES accessory that only works with three games (Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and Chase H.Q.). I also have a broken Laserscope and an incomplete R.O.B. I think I have everything I need for my Powerglove and Powerpad controllers.

I see NES controllers as a dime a dozen so I'm achin' to make some use out of the excess.

 

[007ELmO]

So I don't have S-video on my HDTV. Is the next best route to do SCART to a framemeister with HDMI to the TV? I did notice in some videos RGB seems a little darker, but anything is better than composite?

I'll end up with an NES Satellite/4 score before the month is over I suppose, lol.

I bid on sealed SNES controllers, hard to find "new" unused SNES OEM pads.

 

[Ichinisan]

SNES mini is still worth more money than a standard SNES, right?

I'm not really a fan of the mini SNES. No eject button means you have to get your hands all over the game labels to remove them. No power light. No S-video support.

I've had lots of original SNES systems and I've been lucky that none of mine had the bad plastic mix that gets discolored over time. I actually have a stack of at least 4 SNES mini systems I never use (because I have a normal SNES and a Super Famicom that are in excellent condition).

 

[007ELmO]

I read the SNES Mini modded with RGB has slightly better video output than the rest. I would have preferred the original.

 

[007ELmO]

I just bought an NTSC+CSYNC SNES SCART cable and EuroSCART to XRGB Mini adapter from retrogamingcables.co.uk.

I also paid for an XRGB Mini Framemeister from SolarisJapan.com.

 

[Ichinisan]

I still haven't received my 3x BLW units that cost me over $80.

Here is my communication with the BLW makers, ArcadeWorks.

"Sorry Ruben, there is a lot of people waiting for these. We are just starting to ship orders that were placed this summer. If you need to cancel the order we understand, since this was for Christmas gifts. There is just no way to shuffle the order of shipping right now."
10:47 PM (0 minutes ago)

to Arcadeworks
"That's kind of incredible, you must have extremely high demand.

If you find anyone who will let me buy their original versions off them for $100 a piece, let me know. There has to be some previous customer that would take that! Any other 72pin is complete junk, I feel like I wasted $800 on the 2 hi-def NES without a BLW mod in it. I didn't know the other new NES connectors were that bad. The NES modders are giving false advertising, lol.

I don't understand why you're taking my money and shipping way later, this isn't a kickstarter I'm buying. I think you should put "back ordered 8 weeks" on your site instead of "in stock, shipping in 8 weeks".
____________________________________________________________

It's like they're saying I'm "allowed" to cancel my order with their original email! Are you kidding me? What are they doing, taking our money and investing it? How many people are they back ordered that they can't make this chip quicker? It looks simple. Something seems fishy.

It's a little bit irking that their e-commerce system says the status of my order is "complete". Complete usually means it's been shipped and/or delivered. Complete to them means they have my money.

They said they are 1000 orders behind.

On 12/7, I saw that my order of 3 Blinking Light Win units was "complete" according to the order status on your web site. Does that mean it was already in the mail?

If so, it has been in-transit for 10 days. I chose the basic "parcel" shipping, so I don't know if that's normal. Just thought I'd find out if "complete" meant it was actually in the mail at that point...

No. It means you completed the ordering process. You will get an email when it ships with tracking.

You're using the wrong terminology, Arcadeworks. What if someone wanted to cancel an order that shows "complete?" Seriously. Getting that part right isn't difficult. Someone might think your practices are deliberately misleading.

Meanwhile, at Arcadeworks.com: https://www.arcadeworks.net/~arcadeworks/best-72-pin-replacement-nintendo-cartridge-connector

Availability: In Stock

Suuure.

Due to heavy backlog, all orders placed for this item has a estimated delivery date of 6-8 weeks.

Why does the status repeatedly change between "back ordered" and "in stock" when you don't actually have any stock and you have thousands of unfilled orders?

THAT IS NOT WHAT "IN STOCK" MEANS!

You do not say "IN STOCK" unless you ALREADY HAVE stock and you are ready to sell it to me. How hard is that?

 

[007ELmO]

I noticed on SolarisJapan (japanese store), after I paid for my order the status also said "COMPLETE". I'm like wow, that store and ArcadeWorks are the only ecommerce stores that use that terminology when the order has been paid. It seems like it's more programmer lingo (i.e. we successfully billed their card, complete).

When I cancelled my BLW orders, they were 1000 orders behind and still shipping orders from customers who placed them in July. Keep bugging them to cancel the BLW order unless you want to wait until spring/summer.

I do have the BLWs installed in mine and my older sisters, I showed my other sister how to install it in hers. The games work on the first try now, tough as heck to get out but that's life.

I found a new OEM sealed SNES controller on ebay for $40, bought it - seller sent a note saying it would ship next week. Then this morning the seller cancelled the order saying he had a stock misrepresntation (huh? the picture showed the actual item).

I think they mispriced it. I'm looking for a couple OEM new SNES controllers, they seem to go for $100+ on ebay each, argh.

 

[007ELmO]

Any opinions on the original SNES gamepads vs revision 005?

I bid on a couple original sealed pads, but I see there's slightly revised 005 with the nintendo logo imprinted into the plastic. Seems like there might be other internal differences (lighter weight/etc).

 

[007ELmO]

I'm looking for these games on SNES, so I see on Ebay they are ridiculously expensive compared to NES games (lol). I'll stick with NES while I look for these carefully. I want clean labels/clean cartridges!

• Chrono Trigger
• Donkey Kong Country
• Final Fantasy 2
• Final Fantasy 3
• F-Zero
• Legend of the Mystical Ninja
• Pilotwings
• Secret of Mana
• StarFox
• Street Fighter 2
• Super Mario RPG
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario World
• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
• Super Tennis
• TMNT: Turtles in Time
• Zelda: A link to the past