Some NES carts came with Famicom boards and a pin converter inside. Below is a list of the carts in which converters have been found, so we think. I'm hoping to add and subtract based on what people know.
1942
Clu Clu Land
Donkey Kong Jr.
Duck Hunt
Elevator Action
Excitebike
Golf
Gumshoe
Gun.Smoke
Gyromite
Hogan's Alley
Legendary Wings
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (?)
Pinball
Raid on Bungeling Bay
Rygar
Soccer
Stack Up
Tennis
Urban Champion
Wizards and Warriors
Wrecking Crew
From what I know, only one Mike Tyson's punch out has ever been found with one in it (and I'm still hesitant on it's validity myself), so don't get too excited about finding that one.
Add to that, MTPO is usually an expensive game compared to the others.
It's not necessary to damage the NES cart looking for converters. You can usually tell if they have a converter by looking at the pins on the bottom of the cart, and there is a tool (socket) you can buy to remove the screws when you want to open up the cartridge. It's only costs about $1. :P
Yeah damaging the carts is unnecessary, I have the 3.8 key and it works wonders.
Or you can just compare the weight of the cart.
Check out ebay or your local hardware store, the socket should be readily available. It's ridiculous to tear apart & damage carts when the piece only costs a buck or two. ::)
EDIT: Oh, and unless you're reporting the carts you're damaging to some national NES cartridge tracking agency (which doesn't exist to my knowledge), you may in fact be making the supply of them less by damaging them, but no one will ever know that there is less of a supply of them and the value would never change. It's like if I had a hundred $3 bills and burned 10 of them. People would still assume there were 100 $3 bills in my possession unless I reported the damaged ones to some sort of tracking agency and my 10 could be deleted from the supply quantity.
According to my knowledge, Legendary Wings was not released for the famicom..... so does that mean that there is a famicom board for this game, but not released officialy for the famicom ?
That's a very good question. I'd love to see photographic proof of this game's board and converter.
So how many of the games in the list have american differences other than Legendary?
By the way.... I have been looking for Legendary Wings famicom pirate cart for more than 10 years but I can't find it.... But I'm sure that this pirate exist because I played it with a friend when I was 7 years old !
How often do five screw NES carts have the converter inside? I'm looking at a couple 5 screw wrecking crew & gyromites. Will they all have the converter or were some made without? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The chances of there being a converter inside depends on the game. If you want a surefire way of getting a converter, buy an NTSC Stack-Up cart.
I found one in a five screw Gyromite.
It took about 8-10 gyromites before I found one. haha. My brother jacked it from me though, lol!
Quote from: The Uninvited Gremlin on October 13, 2008, 08:07:37 am
Quote from: metalfoxx on October 12, 2008, 11:15:58 pm
How often do five screw NES carts have the converter inside? I'm looking at a couple 5 screw wrecking crew & gyromites. Will they all have the converter or were some made without? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Very unlikely that even one of them will have one,
Stack-Up is your best bet but it sometimes wont have it either.
If you find an NTSC Stack-Up
without the converter, you may want to bring it up to some collectors, as I think it might be a rarity in itself.
A Stackup without the converter shoudn't exist. The game only had 1 print run and they all have the converter. If you find one without it, then you have found something that shouldn't exist and I want it :D
~~NGD
Quote from: NationalGameDepot on October 14, 2008, 09:47:06 am
A Stackup without the converter shoudn't exist. The game only had 1 print run and they all have the converter. If you find one without it, then you have found something that shouldn't exist and I want it :D
~~NGD
Does that mean that no NES board Stack-Ups exist?
What was the region code? A PAL game definately shouldn't have a converter for this one either. Euro is almost always the last place to get games. Usually Japan, US, then Euro.
~~NGD
And the reason that most NES carts are dead space as far as I understand it, is because when the NES was first produced, NES carts were actually all ready made Famicom boards with cartridge adapters. Later, NES boards were produced negating the need for the adapters. However, since the design of the NES lent itself to the large, initial cartridge design, they were continuity used. Only a few NES boards needed the extra space that the shell provided.
Wow, that sounds plausible. But do any of the first NES releases actually have converters?
Quote from: satoshi_matrix on January 31, 2009, 01:08:25 am
And the reason that most NES carts are dead space as far as I understand it, is because when the NES was first produced, NES carts were actually all ready made Famicom boards with cartridge adapters. Later, NES boards were produced negating the need for the adapters. However, since the design of the NES lent itself to the large, initial cartridge design, they were continuity used. Only a few NES boards needed the extra space that the shell provided.
Well not quite. The first releases that have converters are pretty uncommon. The story goes that Nintendo didn't have enough NES boards made for the holiday season launch, so they used the FC boards and converters to add to their inventory.
That's what I've heard too.
Yeah, I know that story, too. I wrote about it on the site, but I've never believed it 100%. Seems a bit odd to me. I think it's more likely that both are wrong, and Nintendo just had extra Famicom boards from unsold games and decided to make use of them with a cheap converter.
I guess we'll never know for sure unless we interview someone at Nintendo. ;)
Quote from: JC on January 31, 2009, 07:47:24 am
Wow, that sounds plausible. But do any of the first NES releases actually have converters?
Early copies of Gyromite did, but I don't remember any other games having them. One of the biggest hints is the cartridge seems a little heavier than usual.
I totally forgot that Gyromite might have one...and I saw like 4 copies of it at a Pawn Shop...I guess I know what I'm spending my next $3.50 on :P
I found my converter in Hogan's Alley. ;D
I'm almost positive Dr. Mario or Super Mario Bros. would have one since they aren't changed at all.
The minus world on SMB changes a lot so smb doesnt have one for sure.
What about the cart.
Masterdisk is right. Which is why I would think that that game, along with Dr. Mario may have a pin converter inside the cart
new to the forum and saw this months ago but wanted to comment.
as far as the converters, I have read on another site. the reasoning on the converters is for the demand for the holiday's. between oct-nov production couldn't keep up with the demands. so they resorted with this solution.
I got a Gyromite and a Hogan's Alley w/ the Fam' converters n games in them.
Quote from: satoshi_matrix on January 31, 2009, 01:08:25 am
And the reason that most NES carts are dead space as far as I understand it, is because when the NES was first produced, NES carts were actually all ready made Famicom boards with cartridge adapters. Later, NES boards were produced negating the need for the adapters. However, since the design of the NES lent itself to the large, initial cartridge design, they were continuity used. Only a few NES boards needed the extra space that the shell provided.
I doubt that had anything to do with the size. There are probably many reasons for the size.
They wanted the cartridges to look more valuable and not as cheap as current cartridges (atari, etc).
Also Famicom cartridges came in different sizes, but with the toaster style, Nintendo had to stick with a single size. So the cartridges needed to be big enough to handle later more complex size carts. (some mmc5 boards like uncharted waters and Romance of the three Kingdoms 2 fill the inside of the cart).
I think the converters were just an added bonus and a way to get rid of overstock. (sad to say, but Rob was probably marketing genius to get rid of stack-up carts in that regard)
the easiest and cheapest to find is the gyromite cart thats were i got mine
I used to try and tell by weight, but it's not a guaranteed method. The one sure fire method I've found that has so far worked without fail is to look at the pins themselves. Converter games have their pins off center. I think the FW article explains it. If not, I'll take some pics for reference if anyone is interested.
Do you mean the pins that would plug into the NES system? Please take pictures so I know what to look for. I tried looking for the game cart with the different amount of screws on the back but it didn't help me; still got a regular NES cart.
Quote from: b1aCkDeA7h on October 29, 2010, 09:11:07 pm
The one sure fire method I've found that has so far worked without fail is to look at the pins themselves. Converter games have their pins off center. I think the FW article explains it. If not, I'll take some pics for reference if anyone is interested.
The article mentions it, but doesn't do a very good job of explaining it. Pictures would definitely help. I'm not sure how true it is. My Stack-Up converter has the asymmetrical pins, but I was able to find other games with asymmetrical pins that were not converters. They weren't 5-screw carts, though, so maybe it holds true for 3-screw carts.
All right, I've finally went and wrote a pretty extensive blog post about my findings on this topic:
http://b1ackdea7h.livejournal.com/143862.html (http://b1ackdea7h.livejournal.com/143862.html)
The method I use in my blog post has been 95% successful, with failures documented and explained with my theories and reasonings. If FamicomWorld would like to put the article on the main site, go right ahead.
Nice job man! Definently going to use this.
I am just letting people know that I have a "Wizards and Warriors" and the pins have the little extra tab on the right, not the middle. Inside is a regular cart not the famicom cart with an adapter.
Awww... I opened my Gumshoe and Hogan's Alley, both with 5 flathead screws, and center pins, yet no converters... :(
Quote from: wolf9545 on November 27, 2010, 10:20:36 am
I am just letting people know that I have a "Wizards and Warriors" and the pins have the little extra tab on the right, not the middle. Inside is a regular cart not the famicom cart with an adapter.
I guess Wizards and Warriors is too new of a game. Same thing happened to me recently with a copy of Athena.
Quote from: tb43159 on August 31, 2011, 06:41:02 pm
Awww... I opened my Gumshoe and Hogan's Alley, both with 5 flathead screws, and center pins, yet no converters... :(
Non centered pins is what you're looking for.
Really? Oh. Well. Thanks for correcting me!
I got pretty lucky, I first ordered Gyromite from Amazon, but the version I recieved did not have the converter. :( Then I found Pinball at Goodwill for 5 bucks, which did have it. ;D Now I just need to save up some money to by FC carts.