Famicom casing reads one year, different on the inside

[xan_racketboy_fan]

Hey everyone, brand new to the site - digging the vibe here.

I'm a racketBOY regular, but have just recently purchased my first (complete) Famicom. Just arrived yesterday, and I'm pretty stoked on firing this little guy up and playing some good-old 8bit games on some real hardware. I just purchased a 72-to-60 pin converter from Stone Age Gamer (I've heard this particular converter isn't all that great) to play my US NES games on the Famicom (since I don't have any Famicom games at the moment). There was a disclaimer for this converter stating it may not work for Famicoms with the CPU board HVC-CPU-GPM-02. From this article, I figured my Famicom was OK because under the casing it reads 1983, which would correspond to a HVC-CPU-06 board.

I've decided to open up my Famicom and to my discovery, there's actually a HVC-CPU-GPM-02 board inside of it! So my question is: is it normal to find Famicoms with different parts inside it? I'm guessing repairs were done and the original board was not salvageable. I've contacted the seller, who would be willing to pay me the cost of the adapter (retrogamecity, btw), so it's not a total loss, but still a little disappointing.

[jpx72]

Of course, it's common thing to find different boards in different casings. Many people got their Famicoms repaired and the repair was done by changing the main board inside. HVC-CPU-GPM-02 is the latest board revision (actually there were several in this revision line - you may find a letter in one of the corners of the PCB to distinguish the revision - like GPM-02C) so you got yourself the newest and most stable Famicom

[xan_racketboy_fan]

Cool, that's good to know  

Just another quick question: is it ideal to hookup the Famicom (via the NES RF switch) to an older TV set or should it be fine on an newer HDTV (with coaxial)? I've tried hooking it up to our HDTV, but the pictures is just snowy (I can make out a pink screen, no games to test out). I'm thinking of just buying an older TV set from a local thrift, which the only input in the back is a coaxial.

BTW, do you own 5 Famicoms? I only ask because of your sig.

[jpx72]

If your new TV has coaxial input (RF) then you should be fine. Consider modding your famicom to AV output (Composite).
And yes, I'm a proud owner of 5 Famicoms! (although only 3 work flawlessly, after some repairs)

[xan_racketboy_fan]

That's awesome, but may be out of my expertise (I'd hate to ruin the only Famicom I have). The only soldering I've done in the past was when I installed a modchip for my Saturn. Something about the fuzziness of a RF picture makes retro gaming appealing, for me anyways.

*note: Looks like it was a bad RF switch; went back to the retrogame shop and the fellow simply replaced it. I was about to buy more Game Boy cartridge cases (had bought some the day before) but he told me it was OK and gave them to me for free - you'll never get that kind of customer service at Gamestop.

[NintendoKing]

Very cool, I know what you mean we have 3 retro videogame stores all in a 10 mile radius of each other where I live and they are all generally favorable for deals.