In Hardware

Looking through the 61 Nintendo standard grey cartridges that I own, I noticed a few things.

2 of the 61 were the 5 screw pattern type cartridges, they also lack the hinge type thing on the spine of the cartridge. The screws were the sloted type.

10 or so of the 3 screw pattern type cartridges also used the sloted type screw, the remaining all use the inverted hex or game bit type.

Im wondering about the number of cartridge revisions and when and why Nintendo decided to use the security screw versus a standard type.

Thanks.

Ive heard that the 5 screw carts sometimes holded Famicom/nes converters, and also there was two versions of Duckhunt, one had an i think orange Slash through it, one did not.

The only cartridge I heard of having a converter inside was Gyromyte, but I opened mine up and no dice. I guess I should open up these other cart's and see whats inside.

I noticed too that Nintendo wen't ahead and used the sloted type screws found in some of these cartridges on the top half of the NES deck. These screws hold down them black pieces of plastic, aswell hold down the hinge of the lid with little pieces of metal.

Now its time to goto the flea market and see what I can score...

i have 2 Contra Hard Corps for the Genesis, one Complete with Hardcase(oh yeah) the other loose, the loose one Doesnt Have the name on its top part of the label, the BOxed one Does.
and the Boxed one on the back says Konami, the loose one says Sega.

I know this is an old topic but I just found this in my Hogan's Alley cart:

Im gonna pop open a couple more...... just a peek

Nice! I wonder why they put those in there in the first place..

GIMME! I've been looking for that adapter for over a year now!

They put those in there when they were ready to release the NES over here, and had major surplus of Famicom PCBs, so they just popped 'em in that adapter and shipped 'em over. You can use that adapter to play Famicom games on your NES.

logan you suck!

Heh, what can I say ..... If I find anymore I could probably work out a deal with some of you guys.

Is there a list of carts that this converter might be in?

Pretty much really early release games that wouldn't need translations. a quick way to tell is by weight.

Hogan's Alley
Stack Up
Gyromite
Golf

every copy of Stack Up has a converter in it, while only a small percent of the other games have converters in them. i'm sure there's more, but that's all i can think of off the top of my head.

you'll really only find them in the early released "black box" games.

Mike Tyson's Punchout!! is also known to harbour converters.
I think..

tomorrow at work i might check some out.

I think the only ones that would harbor a converter would be the "5 slotted screw pattern carts" without the hinge part on the top of cart........ as they were probably the earliest design release. Then they went to the "3 slotted screw pattern carts" with the hinge, and by then I'm sure they quit using the converter in them.

And I also checked all of the pawn shops here in town (about 5 that carry NES Games), VidCycle, and the two Last Stop CD Shops....... found no converters .

There are over 80 5 screw games that have been confirmed for sure. Nintendo and McDonalds both had a patent on the secruity bits, to prevent people from tampering with there games / toys.

Here is the list of the games that I know have the adapters in them
Excitebike
Golf
Gumshoe
Gyromite
Hogan's Alley
Mike Tyson's Punchout
Pinball
Stack-Up
Urban Champion
Wrecking Crew
I am sure there is a few more, but I have not found them yet.

If you are getting into variants, there is a ton more that no one has mentioned at all here. But I won't bore anyone with anymore random knowledge.