Inside NES Games

wourme · August 25, 2019, 3:34pm

Tonight, I disassembled my old NES so that I could clean it and maybe make it work more reliably. I boiled the 72-pin connector in a pot of water because someone on the Internet said that helps and because I don’t have any contact cleaner. I understand that bending the pins also helps. I probably will not bother doing that unless it still doesn’t work well after the connector dries.

Because I’m cleaning the console itself, I’m also cleaning the games (with cotton swabs and glass cleaner). To be thorough, I’m taking them apart. I’ll probably become too impatient to do this for all of them, but I think it’s fun to see what they look like inside.

When I opened up some NES games before, years ago, Gyromite was the simplest and Dragon Warrior 4 was the most complex of those I looked inside. Unfortunately, I later lost Gyromite and someone stole Dragon Warrior 4.

Predictably, Super Mario Bros. is pretty basic.

Faxanadu has a few more components, one of which says “Sony” on it.

Dragon Warrior contains a battery, among other things.

Zelda 2 looks similar to Dragon Warrior but has a slightly different layout.

RT-55J · August 23, 2019, 4:50am

those capcitors bent past the edge of the PCB are making me reconsider things

Felix · August 23, 2019, 4:50am

one of the neat things about the NES compared to almost all other cartridge hardware is that what’s actually inside each of the games varies a lot because of all the different memory mappers, it’s not just expensive storage media, if you have a dozen games there’s a decent chance no two will be alike

LWJoestar · August 23, 2019, 4:57am

FUN FACT: Some early NES carts were just reprogrammed famicom cart boards with a 60-to-72-pin adapter stuck on. Not even soldered, just friction fit and mounted into the cart. You can snag yourself a cheap Fami-to-NES converter this way if you know where to look.

(Left: early cart with adapter. Right: later reprint of the same game, no adapter)

Slap that bad boy into a 3D printed shell and you’re good to go.

HOBO · August 23, 2019, 5:01am

Yeah I opened up a copy of like Gyromite to get one of those.

Which was probably a mistake cuz I don’t think I ever used it, I just wanted to know it was in there.

They’re pretty easy to ID cuz they’re noticeably heavier than other early carts.

villain · August 23, 2019, 5:12am

what brand of capacitors are those (does it say on them?)? nichicon?

wourme · August 23, 2019, 5:32am

I kind of expected Dragon Warrior 3 to have a lot more to it than the first game, but superficially they don’t look too different.

Cybernoid is the NES game I’ve owned the longest. A classmate gave it to me about a year before I’d saved up enough to buy my NES.

Some of the older games, such as The Legend of Zelda, have five normal screws instead of the three special ones and the interlocking top.

Can you guess what color the gold cartridges are inside?

u_u · August 23, 2019, 6:52am

I love this thread but part of my old millennial lizard brain is horrified that someone would bust open a NES cartridge, clearly an object of immense material value

dementia · August 23, 2019, 7:53am

I love the photos. Several years ago I bought a craigslist lot of 40+ NES games and this takes me back to disassembling and cleaning them one by one over a weekend.

My Gyromite had the Famicom adapter!

a_new_duck · August 23, 2019, 1:54pm

Just gonna mention I used to have that exact little plastic blue dragon but it got brittle and fell apart.

shnozlak · August 23, 2019, 3:14pm

I assume the normal screws are so you can replace the battery

a_new_duck · August 23, 2019, 3:16pm

Whoa, did people actually replace the batteries in their cartridges? It’s occurring to me that I have a dim memory of an uncle of mine doing this for his kid’s copy of The Adventure of Link???

alfred · August 23, 2019, 4:31pm

Is there any physical/chemical explanation as to why my Zelda cartridge still saves after like 30 years?? Or at least it still did 2-3 years ago

HOBO · August 23, 2019, 5:45pm

I’ve never had a battery die in any of my old carts but for the longest times my GBA games would spontaneously wipe themselves. Though I don’t think those used batteries?

RT-55J · August 23, 2019, 6:25pm

The vast majority of power expended in digital circuits occurs when logic gates travel between the voltage for 0 and 1 and vice versa (this is why computers get hotter when you overclock them). I’m pretty sure the same is true with SRAM chips, such as the ones on the Zelda cart. Thus, the backup RAM only saps a very small trickle from the battery when not in use.

Also, as the battery gets drained its voltage drops slightly. My intuition tells me that the SRAM can store data just fine when undervolted (to a point). However, that same intuition also tells me that might accelerate the rate of battery drain and also increase the chances of bitrot in the save data (maybe).

daphaknee · August 23, 2019, 6:36pm

im waiting for you to find the treasure map someone hid inside a NES cart

shnozlak · August 23, 2019, 10:32pm

I had my Zelda 1, FF 1, and Crusader of Centy’s batts die on me. It happens apparently. Zelda just lost its save at random and then worked for awhile then lost another. Its kinda maddening.

km · August 23, 2019, 10:36pm

If you want to replace the battery but don’t want to lose your save do you have to do like open heart surgery where it’s like plugged in to a powered console while you do the swap?

Mikey · August 23, 2019, 11:01pm

If so I’d watch a stream of that

meauxdal · August 23, 2019, 11:10pm