RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)

Anything to do with games at all.
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SEP
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by SEP » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:05 pm

Shadow wrote:Were US SNES carts a different shape to PAL ones?


Yeah, they were much more oblong. I thought the NES was region locked. It even ran at a different CPU speed, and the 10NES lockout chip can't have helped. I remember trying to play an NTSC copy of Zelda on a PAL NES, and it wouldn't work.

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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Shadow » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:11 pm

Hmm I have an NTSC copy of Metal Gear and it does work..

Maybe it's hit and miss with NES imports. MD - Genesis was region free though.

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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by SEP » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:12 pm

Shadow wrote:Hmm I have an NTSC copy of Metal Gear and it does work..

Maybe it's hit and miss with NES imports. MD - Genesis was region free though.


Taken from Wikipedia:

Lockout circuitry The Famicom contained no lockout hardware and, as a result, unlicensed cartridges (both legitimate and bootleg) were extremely common throughout Japan and the Far East.[27] The original NES (but not the top-loading NES-101) contained the 10NES lockout chip, which significantly increased the challenges faced by unlicensed developers. Tinkerers at home in later years discovered that disassembling the NES and cutting the fourth pin of the lockout chip would change the chip’s mode of operation from "lock" to "key", removing all effects and greatly improving the console’s ability to play legal games, as well as bootlegs and converted imports.[citation needed] NES consoles sold in different regions had different lockout chips, so games marketed in one region would not work on consoles from another region. Known regions are: USA/Canada (3193 lockout chip), most of Europe (3195), Asia (3196) and UK, Italy and Australia (3197). Since two types of lockout chip were used in Europe, European NES game boxes often had an "A" or "B" letter on the front, indicating whether the game is compatible with UK/Italian/Australian consoles (A), or the rest of Europe (B).[citation needed] Rest-of-Europe games typically had text on the box stating "This game is not compatible with the Mattel or NES versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System". Similarly, UK/Italy/Australia games stated "This game is only compatible with the Mattel or NES versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_E ... ifferences

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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Balloon Sod » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:26 pm

If you don't want to cut open your NES, you can cut open a copy of Excitebike, as there's a region adapter in there. I think.

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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by SEP » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:28 pm

Balloon Sod wrote:If you don't want to cut open your NES, you can cut open a copy of Excitebike, as there's a region adapter in there. I think.


Just open the NES, and cut pin 4 of the 10NES chip. No more region locking.

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Zartan
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Zartan » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:34 pm

On the subject of the double European zone, I once bought a NES game (Elite I think) in Germany, and then noticed it stated that it would not work on "PAL consoles" (This was obviously around 20 years ago so it may not of been exactly that) Luckily they took it back.

Of course the classic work around for the NES carts was Micro Machines which required you to plug an official Nintendo cart into the back of it. By the time of the SNES we had Action Replays and the like to enable importing. Good times

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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by TheTurnipKing » Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:43 am

Balloon Sod wrote:If you don't want to cut open your NES, you can cut open a copy of Excitebike, as there's a region adapter in there. I think.

I believe they don't all have it. It was only some very early carts that had region adaptors.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
Balloon Sod wrote:If you don't want to cut open your NES, you can cut open a copy of Excitebike, as there's a region adapter in there. I think.


Just open the NES, and cut pin 4 of the 10NES chip. No more region locking.

Alternatively, just emulate them. You can practically run NES games on a toaster these days.

Last edited by TheTurnipKing on Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by TheTurnipKing » Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:48 am

Alvin Flummux wrote:
Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
Alvin Flummux wrote:My MegaDrives are growing old and no longer function properly. I don't feel like searching out a retro console repair site so maybe I should get this.


Will there be a PAL version though? That is the question.


Are they region-locked? I didn't think they ever did that to cart-based platforms.

Um yeah. Region locking was basically a side effect of how the hardware worked. On the original Atari, for example, carts were physically not compatible because of the way the TV signal was generated. You literally needed to rewrite the software for different regions.

The only consoles that weren't really region locked were handhelds, because every console obeyed the same display standards (because they had their own built in screen) and because it made no sense to lock a handheld which, by definition, might be used in any number of different countries.

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TheTurnipKing
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by TheTurnipKing » Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:51 am

Shadow wrote:
Alvin Flummux wrote:
Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
Alvin Flummux wrote:My MegaDrives are growing old and no longer function properly. I don't feel like searching out a retro console repair site so maybe I should get this.


Will there be a PAL version though? That is the question.


Are they region-locked? I didn't think they ever did that to cart-based platforms.


Were US SNES carts a different shape to PAL ones? I think NES and MD are region free though.

Megadrive is largely region free. The only region protection is the shape of the cart, which prevents you from putting a jap cart into a PAL machine without removing (or outright damaging) the casing from the Megadrive, the cartridge or getting some kind of extension for the slot.

Though I believe some later Mega-drive titles included some kind of software region protection.

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Qikz
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Qikz » Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:30 am

I still think region locking is bullshit. :(

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
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Winckle
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Winckle » Thu Jul 08, 2010 4:31 am

TheTurnipKing wrote:Alternatively, just emulate them. You can practically run NES games on a toaster these days.

Or even on a Wii!

We should migrate GRcade to Flarum. :toot:
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by Skippy » Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:25 am

I don't usually comment on the looks of a console but god damn that's ugly :lol:

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SEP
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PostRe: RetroN 3 console (NES, MD, SNES)
by SEP » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:33 am

TheTurnipKing wrote:
Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
Balloon Sod wrote:If you don't want to cut open your NES, you can cut open a copy of Excitebike, as there's a region adapter in there. I think.


Just open the NES, and cut pin 4 of the 10NES chip. No more region locking.

Alternatively, just emulate them. You can practically run NES games on a toaster these days.


That's a point, actually. This machine probably uses some sort of system-on-a-chip without region locking.

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