My first venture into the world of opening up carts for no g

[King Atari]

Yes, I finally did it. Starting with Combat, I eagerly unscrewed it and ripped the thing open, just so I could get that 1978 PCB. I then went to Frogger, to see what a thrid party PCB was like. Then, I finished with Jungle Hunt, mainly because it was the 1988 re-release and both pegs were busted out. This one is odd in that the PCB is dated both 1978 and 1984. Weird, but whatever.

 

PS- These were all doubles, so I didn't take my actual cart count down any. I'm not that dumb.

 

PPS- Notice I stopped putting quotations around game titles? I got sick of it, and nobody else was doing it, so I just quit.

[moycon]

That was a cool story King....Thanks.

[King Atari]

I like to take stuff apart, so it was fun.

[King Atari]

LOL, that was an interesting bit of info nevertheless !

 

[ 02-02-2002: Message edited by: King Atari ]

[liveinabin]

I think the right hemisphere of my brain is connected directly to Nintendos marketing department.

[MattyXB]

I have only open some carts, they don't work. I have try too clean them a bit, but no one of these carts that I open have I get to work.

 

You can see scans here of my open carts.

 

Not working carts

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by liveinabin:

I think the right hemisphere of my brain is connected directly to Nintendos marketing department.

---

Glad to hear that you have something to be connected

[King Atari]

quote

Glad to hear that you have something to be connected  

 

WHOA! Ouch! Slam! Whammo! (Sorry, I was thinking of the old Batman series).

[Lost Monkey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by liveinabin:

I think the right hemisphere of my brain is connected directly to Nintendos marketing department.

---

 

So does that mean they are stealing your ideas before you even realize you've had them?

 

Then they turn those ideas into marketing $#%*@ and sell them back to you.

 

Sounds great! Where do I get my implant!

 

Back to the Topic:

 

When I was a kid I took my Combat cart apart and tried placing various objects on the bare PCB/chip combo, turning it on in the VCS and observing the effects on-screen.

 

Oddly enough, the game started up with the same "maze" and 2 tanks facing each other EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!

 

"Oh well...", I'd say each time, "...back to the old drawing board!"

[King Atari]

That's funny, I did that with one of those mini-recorders, before I just gave up and threw it across the room.

[Cassidy Nolen]

Yo, King?

 

Did ya notice the legs? Neat how the 2K file size games use one less leg than the others. Even though the chips have all the legs, the cart PCB does not have traces all the way down.

 

Reason I found out: I tried using a Bowling cart for an eprom tester, and it would not work. As soon as I tried a Pac Man, it worked fine. Wierd.

 

BTW, if you use a hair dryer on the label for about 30 seconds, you can peel them off and put them back down without damaging the labels at all. End labels, the same way.

 

Cassidy

[King Atari]

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't notice that. As for the label thing, for Combat I just ripped the labels off, since I couldn't care less about that game. For the other two I used a pocket knife to cut down the middle of the end label, and I made a little hole and simply unscrewed the front, without removing the label.