CatPix

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sharp-Twin-Famicom-console-New-Belt-Super-Mario-Bros-2-Work-Japan-Import/274265426122?hash=item3fdb7e48ca:g:N2UAAOSw0dZeKcwr Gotta be patient.

I meant that 99$ is the price for a working Twin Fami so that junk system is indeed totally a silly buy. And I wanted to say that it's the price for a Sharp Twin working on the cart side, but not on the disk drive side.

The problem I see here is that 99$ is the price for a working Sharp Twin Famicom... (working on the cart part)...

So I recorded a video myself, showing that the noise you hear is your motor running without a belt : Also I don't show it here but I left it running for a few minutes and it don't spit any error code. But I spun the gears by hand to make the reading head goes up an down, and as soon as it did a full run, the RAM cart displayed an error. So unless proven otherwise, your problem is located in your drive, not in your RAMcart.

It may be. But you won't know until you get your drive in proper working order. Your disk head don't move and the motor make a noise I personnally heard after my drive belt snapped. The RAM cart doesn't control this. The drive either works or not. Everything mechanical on the drive is controlled by the drive's own guts : if the motor spin, then everything moves. If your motor wasn't spinning, then you could suspect the RAM cart, but you have a mechanical problem on the drive itself. Even the motor speed is controlled with a pot on the motor.

Well technically it's a software you share. I was reacting on the confusion between "commercial" and "free" confusion. There were free commercial software and there are non-free (monetary wise) homebrews.

Shareware were commercial. Not sure on ST but on PC a shareware would be "Part I of III" game, with the Part I free but you needed to order and pay for game Part II and III. Sure they were free, but they were commercial games. Unlike some homebrews that are only available in physical form and thue require you to pay for the product. 😛

Yeah, it's what I suggested for SFII : it was cheaper to use an existing design (the Tennokoe Bank shell) than designing a new PCB and shell - in the hypothesis that SFII PCD is really not usign the bump.

For me that's definitively the symptom of a broken belt : fast spinning noise, and the reading head doesn't move. This isn't a floppy drive where the head is independantly driven, everything is mechanically tied : as soon as the motor spin, everything moves, the floppy disc spins and the reading head moves up and down. this is how yours should operate and sound : For the time out error, my Twin Famicom also tried to read the disc for at least a minute without spitting any error (I was testing it so I switched it off after, I didn't wanted to damage the motor), so maybe Nintendo changed on later drives to throw an error after a few seconds of no data, and not several minutes.

Populous doesn't use a save battery? is it Flash ram then?

Watara Supervision : ONE!

They both have analog signals but analog video television RGB is interlaced (meaning that when displaying a picture, it only draw the odd lines, then the even lines at the next refresh). VGA is progressive, meaning that it draw each line down. Most modern VGA display doesn't understand interlaced video signals. 80's and early 90's VGA display may understand them as a few VGA video cards were producing interlaced video signals (I have a 286 computer with a video card able to display a 1024*768 interlaced video signal) but it's not a common rule. An active converter is required to double the lines if your monitor isn't compatible.

VGA also use digital Horizontal and Vertical sync signals, SCART like any other standard resolution signal carrier (save for component I think?) use a vertical analog signal resolution (the horizontal resolution is "fixed", it's why a 1950's black and white tube TV doesn't have trouble displaying a 16/9 signal save for the broken aspect ratio). Unless the VGA display at the other end is also equipped with a proper analog sync chip, it won't work either. The reason why you see passive VGA to SCART cords is that because many videoprojector maker didn't bothered to include a full scale SCART connector on their videoprojector and instead provided analog SCART RGB compatibility on the VGA port.

It's possible that when they made it, they only had Tennokoe Bank shells available to make room for the extra chips; I mean, even if they are "flat" chips, they only had HuCards in 3 formats : long sticker (smaller chip room) short sticker (longer room for chips) and Tennokoe/Populous bulging shell. Either they didn't wanted to design a "super short" sticker Hu-card for SFII or they though that it would be advertising itself as "super massive large game" with the bulging shell, even if it's actually empty. To make it clear : "long sticker" : "short sticker" And I realise that later, Hudson did made at least a "long PCB" Hucard : I assume that at this point cost to manufacture them with that big of a hollow space was cheaper, or the extra price fo the Duo card made up for it. If SFII had been released later it probably would have come in that Hu-card Style too. Note that the Arcade Card Pro does come in "bulging case". Despite the fact that it only contain a few Ko more of RAM. So I assume that it was either an aesthetic choice for Cd-Rom² owners or a price-cutting measure. Though mostly an aesthetical choice.

Yep, it's a good match. Don't midn the "extra" milliamps in the Atari power supply; it's a neglectible amount first, and second, electrical devices only use what they need.

Though. But if I have to pick up one of each, it would be Silent Hill on PS1. I played it again recently and wow. I was paying more attention to details than before and.. This game is so polished. The amount of details that are well-though are amazing. The worst game? Hard to say, for I gave up on so many games that were bad that's it hard to judge. There are several bad games I picked up with low expectations, they didn't dissapoint. But one that got me like that is Martian Gothic on PS1 (also exists on PC). It's a survival-horror based on Mars, where you lead 3 characters; they can't meet each other or they die. It sounds cool and all, until... After about 2 hours of playing, you find out that basically when you find a new item.. it's NOT for your character to use, but either of the two. Instead of having short gameplay sequence where you play the same character for several minutes, you're basically playing a big inventory management game which weakens the little threat of failure you might feel. And the limited 12 saves feature (a whopping 4 on PC) doesn't help. How do you know when to save when you don't know how long the game will be? It's just a detail but Resident Evil does it good : you know you'll find typewriter ribbons to save when you reach a new save point, so you're always having one or two extra saves. You beg to get more ribbons... but at the same time once you get a lot of three, you know you can play and save a bit more. Martian gothic is the worst game to me because it's not a bad game. I think if I replayed it with the right mindset I may even like it. What make it so bad to me is that the gameplay, look and feel are full of promises; but instead you face a boring game with a clumsy gameplay that drown the survival-horror feeling into a numbing item management game.

All-standard RF detection isn't a very difficult thing those days. The problem is more in the quality of the tuner. I bet wuth this bow the quality would be passable even with a VCR as a source or even with regulat analog TV. And our old console have much weaker signals and not always standard signals (I read somewhere that the Atari 2600 US tuner emit a 4.5 Mhtz wide signal, where the norm for NTSC-U is 6Mhtz). This, on an analog tuner that can be tuned "where you want" only cause a slight fuziness of the picture, which given the era and the graphics of the 2600 wasn't a huge problem. 40 years later digital tuners are stubborn: if the signal isn't up to standard, it's not a signal, it's parasites and shall be ignored. Also the Belling-Lee conenctor, as you surely know isn't the most solid connector and using, from the get-go, a FM to F adapter isn't really a promise for solid connection...

It's a Belling-Lee connector, more commonly know as PAL connector, or FM connector. I wouldn't trust too much a machine that use this connector for US market. RF to composite is quite critical and it's a part where you want to have complete control. An old VCR deck with hand-tuned inputs would be a better solution, then you can use one of those cheap composite to HDMI solutions. At the very best this box will be able to tune on the RF signal of a VHS deck but the weak, puny signals of our old video game system? I doubt it.

Most likely one form an Atari 2600 should do as the 9V jack power supply was kinda universal in the 70's but it's always best to check out any peculiarities the Odyssey might have.

Absolutely. The most common failure will be with electrolytic capacitors. If left idle, the components inside will start to dissolve the inner layers or the sealant; when that happen, their will either goes up in flame or just not work. Either way, they are dead. For systems with motors (CD-based mostly) grease and lubricant can dry. It's less of an issue but never a nice thing to deal with. Rubber belts for tape or floppies will harder or melt into goo, though I believe that it will happen regardless of use; but it's better if the belt snaps and fall down rather than melting on the hub. For systems with batteries it's good to see if your system keep memory. If it no longer retain dates and doesn't seems to recharge (if it's a rechargeable-based battery system) then it's time to replace it. As you suggested, firing them once a motnh for about 15/20 minutes should be more than enough to prevent/slow down the death of certain components. Note that if you own a system that have been recapped with dry capacitors, have no battery and is cart-based you can leave it in storage for quite a long time

It's a complex line; with various folks having various limits. Some people collect variants of each console, including revisions (imagine that most of our console went through a dozen or so menial revisions) so for those, having only two of a system would be ridiculous. If it's your favorite system and you pay a lot, then I suggest you keep it. Use it from time to time as storage is worst than regular use to wear out a system. Use it as a demo to show to fellow retrogamers so you have a reason to keep it around with you. I don't think it's hoarding if it's both a rare, valuable and beloved system. Now if you keep a system that you perfectly know you'll never use it, then sell it. It's more room for you and more money for your main systems.

Hmm, I know nothing about chemistry, but isn't that about removing bromine in living tissus, not plastic? Unless there is a section in the article about removing it from polymeres?

Well those drives are build simply, if not robustly. And that's part of the problem, they are so simple they get out of aligment easily. But if your belt is slipping it's already out od aligment so you'll have to open it anyway. This page should help you : https://www.famicomdisksystem.com/tutorials/fds-repair-mod/belt-replacement-adjustment/ Replacing the belt will be, in fact, the easy step. This part on the other hand... This one is tricky because you're supposed to tune the central hub when the reading head "clicked" but on many FDS drives, the metal plate in a snail shape that push the reading head has a "soft" slide which make it tricky to know what is the "zero". My method is usually to plug the drive, power the FDS/Twin fami, and wait until the drive itself click and stop reading (LED out) then I power it off and use this as a reference. It's a tedious process.

That is normal, pins are reversed between US and Famicom carts, so unless you choose an adapter with "crossed" wiring (well more like PCB printing but you get the idea) then your carts will look away from you. Same goes with Nes to Famicom carts adapters.

Any AC adapter with the same specs (voltage, amps, negative/positive on the tip) will do.