Super Famicom owner for the first time

[eightbit]

Of course what I had was the Super Nintendo as I am an American and have lived in the USA for a good portion of my life. But I always wondered about the Super Famicom. It looked so sleek...and it has been on my hit list for a very long time. I typically do not import and just wait for someone in the USA to offer these types of things. And that happened last week. Someone listed a near mint complete boxed Super Famicom for $80. I jumped on it.

 

Now that I have it I have to say that the design is a work of art. The eject button is a mile better than the see-saw we got. The entire design is just awesome. The nice flush reset button. The power button is so much better. I lived with the Super Nintendo that we had here in the states since launch, and while it is nostalgic to me of course...the Super Famicom is just hands down better in every facet of the design in my opinion. Even down to using a normal power jack as opposed to that weird pinhole thing they did here to be proprietary.

 

So, yeah, I am impressed. Wish I had this on launch!

[CatPix]

You didn't noticed another difference that shocked me when I first got my hands on an US Super Nintendo (I grew up with the PAL version which is a Super Famicom with different labels).

The plastic quality.

The SuFami is molded with thick (at least 1.2mm) ABS plastic all over.Especially the top; for people that never saw a PAL SNEs or a SuFami, the gray insert atop of a SuFami is not paint, it's a physically different plastic cover that is inserted atop of the outer shell (there is plastic under it as well, it's not a hole) :

 

This give the PAL SNES/SuFami a very robust feel; the added thickness and the general slimness provide a more "filled" feel. By comparison the US SNES feel more fragile, and hollow. (which is it, after all).

 

I also have to afree on your feeling about the switches. Now I think the issue is that the US SNES buttons are molded in thinner plastic, and are much larger, yet they still press on the same SuFami inner switches (the motherboard is pretty much identical).

It feels like the US version was designed in the same idea than the NES Zero Insertion Force connector : making it effortless. Yes, the US SNES power switch and rest buttons feel more light to press due to their larger surface to push on them, the cart ejection button is larger and has more leverage... But it come at the cost of feeling less robust overall, for a minor difference in required strength.

Except maybe the eject button. I haven't tried alot with the mushy US SNES button, but the SuFami eject button can really make cartridges pop out of the cart slot toaster-like

It was even a game when I was young, to find the sweet spot where the cart would leave the cart slot, but fall down and stay upright on the console. Try it, it's fun !

[Steven Pendleton]

Now that I think about it, I've never operated the SNES, and by that I mean that I've never touched one, put a game in one, etc.. Sure, my friends all had one, but all I ever touched was the controller. I am very glad that the SFC controller doesn't have those dented buttons, though! It was one of the first things I bought when I moved to Japan. I bought it literally just to play Super Metroid and I am really glad that I did since I'd never played it on real hardware before since nobody that I knew that had the SNES actually had Super Metroid.

 

My SFC's cart ejection thingy tends to shoot my SD2SNES Pro out of the slot rather forcefully for some reason, and it almost always tends to land with the cart horizontally on top of the system, having been completely ejected from the cart slot. I bought a 1CHIP SFC from a friend (we think, anyway... the screws are quite stiff and I'm super lazy) maybe a month ago, so I wonder if it will do the same thing. I have no idea why I shared this, but I did.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[eightbit]

The Super Famicom plastic is certainly more robust...I can tell right away. And, the power switch is robust and solid. The USA SNES switches are a bit on the chintzy side. The USA model is still a pretty solid console, but the Super Famicom really has me impressed. The look and feel...the much cooler power light. And yes, the controllers not having those concave buttons. I grew up playing games with those and I really never got totally used to that. They always reminded me of Smartees candies

[ApolloBoy]

5 hours ago, CatPix said:

By comparison the US SNES feel more fragile, and hollow. (which is it, after all).

As someone who spent the last month refurbing a bunch of Super Famicom consoles this really isn't true, they're just as susceptible to becoming yellow and brittle as the US SNES. I had one that wound up being reduced to a parts system because the shell was literally crumbling apart. The "hollow" feeling is more likely due to board revision differences. I have an early model SNES with the SHVC-CPU-01 board revision and it feels as hefty as my early model Super Fami, as that particular board revision has a bottom RF shield and separate sound module that other revisions lack.

16 hours ago, eightbit said:

Even down to using a normal power jack as opposed to that weird pinhole thing they did here to be proprietary.

That was most likely done so that people wouldn't accidentally plug in an NES power supply which uses AC and not DC like the SNES expects.

[CatPix]

The SuFami is more fragile on the "whale fins" and around the edges of the half shelves, especially when getting brittle, that's true. I was talking about the general feeling.

 

For the PSU, it is odd, but maybe it's a cost-cutting decision from NOA.

The European SNin simply did away and use the same power supply than the NES, down to even have the label written as "for use with (Super)NES".

I should try to know if then even packed late NES with SNES PSU....

 

 

 

(Also, just for using power bricks with cords, Nintendo automatically wins points compared to Sega and their wall hogs)

Edited October 9, 2020 by CatPix

[DragonGrafx-16]

8 minutes ago, CatPix said:

The SuFami is more fragile on the "whale fins" and around the edges of the half shelves, especially when getting brittle, that's true. I was talking about the general feeling.

 

For the PSU, it is odd, but maybe it's a cost-cutting decision from NOA.

The European SNin simply did away and use the same power supply than the NES, down to even have the label written as "for use with (Super)NES".

I should try to know if then even packed late NES with SNES PSU....

 

 

 

(Also, just for using power bricks with cords, Nintendo automatically wins points compared to Sega and their wall hogs)

Not in the US... Nintendo used the same ones as everyone else here with the bricks right on the outlet...

 

On another note... I have a lot of music gear and have 12 of these outlet-hogging things. So, I had to buy power strip that is like a yard long just so I could plug them all in and even then I still needed other power strips. lol

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Not in the US... Nintendo used the same ones as everyone else here with the bricks right on the outlet...

 

On another note... I have a lot of music gear and have 12 of these outlet-hogging things. So, I had to buy power strip that is like a yard long just so I could plug them all in and even then I still needed other power strips. lol

This will get crazy off topic, but I just use this thingy

 

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/danelectro-da-4-dan-electrode-9-volt-power-supply

 

with an extra thingy that lets me plug in like 6 pedals to it at once.

 

And yeah, the SFC has one of those huge PSUs, as well. I don't remember where I put mine, so I use a generic modern PSU that came with my Mega Drive since it meets the specs of the actual SFC one.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[eightbit]

7 hours ago, ApolloBoy said:

That was most likely done so that people wouldn't accidentally plug in an NES power supply which uses AC and not DC like the SNES expects.

 

The same could have been done with the Genesis, Jaguar, TG16....and various others that had the same barrel connection. But yeah, people (in this case they assumed Americans) are dumb I guess

[DragonGrafx-16]

4 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

This will get crazy off topic, but I just use this thingy

 

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/danelectro-da-4-dan-electrode-9-volt-power-supply

 

with an extra thingy that lets me plug in like 6 pedals to it at once.

 

And yeah, the SFC has one of those huge PSUs, as well. I don't remember where I put mine, so I use a generic modern PSU that came with my Mega Drive since it meets the specs of the actual SFC one.

I have a something like that (1-Spot) for my stompboxes but it's just one of my 12 wall warts. I accidentally plugged my TR-8 drum machine into one of the 9v plugs from my stompbox PSU and it fried it. I'm sure it's just a protection diode but none of the Roland repair shops have any parts in stock so I had to buy another drum machine if I didn't want to wait months. So I upgraded to a TR-8S as I NEED my drum machine. lol

 

Here's a track I just recorded if you wanted to hear what all of those power adapters let me create (plus some others that use internal PSUs):

 

I had used the 1-Spot to plug in both my PC Engine and Genesis with the same power supply but then I needed more when I got more stompboxes (and just bough another today lol).

[CatPix]

12 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Not in the US... Nintendo used the same ones as everyone else here with the bricks right on the outlet...

I always wondered why. Maybe they were adviced that many European houses of the time were lacking in outlets (unlike the US, double-gang plug plates are uncommon) and they added cords. Or maybe some countries banned wall hogs, or limited their weight. Maybe regulations on wall hogs were different between countries (early wall hogs I see here were more "centred" as if they wanted to balance the weight), where the flat plug here is universal all over Europe (except for the UK).

Maybe it's a mix of those reasons. On the same vein, the French model come with an unique pseudo-RGB out and cord, and it's ridiculously long (over 2 metres).

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by CatPix

[bluejay]

I sold my Super Famicom to buy a Super Nintendo, mainly because Super Nintendos are harder to come by in Japan and Korea than a Super Famicom for obvious reasons.

Although I don't regret doing that(considering how cheap they are in Japan) but I did love my Super Famicom. I do still have my Super Comboy(an odd system; a PAL SNES that outputs NTSC that was sold by Hyundai Electronics; Licensed by Nintendo!) but I have it stored away.

The Super Famicom's design is absoluely gorgeous, and the Super Nintendo, is, well, ugly. But it looks okay next to a NES and a 1702. The Super Famicom's box is also much better looking than the Super Nintendo's. It's brutally minimalistic yet eye catching.