That's like exacly the same converter my brother-in-law had and whose I tried to draw the schematic back in 2005 here. I however never understood at all how it works.GreyRogue wrote: I took some pictures of this several weeks ago and never got around to replying to this like I meant to. In case you're still curious:[...]
So, yes, it does have a defeat mechanism. It looks like it also has all the traces in place for an official lockout chip (or pin equivalent), which would be preferable, but I've been loathe to cannibalize a cart to do so. I believe it has all the signals pass thru except for audio, so this one could be modded pretty easily to be ideal. However, I'll probably wait to see what the INL one looks like before modding this one.
I could be mistaken, but from what I remember : It shouldn't matter that the audio pin is not terminated, famicom carts typically have just a bridge on an already amplified audio. Famicom carts with expansion audio mix their own amplified audio into it. The signal is not amplified by the famicom after leaving the cart and goes straight to the output or RF modulator.As an aside, does anyone know if it matters that the audio pin going from the Famicom to the cart is left floating? Should this be terminated in some way or does it matter? I'm unfamiliar with how the carts mix in this audio, or how an audio modded NES would would mix it in for the famicom carts that just pass it through. Do either of these cases amplify the floating noise signal somehow, where terminating the input would improve it? As I said, I haven't looked at the circuits at all.