Heheh that's interesting... I specifically chose the higher grade ABS because of it's higher impact resistance (and thus flexibility). I've always seen the brittleness (and thus rigidity) of original cases as a flaw because of the high number of second hand carts I own that 'rattle' because some internal piece broke free when dropped etc. I guess one person's feature is always another's flaw depending on perspective..DRW wrote:It's not about the looks. It's about the fact that your shells tend to be a bit bendable and not as stable as the official shells.infiniteneslives wrote:Cutting original carts in half is a bit against my religion I'm afraid. Not much that will look pretty when hacked by a table saw, so sacrificing an original cart doesn't make sense to me. There are converters out there which provide much nicer cases than I'm planning, that is probably a better option than mine if you're greatly concerned about looks.
O.k., if you don't want to destroy an original cartridge, how about I get another reproduction shell sent to you? Would this be alright?
But yes, if you can get some other replica case in my hands next time I'm sawing up cases I don't mind hacking up some other non-original case. I'm currently down in Texas, and my good table saw is up in Minnesota, I won't be back up there till summer. The table saw I have access to down here is in pretty poor shape and unlikely to produce a preferred result.
If you're concerned about being too flexible I'm not sure I would recommend sawing any case in half as it's structural rigidity will be significantly reduced. I expect any sawed case will easily flex to where the shell will tap up against the famicom female connector. I still think you'd be better off with a proper case like stoneagegamers. My sawed in half case technique is really only good for keeping the electronics from being exposed, and that's about it...
There are two pins the cart controls (outputs to the console) that control mirroring, CIRAM A10, and CIRAM /CE. You're probably thinking of CIRAM A10 which all adapters handle just fine giving control to the famicom cart. However I'm not aware of any adapters that give control of CIRAM /CE to the FC cart. Most mappers/carts utilize the NES mainboard VRAM/CIRAM, so they simply jumper between PPU /A13 and CIRAM /CE. However games/mappers which have 4 screen mirroring, or allow nametables to be located on the cartridge, must disable the NES main board VRAM/CIRAM, and enable it's own nametables on the cartridge. All adapters I've seen jumper between CIRAM /A13 and CIRAM /CE, thus removing the cart's ability to disable NES mainboard CIRAM/VRAM and replace it with it's own on cartridge nametables.How can mirroring be an issue? Isn't this controlled by the cartridge and therefore the information goes through the pins anyway?infiniteneslives wrote:I was disappointed how nearly every other adapter on the market doesn't properly handle mirroring
So, if I played the Famicom version of "Castlevania III" with it, I could hear the extended sound? How is this possible with a regular NES?infiniteneslives wrote:nor support expansion audio.
Nintendo provided a means to do this modification through the expansion port which they never utilized. However the problem we now face is a means to make a connection between those pins on the EXP port. The common means to hear cartridge expansion audio on a NES is soldering a resistor onto your NES's mainboard for the "audio mod". I recently came up with a low cost, manufacturable, solderless dongle that plugs into the EXP port on the bottom side of front loaders. Chykin (sp? or someone in his place?) appears to still offer his ENIO expansion boards, but they are comparably expensive, and lack ability to adjust the cartridge volume in relation to the APU which is desirable for some titles. I'm still working on a 3d printed enclosure of sorts that would cover some the bare electrical contacts on my dongle board thingy. I've already ordered the first production batch of expansion boards, but they've yet to arrive.
I haven't came up with a good way to attach a ribbon aside from hot glue which I'm not a fan of.. The best idea I have currently is to utilize a thin para-cord tied off to each screw post leaving a 'U' shaped loop dangling from the adapter.If you put a ribbon on my converter, this would be fine.infiniteneslives wrote:A string/ribbon is a small amount of insurance to pay for things not going as planned and then requiring one to have alien like fingers to remove the adapter, or disassemble their NES to get the adapter back out again.