Issues with designing a Good 72-to-60 Pin Converter

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Great Hierophant
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Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2004 9:35 pm

Issues with designing a Good 72-to-60 Pin Converter

Post by Great Hierophant »

Every NES to Famicom pin converter I have ever seen has had issues. One was too thick for the Famicom's cartridge slot, causing tugging when trying to remove it. Others usually connect pins 45 & 46 and 48 & 49 together with one piece of gold contact, causing incompatibilities. Some lack plastic housings, others have too short pin connector contacts. Good 60-to-72 pin converters exist to allow Famicom games to be played on a NES, but the other way around has generally been disappointing. If someone were to design and sell a converter, here is what I would suggest to implement to make a worthy connector :

The 72 pin connector should not have the grip of death. The converter needs a plastic housing that can support the cartridge resting above distribute the weight around the Famicom's cartridge connector. The 60 edge pins on the other end of the converter should be of the proper pitch, spacing and length to make good, solid contact with a real Famicom's cartridge connector. The PCB should be of the proper thickness so it does not require any more force to remove from the system than a licensed cartridge. Famicom pins 48 & 49 should not be tied together at the gold pins but go to NES pins 57 and 58. Finally, Famicom pins 45 & 46 should not be tied together at the gold plated connectors but each shall have a via and a jumper to implement expansion audio input from a NES cartridge.
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