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Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 8:24 am
by phreak97
I got two nes consoles this week, one Asian Version and one Hong Kong version.
Both had cic pin 4 clipped which I have now soldered back.

The homg kong version is back to blinking as it should.

The asian version has these two extra wires:
photobucket.com-albums-z234-phreak97-null.jpg
[mod edit: attachment fairy was here]

Theyre tied into the reset lines on the cic, one connects a pin on the hex inverter to the reset output, the other connects from the 4mhz clock to the line from the power led. (From a brief look and from memory)

With the wires in place the console is region free, removed it blinks like usual.

Are these a factory mod? I have never heard of this method of lockout disabling.

Also the reason theyre where they are is so the mod could be performed by just removing the top shielding and leaving the motherboard and cartridge holder in place. Kinda cool.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 2:50 pm
by lidnariq
phreak97 wrote:Are these a factory mod? I have never heard of this method of lockout disabling.
Definitely not stock.

The jumpers override the 4 MHz ceramic resonator, using it as an inverter to generate /RESET_BUTTON and then to tie that to /2A03_RESET_IN

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 8:16 pm
by SkinnyV
I have never heard of such a way of tricking the lockout chip. Pretty interesting! It seem like a cleaner way to mod NES console. Well at least I find it cleaner than cutting the leg of an IC.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 5:29 pm
by Jeroen
The best part is that it should work on those cics that didn't work with the pin 4 mod. (recentlyish discovery)

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 5:37 pm
by 3gengames
Jeroen wrote:The best part is that it should work on those cics that didn't work with the pin 4 mod. (recentlyish discovery)
It's in code, yet I have yet to see proof of a SINGLE chip/console on which it fails, so I wouldn't post stuff like that like it's common...more like 1 in a million.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 10:09 am
by mikejmoffitt
This seems much more elegant than cutting pin 4, not to mention it's completely reversible from what I can see.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 1:55 pm
by bootyhuntah
I just did the mod to a NTSC NES board and it works fine. No flashing reset without cartridge inside the console. :)

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:07 am
by Kreese
Does this mod make the NES play games from different regions? PAL games in NTSC consoles and vice versa...

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:15 am
by tepples
PAL-only games won't play on an NTSC console if they actually use the extra vblank time, and they probably do. They'd have to be reprogrammed to turn rendering on late like Battletoads was.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:31 pm
by Epicfatigue
i also have come across this mod, except they did it from the top.

However the unit was non functional it would just load with a grey screen and was not the 72pin connector i think a ppu died.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 12:01 am
by Bregalad
How comes Hong Kong didn't recieve the "Asian" version ?

Did they get the UK version (PAL-A) because Hong-Kong was part of the UK back then ?

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 12:29 pm
by FrankWDoom
Here's another one. This is from an american toaster modified by the Racermate that someone posted on NA. I copied the wiring just by look and it seems to work as intended on my machine. Can someone explain how this one works? It's nice to not have to pull the board out of the bottom shell to clip the chip leg.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 9:36 am
by lidnariq
This does the same as the previous picture; it's just soldered to different locations of the same signals on the PCB.

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:26 pm
by wyatt8740
Dang. And just last week i accidentally ripped pin 4 off my CiC while disabling its chip.

Oh well. I guess I can harvest one from a game. This looks really cool!

Re: Is an Asian NES Region free? Strange CIC Mod

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:48 pm
by 3gengames
wyatt8740 wrote:Dang. And just last week i accidentally ripped pin 4 off my CiC while disabling its chip.

Oh well. I guess I can harvest one from a game. This looks really cool!

Why would you go through the trouble? It defies logic to kill another CIC to do another mod that does the same thing.