List of NES carts with Famicom pin converters inside

[famiac]

What about the cart.

[Rob64]

Masterdisk is right. Which is why I would think that that game, along with Dr. Mario may have a pin converter inside the cart

[jackhandy566]

new to the forum and saw this months ago but wanted to comment.

as far as the converters, I have read on another site. the reasoning on the converters is for the demand for the holiday's.  between oct-nov production couldn't keep up with the demands. so they resorted with this solution.

I got a Gyromite and a Hogan's Alley w/ the Fam' converters n games in them.

[michaelthegreat]

And the reason that most NES carts are dead space as far as I understand it, is because when the NES was first produced, NES carts were actually all ready made Famicom boards with cartridge adapters. Later, NES boards were produced negating the need for the adapters. However, since the design of the NES lent itself to the large, initial cartridge design, they were continuity used. Only a few NES boards needed the extra space that the shell provided.   

I doubt that had anything to do with the size. There are probably many reasons for the size.

They wanted the cartridges to look more valuable and not as cheap as current cartridges (atari, etc).

Also Famicom cartridges came in different sizes, but with the toaster style, Nintendo had to stick with a single size. So the cartridges needed to be big enough to handle later more complex size carts. (some mmc5 boards like uncharted waters and Romance of the three Kingdoms 2 fill the inside of the cart).

I think the converters were just an added bonus and a way to get rid of overstock. (sad to say, but Rob was probably marketing genius to get rid of stack-up carts in that regard)

[ATARI7800]

the easiest and cheapest to find is the gyromite cart thats were i got mine

[b1aCkDeA7h]

I used to try and tell by weight, but it's not a guaranteed method. The one sure fire method I've found that has so far worked without fail is to look at the pins themselves. Converter games have their pins off center. I think the FW article explains it. If not, I'll take some pics for reference if anyone is interested.

[wolf9545]

Do you mean the pins that would plug into the NES system?  Please take pictures so I know what to look for.  I tried looking for the game cart with the different amount of screws on the back but it didn't help me; still got a regular NES cart.

[UglyJoe]

The one sure fire method I've found that has so far worked without fail is to look at the pins themselves. Converter games have their pins off center. I think the FW article explains it. If not, I'll take some pics for reference if anyone is interested.

The article mentions it, but doesn't do a very good job of explaining it.  Pictures would definitely help.  I'm not sure how true it is.  My Stack-Up converter has the asymmetrical pins, but I was able to find other games with asymmetrical pins that were not converters.  They weren't 5-screw carts, though, so maybe it holds true for 3-screw carts.

[b1aCkDeA7h]

All right, I've finally went and wrote a pretty extensive blog post about my findings on this topic:

http://b1ackdea7h.livejournal.com/143862.html

The method I use in my blog post has been 95% successful, with failures documented and explained with my theories and reasonings. If FamicomWorld would like to put the article on the main site, go right ahead.

[famiac]

Nice job man! Definently going to use this.

[wolf9545]

I am just letting people know that I have a "Wizards and Warriors" and the pins have the little extra tab on the right, not the middle.  Inside is a regular cart not the famicom cart with an adapter.

[tb43159]

Awww... I opened my Gumshoe and Hogan's Alley, both with 5 flathead screws, and center pins, yet no converters... 

[b1aCkDeA7h]

I am just letting people know that I have a "Wizards and Warriors" and the pins have the little extra tab on the right, not the middle.  Inside is a regular cart not the famicom cart with an adapter.

I guess Wizards and Warriors is too new of a game.  Same thing happened to me recently with a copy of Athena.

Awww... I opened my Gumshoe and Hogan's Alley, both with 5 flathead screws, and center pins, yet no converters... 

Non centered pins is what you're looking for.

[tb43159]

Really? Oh. Well. Thanks for correcting me!

[232stinger]

I got pretty lucky, I first ordered Gyromite from Amazon, but the version I recieved did not have the converter.  Then I found Pinball at Goodwill for 5 bucks, which did have it.     Now I just need to save up some money to by FC carts.