NES and the Honey Bee

[Lee Yo]

I did some searches on the Forums and even poked around on Google but couldn't find an answer I'm looking for. I got a couple questions regarding Game Converters and Lock Out Chips.

I have a NTSC Front Loader NES (Toaster).

Should an Un-Modded Front loader NES (Toaster) Play Famicom Carts using a Honey Bee (72-60 pin) Converter without any mods being done?

Or will the NES require a Lock Out Chip mod?

My goal is to be able to play famicom Carts on my Toaster NES using a converter. However I've tried two Converters so far (No name brand and a Honey Bee) and all they both do is give me a blinking light.

I've searched everywhere to see if a Lock Out Chip mod is required but no one seems to mention anything of it. Everyone makes it seem like a Honey Bee is all you need.

My Gyromite Converter works perfectly, which leads me believe the Lock Out Chip mod is required. However I just don't understand why no one ever mentions it anywhere.

So is a lock out chip mod required or should the Honey Bee work on it's own?

[133MHz]

I don't own a HoneyBee converter, however I do know for a fact that some converters have lockout defeating circuitry and others don't. If the game runs but the NES gets the blinkies, then your converter is missing a lockout defeater or it isn't working correctly. If you get a blank blinking screen (like when there's no cartridge inserted) I'd suspect a connection problem or a problem with the converter itself.

You can check if you particular converter contains a lockout defeater if you're not afraid of opening it up. If you open it up and see a bunch of electronic components piled up to one side of the board (resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc) then it should be able to work on a stock NES without disabling the lockout chip.

[Lee Yo]

I haven't opened it up yet. I was gonna do that tonight.

I know my Gyromite Converter has a 10NES chip. Should the Honey Bee have the same?

[133MHz]

I know my Gyromite Converter has a NES10 chip. Should the Honey Bee have the same?

No, that's the whole point of the 10NES chip. It was only given to Nintendo's licensees and in limited quantities, basically like a sacred key. Unlicensed outfits had to resort to other means to get their code running on the system.

Cartridge converters usually have a discrete circuit that generates a train of strong electric pulses of negative voltage which is directly applied to the lockout chip inside the console upon power-up with the hopes of stunning it and prevent it from resetting the system, much like a police taser can "disable" a person using high voltage - I like to call them 'lockout tasers'.

Surprisingly this system turned out to be pretty effective and it's used in nearly every unlicensed NES game out there with the exception of Tengen's games (those guys managed to clone Nintendo's sacred chip), but it might take anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds for the lockout taser to do its job. It has been speculated that Nintendo revised the NES motherboard and added protection against this sort of attack, but I haven't yet seen a NES console where such a brute force attack fails, it might be possible that yours is one of those revised ones but I doubt it.

BTW this also explains the little switch on the back of Codemasters games - it allows you to select between two different ways of stunning the lockout chip, in case the first one fails.

[Lee Yo]

Well I sure must have one Well Protected NES because the only Converter I can run successfully is the Gyromite Converter.

Btw, the Honey Bee works on my clone system so I know the Converter works.

I suppose I could just disable my lock out chip and see what happens then but I'd really like to keep my system original.

[133MHz]

That pretty much summarizes it, your NES isn't bending over to the HoneyBee.
Disabling the lockout chip will get it working but I understand the desire for keeping your system completely original.
If you're good at soldering you can lift up the pin in such a way to make the modification completely reversible, but it might not be worth the trouble if you already have a working converter and/or unprotected systems around.

[Lee Yo]

I just ended up popping the Lock Out Chip out, and the converter works perfectly now.

So much for being original, lol.

I'm still puzzled as to why no one has ever mentioned that removing the lock out chip is required to run a Honey Bee. 

[133MHz]

I'm still puzzled as to why no one has ever mentioned that removing the lock out chip is required to run a Honey Bee. 

Because for the vast majority of users, it's not. Either your NES is invulnerable to lockout attacks or your HoneyBee's lockout defeater is somehow broken (or even both).