Dug out the NES the other week to record some more stuff for Game Over, Yeah!! but it wasn’t working.
The PSU was shot, so I bought a new one from consolegoods.co.uk. I was sceptical because the NES needs a 9V AC adapter at 1.3A, and this was a 9V DC at 400mA. I read up a bit about it and it turns out that much of the current is needed to actually convert to DC internally, and in fact, theres no way in hell a NES can actually draw more than 600mA and using a DC source is in fact fine. So I plugged it in and…
Der Blinkenlight. Boo!
Stripped the NES down, cleaned the contacts on the 72 pin connector, and while I was in there did the region/security mod which was far too easy. Put it all back together and…
Grey screen. Bah.
Stripped it down again and looked at the pins on the 72 pin connector. Realised that a combination of age and vigourous cleaning had bent all the pins inwards, so prised each and every one out with a paperclip. Put everything back together (again) and TA-DAAAHHH!!! IT LIVES!
Celebrated by playing the “cream” of NES games – Mega Man II, Bart vs the Space Mutants, Bart vs the World, Dragon’s Lair, Totally Shi^H^H^HRad, Jurassic Park, The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Probotector II and Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers.
Awesome; I look forward to the Mega Man GOY since I perhaps play those games a bit too much… 🙂
I forgot how punishing most NES games were. I hadn’t forgotten how impossible Dragon’s Lair was though!