******** THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NES) FAQ v1.12 ******** by Martin Nielsen (Nes World) Dated : 13th October 1996 This FAQ is an independent publication, offered free of charge. The information in this FAQ is provided without any warranty, written or otherwise. The author or any of the individual contributors will not assume any responsibility for the acuracy of the information in this FAQ. Updates of this FAQ is availble from NES WORLD (http://www.ah.dk/~i1q). Please note that there might be some personal opinions in this FAQ. You're more than welcome to contribute with any information which can improve this FAQ, and of course you'll get credit for it. You're NOT allowed to use parts of the FAQ without permission! You're not allowed to sell this FAQ, though it may be given away FREE! Note that this document is in no way based on any official Nintendo information and may be incomplete and incorrect in many places. "Nintendo Entertainment System" and "Famicom" are registered trademarks of Nintendo. All names are trademarks of their respective owners! Thanks to: Marat Fayzullin Gary Kilber tsr ("tsr's NES archive") (c) 1996 NES WORLD (c) 1996 Damaged Cybernetics CONTENTS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE WELCOME TO THE NES FAQ THE HISTORY OF NINTENDO - Game & Watch - 8-bit Nintendo Videogame System a worldsuccess THE MAKING OF DONKEY KONG CONSUMER ELECTRONIC SHOW (JUNE 1985) SOME GAME HISTORY - Playing Pinball Without Quarters - Mazes and Space Zapping - Slam-Dunk Action - The Winner... And Still Champ - The Best Game That Never Quite Caught THE TETRIS FIGHT GAMES THAT NEVER MADE IT TO THE STORES - Hellraiser by Color Dreams MISC NES INFO. NES CLONES - Video Consola MasterGame MK-X THE VIDEOGAME CRASH GAMEGENIE - Games incompatible with the GameGenie - If you have a new model Control Deck - If you are having a problem using the Game Genie with any NES game NES SYSTEM SPECS. NES SYSTEM - CPU - PPU NES ACCESSORIES - Family Fun Fitness - Zapper Lightgun THE ALADDIN DECK ENHANCER NES EMULATORS. - iNES - NESA - PasoFAMICOM - LandyNES - VeNES WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I finally decided to convert the FAQ into normal DOS asci text instead of the write format. Hope this will make a few more ppl wanna grap it :) NES EMULATORS (updated) - VeNES WELCOME TO THE NES FAQ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for taking the time to read NES WORLD's NES FAQ. For quite awhile we've heard that quite a number of people is working on a NES FAQ. But none has been released yet! Well here it is. This FAQ might be a bit "thin" at the moment, but i'm doing a lot of research all the time, to improve it. Please send me an e-mail at: "i1q@dc5101.ah.dk" or "d0p@sofi.ah.dk" if you have any comments about this FAQ. Martin - Nes World FAQ v0.71 released 10th August 1996 FAQ v1.00 released 5th October 1996 FAQ v1.12 released 13th October 1996 THE HISTORY OF NINTENDO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The word "Nintendo" means something like "The heaven blesses hard work". Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, Japan, 1889. Until the 1960's the compagny mostly made gambling cards, and then later to develop electornic toys. In 1977 they introduced the first microprosessorcontroled arcadegame, which improved the game quality quite a lot. Nintendo grew very fast and became a leading compagny in the business, a possition which later also got in the videogame industry. Game & Watch In 1980, Game & Watch was introduced. It was a handheld LCD-game wich watch and alarm. With games like Donkey Kong Jr and Mario Bros, Game & Watch became a big success. In Scandinavia Game & Watch sold 1,6 million games in 1982-83. 8-bit Nintendo Videogame System a worldsuccess Japan in 1983, Nintendo introduced an 8-bit videogame called Famicom. It quickly became a big success. In a few years, Nintendo sold 15 million consoles and over 150 million games. The same system was released in USA 1985 and Europe 1986. In Europe and USA it was called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Introduction of the 16-bit Super Nintendo System (SNES) in 1991, the world began to show less interest for the 8-bit NES system. In 1994 Nintendo officialy said that they nolonger would support the NES system. Though a few NES games was released in 1995, but after that the NES system died. More than 50 million consoles and 350 million games has been sold since 1983! The NES is known for a lot of great games like: The Super Mario serie, the Zelda serie. THE MAKING OF DONKEY KONG ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miyamoto was nearly finished, but the game needed background music. He wrote it himself, on an electronic keyboard attached to a computer and stereo cassette deck. When the game was complete, Miyamoto had to name it. He consulted the company's export manager, and together they mulled over some possibilities. They decided -kong- would be understood to suggest a gorilla. And since this fierce but cute kong was donkey-stubborn and wily (donkey, according to their Japanese/English dictionary, was the translation of the Japanese word for stupid or goofy), they combined the words and named the game "Donkey Kong". Later, when the American sales managers who would sell the game outside Japan heard the name, they looked at one another in disbelief, thinking Yamauchi had flipped. "Donkey Hong?" "Konkey Dong?" "Honkey Dong?" It made no sense. Games that were selling had titles that contained words such as mutilation, destroy, assassinate, annihilate. When they played "Donkey Kong," they were even more horrified. The salesmen were used to battle games with space invaders, and heroes shooting lasers at aliens. One hated "Donkey Kong" so much that he began looking for a new job. Yamauchi heard all the feedback but ignored it. "Donkey Kong," released in 1981, became Nintendo's first super-smash hit. CONSUMER ELECTRONIC SHOW (JUNE 1985) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the June 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo debuted what Arakawa had renamed the Nintendo Entertainment System, or the NES. The operative word was entertainment. Everything Nintendo would do to sell the machine would emphasize this. The reaction at the new show was somewhat better. Buyers liked ROB. Still, they were reluctant to place orders. Arakawa stubbornly ignored the reaction. He said that the people in the industry were jaded. Kids would love it, he believed. To prove it, he commissioned focus-group studies in New Jersey. From behind a one-way mirror, he watched a random sampling of young boys play the NES and heard them say how much they hated it. Typical was the coment of an eight-year old: "This is shit!" SOME GAME HISTORY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nintendo videogame machines are becoming such a fixture in the U.S.--nearly half of all homes with children have one--it's hard to believe they've been around for only four years. Yet, the first Nintendo machines and game cartridges didn't hit the stores until the autumn of 1985. In four short years, Nintendo has just about cornered the videogamemarket. Sega and Atari are a distant second and third. And while Nintendo machines are still too new to have what can really be termed "classic" games, some of the early games hold up quite well against the latest releases. Let'stake a look at some of those old favorites, just in case you missed themthe first time around. Playing Pinball Without Quarters: Nintendo's Pinball was one of the very first cartridges released, wayback in October 1985. Most of those early games were simple action-adventures or sports simulations that have been surpassed by more recent titles. But Pinball still compares well with newer pinball games. Pinball was a perfect game for the newly introduced Nintendo system because you can play it--and play it well--even if you have never held a controller before. The buttons control flippers similar to those on a real pinball machine, and the feel of the silver ball bouncing around is quite like the real thing. Nintendo Pinball doesn't have animated penguins on springs, but it does have charming graphics, decent sound effects, and enough special features to please any pinball fan. Pinball also gives a supporting role to a character who went on to star in his own Nintendo games--Mario. When youenter a bonus round, you get to help Mario with what could be his very first rescue of a princess. Mazes and Space Zapping Perhaps Section Z remains popular because of its "special solar-energized, jet-propelled super-sonic spacesuit," as it says on the box. But a more likely reason is that Section Z was one of the first games to take a space game beyond simple arcade action. In Section Z, the Balangools are threatening Earth with galactictyranny. Not only are they thoroughly bad characters, but they have also joined a host of other despicable aliens at a base near Earth. As Captain Commando, you must infiltrate the Balangoolbase, a maze of connected hallways labeled from A to Z. At the end of each corridor is a generator and two exits. Choose the correct exit, and you'll end up a little closer to Brain-L, the center of the base. But take the wrong exit, and you might have to retrace a lot of steps. Section Z is more complex than many arcade games, although it's still a long way from Zelda. Since most gamers' interests fall between thc two extremes, Section Z remains a happy compromise between relentless action and the demands of thoughtful planning. Slam-Dunk Action Double Dribble is sure to get a lot of competition from the new kids on the block, including Hoops, Jordan vs. Bird: One on One, and Magic Johnson's Fast Break. But there's something exciting about Double Dribble that the other games have been hard-pressed to equal. Most basketball games give you options for teams, skill levels, and time limits. In Double Dribble, there are only four teams to choose from Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. You can pass the ball down the court from player to player, find someone open, and watch the screen graphicsas he slam-dunks. The switch from full court action to the slam dunk isterrific, even though the players don't always follow through with scoringa basket. But then, neither does Michael Jordan. The rest of the action, which includes jump balls, free throws,fouls, stealing, and a half-time show, is smooth and easy to control. Double Dribble is a good two-player game, and the computer is a formidable opponent as well. The Winner... And Still Champ With the exception of the Zelda and Mario Bros. series, no other Nintendo game has been as popular as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. Almost all polls still rank this boxing simulation in the top ten, where it has been since its release in October 1987. Punch-Out is very easy to play--even gamers with little or no Nintendo Experience won't have any trouble jumping right into the middle of the action. Little Mac, the diminutive hero of the game, must fight his way up through alist of has-been boxers and real contenders before taking on Mike Tyson. Luckily, Little Mac's opponents have idiosyncracies that help defeat them. Bald Bull, for example, always charges at you. If you wait until his third jump and then hit him with a left, he'll go down for the count. Likewise, if you sock King Hippo when he opens his mouth, he'll leave hisample stomach unprotected and present you with a perfect target. Passwords allow you to replay any half-finished game or choose any opponent, even Tyson. But don't expect an easy fight. Even the best game players have a very tough time against the champ.That Karate Movie Comes Alive since the great majority of Nintendo hits originated in Japan, it's not surprising that there are so many martial-arts games. But many of these games can't combine the art of self-defense with a strong story line, so you end up with either a tutorial game or a pure fighting game in which you do battle not only with your hands, but also with any weapon you can find, from baseball bats to knives. Since The Karate Kid was based on the popular movie The Karate Kid II, it had a ready-made plot. And unlike some other video-games based on box-office hits (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Back to the Future), The Karate Kid was effectively translated into the videogame format. The hero, Daniel, begins in the United States, taking on competitors in a karate tournament. Then he travels to Okinawa, where he fights dozens of opponents alongside Japanese pagodas and other colorful scenery. Enemies keepcoming, even when a typhoon strikes, and Daniel must protect himself and rescue a small girl. There are three bonus rounds in which you have to catch flies with chopsticks, chop through six slabs of ice, or dodge a swinging hammer. Other than the chopsticks, you never use a weapon in The Karate Kid--except for your own drum punches and crane kicks. The Best Game That Never Quite Caught On It's surprising that Karnov never became truly popular. Terrific graphics, fast action, nine complicated (but not impossible) levels--it seemed Karnov had everything it needed to reach the top. It was released in January 1988. If you can still find a copy, you might want to give Karnov another chance. In this game, the treasure of Babylon has been stolen, and Karnov--a famous circus strongman-- is the only one with the muscles and brains to recover the cache. It's no easy trek. You are beset by stone-throwing monsters, deadly sea creatures, flame-throwing lions, androids, pirates, and hordes of other enemies. But you can pick up boots for extra jumping power, eyeglasses forseeing hidden enemies, clappers that kill all enemies on screen, bombs,boomerangs, wings, swimming masks, and shields. Karnov has vivid, varied graphics. The game's nine levels takeKarnov from rocky terrain to an ice world to an arid desert to a fortressin the sky. Karnov can walk (he's a little too large to run), swim, and even fly in search of the stolen treasure. Some NES games have remained popular from the moment they were released. Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link are all phenomenal and long-lived hits. Castlevania has been a hit since May 1987, and Metroid since August of that year. We still receive letters from fans of Mighty Bomb Jack and Rambo, other releases from 1987. But how many people remember Clu Clu Land? Or Ice Climber? And look how far sports simulations have come since the generic and outdated Baseball and Golf cartridges. It takes a game with a little something extra to get (and keep) everyone's interest. THE TETRIS FIGHT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tengen was a subsidiary of Atari Games (not Atari Corp.; Atari Games made arcade games only while Atari Corp. produced the 2600, 7800, Jaguar, etc.). Tengen was originally a legal licensee of Nintendo, but this changed pretty quickly in 1988 when Atari sued Nintendo for $100 million, alleging that Nintendo was creating a monopoly thanks to its licensing system and the fact that it was the sole manufacturer of cartridges for all licensees. At the same time, Tengen/Atari announced that they had found a way to bypass the so-called "lockout chip" that prevented non-licensees from producing NES games. Tengen quickly released Gauntlet, Pac-man and RBI Baseball with the new-style system, even though "legal" copies of the game from the licensed days were still around. The year after, Tengen formally terminated their licensing agreement with Nintendo, since they were able to manufacture their own carts by this time. Naturally, Nintendo sued the pants off of them for copyright infringement and breach of contract (since Nintendo had patented the lockout device, they alleged that Tengen got around the chip by simply copying it). Finally - and more related to this - in the summer of 1989, both Tengen and Nintendo made NES versions of Tetris. Tengen got the rights to make it from MirrorSoft, a European company who got the rights to distribute Tetris in Europe. Nintendo, however, actually got the rights from the Soviet Foreign Trade Association. So, both companies sued the pants off of each other to see who would be able to sell Tetris in America. Tengen lost this case, since MirrorSoft didn't really have the right to grant licenses anyway. The European company turned out to be the big loser in the whole thing, since they had to pay the damages the court gave to Nintendo for lost sales. But the most interesting thing of all (to collectors anyway) is that, as a result of the case, all copies of Tengen Tetris were taken off the shelves. Instant rarity! It's actually too bad that this one is a rarity, because it's really the better version of the two released. I mean, Nintendo's version didn't even have a real two-player mode, while Tengen's has two different two-player games. In the one pictured above, making multiple lines causes the other player's stack to get larger, much like the two-player mode in Nintendo's Game Boy version. The really cool bit of the game, and one that I haven't seen anywhere else (not that I've been keeping up on Tetris clones), is the competition mode. Here, both players get different pieces and just try to create lines in one really huge bin, instead of two separate playfields. This is a lot of fun. You have to act quickly, since the other player may decide to dart his piece into the hole you were aiming your own piece at, and he gets the score for any lines he finishes. You can try screwing your opponent over by deliberately creating and covering holes, but you need to watch that you don't kill the game in the process. What most people don't know is, that there actually are a third TETRIS game for the NES. It's made by Bullet-Proof Software. The funny thing about this game is that there's a screen with all license agreements which are like the following: TETRIS TM AND COPYRIGHT 1987 ACADEMYSOFT-ELROG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TETRIS IS LICENSED TO ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE LTD AND SUBLICENSED TO MIRRORSOFT LTD., SPHERE INC., TENGEN INC. AND BULLET-PROOF SOFTWARE INC. COPYRIGHT 1988 TENGEN INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED COPYRIGHT 1988 BULLET-PROOF ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY ALEXEY PAZHITNOV ORIGINAL DESIGN AND PROGRAM BY VADIM GERASIMOV. Now where is the "licensed by Nintendo" line? I haven't been able to find out what relation this TETRIS game has to Tengen or Nintendo. But one thing is sure and that is, that Nintendo never released this game..... it would have sucked too much or would it?. My guess that this is a version of TETRIS that Bullet-Proof had made for Tengen, but when they saw how much it sucked they made a brand new version which were the one that Nintendo sued TENGEN for.... If you know the truth about this 3rd TETRIS game... plase e-mail me: d0p@sofi.ah.dk GAMES THAT NEVER MADE IT TO THE STORES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HELLRAISER BY COLOR DREAMS if you were an NES junkie during 90-91 you probably heard of Color Dreams. It got its notoriety from publishing non-licensed NES games. All in all they sold 25 titles for the 8-bit. But one special game from Color Dreams never reached the gamers. Though you might have seen adds and screenshots from the game... but why wasen't it released and why did everyone talk so much about it?... what was so special? Well, rumors at the time said that the game had some sort of special version of a MMC chip in it that actually contained an extra 8-bit processor. Dubbed by gamers the "Super C" chip, it would supposedly let your 8-bit Nintendo display graphics like a 16-bit machine. Other more fabulous rumors even suggested that the cartridge used the bottom row of pins to access an unused duplicate 8-bit processor on the NES motherboard. This rumored processor was assumed to have something to do with the "mystery port" on the bottom of the deck. Unbelievably, the actual history is not far from the rumor. The game Hellraiser was engineered during the year 1990. The cartridge had a Z-80 processor in it running at 2 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second). This gave the game 3 times the computational power of the NES console alone. The cartridge also had 64k of RAM (Random Access Memory) on-board. This means that the game could store 64 thousand characters of information independent of the NES console. In Hellraiser, the game fully bitmapped out the screen to memory first (the processor on the game could draw with more colors, and handle more sprites at one time than the NES). The potential price that dictated the life of this game. It would have cost in the range of $80 for someone to buy, and because most stores refused to carry Color Dream's games for fear of retaliation from the Big "N", consumers would have had a difficult time buying the game--thereby causing potentially small sales. In the end it all came down to the issue of money as it does with many things in life, and the title was scrapped to a box to gather dust. There might not even be one single working copy of the game existing.. according to Color Dreams. But it sure would have been cool.... MISC NES INFO. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NES is short for "Nintendo Entertainment System", in Japan it's called Famicom which is short for "Family Computer" and i've heard a rumor that it's called "Dandy" in Russia. The NES is an 8-bit videogame console which were released in the early 80's. The NES was about the only console to make it thru the "crash" in 1984, and it became the monst bought console in the 80's because of it's superb games, about 600 games were released for the NES in Europe, in Japan loads more. In Japan, Nintendo released a disk system, but it never was released in Europe or the US because a nasty experience with copies of the disks in Japan. The most popular game for the NES was "Super Mario Bros". The caracter Mario was taken from Nintendo's Arcade hit "Donkey Kong". Nintendo re-released the NES in a smaller case and with a standard cartridge slot (instead of the "zero insertion force" slot in the original NES which was very dirt-prone) in 1993 and tried to push it in the coming Christmas season for $49. Before this, the older NES was selling for $10 less than the Super Nintendo, it's smart marketing on Nintendo's part, in getting a big user base for the SNES, but doing no good for the NES. Nintendo officially dropped it in 1994. Although almost all games for the NES used its joypad-style controller, making it simple and easy to use, there were a few other controllers available. The light gun was a pack-in for most of the life of the NES. The game Arkanoid came with its own paddle controller. And while the NES didn't have anything equivalent to Atari's Mindlink, it had its share of strange accessories, including the Power Pad exercise mat, the U-Force 3-D controller which sensed the movement of a hand over its surface, the Power Glove virtual-reality-style glove, and the Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.). The NES has a safety chip for each area in the world. When I bought my NES back in 1991 I was told that i only could use games with were bought in Scandinavia. But some years later i found out that I was able to use games from all Europe. Though I coulden't use American games but that could be fixed with a converter. Sofar I've been able to find two NES converters, "GameKey" and "Game Converter", which were quite different from each other. The GameKey needed an European game along with the American Game, but the other converter has two chips built in and has the same shape as a "Game Genie" and the "Pro. Action Replay" Game Genie and Pro. Action Replay can be used to cheat in the games. About 70 million NES consoles sold. NES CLONES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO CONSOLA MASTERGAMES MK-X A nes clone from Spain. It looks a bit like a supernes with exactly the same joypads and the japanese/european console look. It's sold with 1.000.000 games (hehe.... yea right) built in. And you get the NES Zapper gun with the Action set just like the real NES. I almost got my hands one of these today.... but i'll keep searchin' cause it's a must for the NES freak :) THE VIDEOGAME CRASH ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the videogame crash of 1984, Atari was reluctant to release its Atari 7800 Prosystem and instead let its stock of the consoles sit in a warehouse. Meanwhile, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a huge hit in Japan as the Famicom, was released in 1985. Seeing the success of the NES, Atari started pushing the 7800, but a new generation of gamers was in place a generation hooked on Super Mario Brothers, not Pole Position. Soon afterward, Sega released its Master System (SMS) into the resurging videogame market. All three systems are 8-bit systems with similar capabilties, though technically, the SMS and 7800 had some advantages over the NES. Why, then, did the NES hold approximately 90% of the 8-bit market? The 7800 and SMS lacked one key component to success: a monopolistic third-party policy like Nintendo had. Once Nintendo lured the hit licenses to its system, they didn't make it to the other systems. And what happened to all of those arcade licenses Atari had? Those went to Atari Games, the arcade division, which became a separate company from Atari Corp. after the Tramiels took over. Ironically, Tengen (the home game division of Atari Games) was the first third-party company to break Nintendo's lock-out code and went on to produce some pretty good versions of Atari's arcade games for the NES. The SMS and 7800 had to be content with mostly first-party games and a few conversions of arcade hits by Activision. Even with conversions of many Sega arcade games, the SMS didn't fare well (but was extremely popular in Europe!). In 1987, Atari started pushing its systems (at this point, the 2600jr, the 7800, and the XE Game System) with a decent TV campaign. But the new, leaner Atari had to support three different systems, two of which were made of ten-year-old technology (the XE Game System is an Atari 8-Bit computer in a pretty new case, and the 2600jr is--you guessed it--the venerable VCS in a smaller package). They just couldn't compete with "The Big N." GAMEGENIE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Game Genie is the video game enhancer from Galoob (Codemasters), first introduced in 1991 and available in five different models for the Sega Genesis and Game Gear systems, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo Game Boy system. With Game Genie video game enhancer, you can change and customize game play and create special effects on many popular video games. For example, you can have more lives or weapons, start on any level of the game, jump higher, be invincible, and more. The changes you make with Game Genie are not permanent, and disappear when the power to the game deck is turned off. Game Genie, invented by Codemasters in England, is a cartridge-like pack that connects between the game cartridge and the game deck. It introduces its own startup screen, called the "Code Screen." On this screen, you enter special letter codes chosen from the accompanying Game Genie Codebook to create the effects you want. Or, you can program your own codes. Codes have been produced for many popular classic and recent games. New codes are made available by Code Update subscription and in video-game magazines, but you'll find them first on The GameGenie Web Site: http://www.galoob.com/Genietop.html Games incompatible with The GameGenie: Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse Fester's Quest Many games created by the company Color Dreams If you have a new model Control Deck: Your Game Genie doesn't fit in the new model NES deck. Some time ago Nintendo changed the design of their NES deck and as a result some titles don't work properly with the Genie. You need to call the number on your Game Genie and tell the operator that you have a new model NES deck. DO NOT FORCE THE GAME GENIE TO FIT INTO THE NEW MODEL CONTRAL DECK. If you are having a problem using the Game Genie with any NES game If the Game Genie Code Screen is not appearing Be sure that the game, the Game Genie, and the NES Control Deck are clean. Any type of NES cleaning kit should work fine. Be sure that the Game Genie and the game are connected properly and are pushed FIRMLY ALL THE WAY into the NES Control Deck. If the screen just blinks after you press "start" at the Code Screen Be sure that the game, the Game Genie, and the NES Control Deck are clean. Any type of NES cleaning kit should work fine. Be sure that the Game Genie and the game are pushed FIRMLY ALL THE WAY into the NES Control Deck. THE NES SYSTEM SPECS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Processor : 6508 (using a custom Motorola 6502 class) Processor speed : 1.79 Mhz Display : 256x240 Colors : 52 Colors on screen : 16 Max sprites : 64 Max sprites pr. line : 8 Sprites size : 8x8 or 8x16 Picture Scroll : 2 h.v RAM : 2 kb Video RAM : 2 kb NES SYSTEM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As in all other computers, is the Nintendo controlled by by software. The software is cartridge which you put into your NES just like a Computer disk. When you put your cartridge into your NES, the end of the cartridge which has an opening i put into a slot. The console and the cartridge now has "contact". The informations can now go from the cartridgechip to the Central Processing Unit (CPU) or the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) in the console. If there is dust between the console and the cartridge, the game might not work, so remember: KEEP YOUR CARTRIDGES CLEAN!!! Did you know, that your NES is like a Tv-transmitter? It transmit waves which you TV can receive. The PPU is sending a compositive videosignal, but many TV's cannot receive this signal, so it has to be converted to a RF-signal in the RF-modulator. The RF-signal which the RF-modulator makes, is changed to a compositive signal when it's inside the TV. This means, that you might loose some picture quality, but if you have a TV with SCART/EUROPEAN - connection, you can buy a cable which does that you can use compositive signals. The console also gets informations from the joypad. When the CPU needs informations from the joypad, it sends a message to the a memory in the joypad. The memory tells the CPU when the buttons are pressed. This might sound like it takes quite awhile before the CPU knows what to do, but it happends in less than half a second. - PPU The PPU (Picture Prosessing Unit) is just like the CPU placed on the motherboard. The PPU gets digital informations ( 0' and 1') from the CPU and the cartridges and converts then to composive signals which controlls every pixel and colour on the screen. 50 times per second, the PPU gets this information and draws the screen again. Because it goes this fast, it's like the figures moves. - CPU The CPU (Central Prosessing Unit) is a kind of a little telephonecentral with a huge capacity. It makes thusinds of "phonecalls" in and out all the time. Every 50th second when a new screen is drawn, the CPU checks if there are any interupts. These commands comes from the cartridge which tells the CPU to ask the Joypad about a possition, or that the CPU has to send a sound signal to the TV's speaker. Emagine, that the cartridge is a cookbook and the CPU is the cook, who follows the instructions in the book there is just one difference... the CPU make it all at the same time. NES ACCESSORIES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Family Fun Fitness Get in shape while you're playing a Nintendo game. These were the words Nintendo used to sell a quite cool accessorie for the NES. The Fitness thing is a big mat which has 8 buttons, spots on the mat, which were used to control the games. As far as I know only one game cart were reeased for Family Fun Fitness, Athletic World witch had 5 different games on it. The cool thing about The Fitness pack is that you can play it against one of your friends. But Family Fun Fitness weren't that big a success, which is hard to believe, so Nintendo stopped the production. Zapper Lightgun The Zapper Lightgun uses a tecnique which requires big precision of the gamer. And all the different games, like Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Wild Gunman, Gumshoe and Trick Shooting. THE ALADDIN DECK ENHANCER ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what's this so called Aladdin Deck Enhancer?... Well let me start by introducing the compagny which released it. Back in the early 90's a compagny called Camerca announced that they would release a lot of different accessories for the NES system. Nintendo diden't quite aprove with Camerica's many ideas and therefore sued the butt off Camerica. But camerica anyway managed to release a couple of things while the trials were on. One of them was the GameGenie (which was mentioned earlier in the FAQ) and the other was the Aladdin Deck Enhancer, both invented by the english compagny Codemasters. The Aladdin system is kinda like a cartridge split up in two in two parts. All the chips which are the same in each NES cartridge are put into a seperate cart (called the Deck Enhancer) and the game rom (the game itself) on it's own cart. This means that the games for the Deck Enhancer are cheaper to produce because you only need the to release put game rom chip in each new game released.... these carts are called "Compact Cartridges". When you want to play a game, you simply just plug the Compact Cartridge into the Deck Enhancer and then insert it into your NES system. And... the Deck enhancer has a 64K upgrade for better graphics and bigger games! But.... the trials between Camerica and Nintendo ended with Camerica going out of business. The makers of the Aladdin system, Codemasters, tried (though not hard enough IMHO) to distribute the Aladdin system, but it only made it to a TV-SHOPPING channel. It was sold with 1 Compact Cart called "Dizzy the Adventurer". Dizzy is known from Codemasters games on the Amstrad Spectrum, Commodore64 and the Amiga. Camerica announced that over 30 games were in production for the Aladdin System, but only 6 carts were finished for released but never reached the stores. I was WERY lucky to get my hands on an Aladdin System, including those 6 unreleased carts. If you are so lucky to find an Aladdin Deck Enhancer... don't have second thoughts about buying it.... It's really too bad that the Aladdin Deck Enhancer is so extremely rare because it's games rules more than most of the real NES games... and if it had had the chance to reach the stores, it would have been a BIG HIT! And... the Deck Enhancer would fit both US and European NES consoles because it had a little compatibility switch for each system. Though you might be able to find some of the of the Aladdin games released on "real" (unlicensed games with all the chips in each cart) carts released by Codemasters. For more info, pictures e.t.c. check out NES WORLD's Aladdin page at http://www.ah.dk/~i1q/aladdin/aladdin.htm NES EMULATORS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- INES INES by Marat Fayzullin is probably the best NES emulator right now. He just released the fifth Windows version which runs a huge range of games. But the iNES still haven't got any sound. Marat got most of the code from a russian guy (don't hold that against him). You have to register the iNES to be able to use all options, the registration fee is $35. A share ware version is available. If Alex Krasivsky (the russian guy) gets half (atleast) of the registration fee, then I don't mind registering the iNES.... if not... then fuck you Marat (uuh... another personal oppinion or is it? :) NESA The best DOS emulator right now is writen by Paul Robson. It's 100% assembler which makes very fast. But it isn't compatible with many games and the comour palette is wrong.... but atleast it's freeware. It uses Marat Fayzullins iNES file format. PASOFAMICOM. PasoFAMICOM or PasoWing which it's really called. It's made by some japanese guy (Nobuaki Ando). It runs monst of the MMC1 and MMC2 chip games. It's Windows based and completely in Japanese. The registration fee is about $60. The latest news about PasoFamicom is that it has been discontinued because of cracked versions floating the Inet. Mr Nobuaki is blaming "Damaged Cybernetics", a group witch deals with gray area console stuff. DC got an e-mail from Nobuaki who wanted $300.000 for lost registration fee's, if any new version of PasoFamicom and Super PasoFamicom (the SNES emulator) was to be released as shareware in the future. LANDYNES Alex Krasivsy's (Landy) own NES emulator is for DOS. Sofar only a very early beta has been released for the public. Landy uses his own split format. VENES VeNES is the fifth and newest a NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) emulator project, which allows you to debug, execute, and play original NES games with the speed and quality of the original unit itself. It's made by Y0SHi (of Damaged Cybernetics) and his roommate Mr. Snazz. The project is pretty new, so they don't have a *working* version of the emulator ready yet.... But here's some of the features they DO have up and running: Nearly 80% of the entire 6502 opcode set has been implemented Complete CPU and PPU addressing (excluding memory mappers) VBlank support Joypad emulation via PC keyboard DMA VRAM read/write/addressing support Sprite read/write/addressing support Software (IRQ/BRK) and hardware (NMI) interrupt support