Long, long ago, people in the ancient Japan believed that the days were ruled by the Sun Goddess , and the nights by the Moon God . One day, the Sun Goddess had a visit from her brother, the God of the Storm . He was such a rough god that, during his stay, he committed several evil acts such as trampling the Goddess's paddy fields, filling the ditches with mud, and making her palace a mess. As she loved her brother, she had endured his rough behavior over and over, and again and again. Not noticing her consideration, however, the crazy god became more radical until at last he threw a raw horse skin from the roof of the weaving room. S...

Tools required: Replacement belt Medium sized Phillips head screwdriver Small precision Phillips head screwdriver Small precision flat head screwdriver 1.5mm Allan key Tweezers Pliers Cotton tips Isopropyl alcohol (or another cleaning solution good at removing melted rubber) SECTION 1: Drive Removal 1. Flip the unit upside down and remove the following 6 screws: 2. Turn the unit over, right side up, and gently lift off the top half of the case. There are no wires attached to this bit so it's safe to remove completely. 3. With the unit now open, proceed to remove screws 1 & 2 from the battery tray compartment. Now gently lift the b...

Follow this simple diagram to add split audio outs to your NES or Famicom… Open up your NES and disassemble it down until you have it sitting there on your work surface as a bare motherboard, locate chip 2a03 and check the following diagram: Once you have done the mod, the NES/Famicom’s sound channels will output separately on one jack split as follows: Channels 1+2 will output from Jack 1 Channels 3+4+5 will output from Jack 2 Using a split Y cable to headphone jack plug you can record the NES’s sound into your computer now at a MUCH higher quality than before… You will have to mix the audio down to Mono tho - as the NES is a MONO sy...

I recently got a Sharp Twin Famicom for around 70€. This is rather cheap, they usually go for over 200€ in good condition. The Twin Famicom is a Famicom with a built-in Famicom Disk System drive. This was a floppy disk system for the Famicom that was only used in Japan. The one I got worked well with carts (at least with 8BIT MUSIC POWER FINAL), but disks wouldn’t read at all. The drives on these systems are famous for using really bad belts. I hoped that the only thing broken with my system would be the belt, so I opened it up (it’s very straight-forward), and sure enough, the belt was half ripped apart and half fused with the gears. I o...

Nintendo made a neat little device called a "Card Cleaner" to clean up your Famicom Disk System game disks. The cleaning process is entirely a manual process: You open up the card cleaner, insert the famicom disk, close it up and rotate the knob, spinning the disk and cleaning the underside of the disk. You then have to repeat with the top side. This was definitely needed, because most FDS disks do not have shutters. So if you don't remember to put them back into their protective sleeves every time, they're gonna get dusty and dirty quick.

In the 80’s, the American video game market was initially booming, then tanked under the weight of too many consoles and a flood of poor quality bootleg games. In 1985, Nintendo would pull the American market back from the brink when they imported their popular Family Computer (Famicom) as the Nintendo Entertainment System. We’ve all heard that story a million times, but what about the Famicom itself? What was different and interesting about it, and what was maybe improved by the NES? I had long been curious about the Famicom. Nintendo Power briefly mentioned it a couple times, giving glimpses of the nature of this mysterious machine in t...

Back when I talked about the Famicom I mentioned it had an add on floppy disk drive as one of its most unique features. This was known as the Famicom Disk System (FDS). The drive was based on Mitsumi’s Quick Disk format. Nintendo added an imprinted Nintendo logo on each disk that matched an embossed plate in the drive. This was a rudimentary protection against piracy as it prevented standard Quick Disks from being used in the system. Nintendo released the FDS in February 1986 in an attempt to address some shortcomings of the Famicom’s cartridge format. Principally, the FDS offered 128k (64k per side) of storage and the ability to save gam...

I mentioned when talking about the Famicom Disk System that despite its being a great add on for the Famicom, it had all the same flaws as any other floppy disk system. One of the most common problems with any floppy-based computer is that the floppy disk media itself degrades. Most commonly, the magnentic signature that stores the data weakens over time. This is not a death sentence for the whole disk, however, it just needs to have the data copied back onto it. For other computers, this is trivial, as you can easily make a backup copy of the disk. For the FDS, however, this is not so easy. It doesn’t have any sort of file and disk manag...

Long, long ago a strong young man lived with his parents in a mountainous village. When he was born, his parents wished that he would become the strongest man in the country, so they named him Rikitaro. (Riki means strength in Japanese.) They called him Ricky for short. Ricky grew up to be a tall strong man and helped his parents a lot, but what they worried about was that their son didn't speak a word until he reached twenty years. One day, as the young man was sitting in front of his parents, he suddenly started speaking, "Father, Mother, I desperately need an iron bar. Please have the smith make a big iron bar. It should weigh at l...

Long, long ago an old lady was preparing for dinner in her kitchen. When she put beans into a pan, one bean rolled down to a corner of the kitchen. When she put straws for burning under the pan, a wind flew one straw to the corner, near the bean. When she put charcoals on the burning straws, one charcoal rolled over to the corner, near the bean and the straw. "It's nonsense for us to be burned or eaten here. Why don't we go praying at a famous shrine?" proposed the charcoal to the others and they started their travel. Soon they came across a stream. "What shall we do?" said the charcoal. "Why don't you walk on me?" said the st...

Long, long ago there lived a mother and her son in a village. When he was 12 years old, he said to his mother. "Mom. I owe what I am to you. Now I am 15 years old, so I'll work and help you." One day he went to a mountain to gather woods instead of his mother with a lunch box made by her. He put the lunch box on a big stone and gathered woods. Soon a strange old man appeared from somewhere and began to eat it without his permission. He thought the old man was so poor and has nothing to eat. He allowed him to eat his lunch. "Old man, please help yourself to it." said the boy to the old man. "Thank you so much. I'm so hungry." said ...

This is an old story of a Mouse. Long, long ago there was a beautiful young mouse-lady in a house. The parents were always thinking like this: "We must look for the most wonderful bridegroom in the world for my daughter." One day the father said to his wife. "Mother. It is the Sun that is the most wonderful, because it shines over us and gives us light." They went to the Sun and asked him, "Mr. Sun. You are the most wonderful man in the world,aren't you? Would you mind marrying our daughter?" The Sun answered, smiling. "Well, Mr. Mouse. I am not the most wonderful in the world. It is the cloud that is the most wonderful, because I am ...