Is this a real Famicom? And is it NTSC or PAL?

Is this a real Famicom? And is it NTSC or PAL?
by Bananmos on 2005-05-05 (#1996)

Just after bidding on a cheap "authentic Famicom" on eBay, I noticed that it had a minor difference compared to the other pictures of a Famicom that I've seen on the web, which made my suspicions about the item I won grow. And my suspicions got worse when I noticed that the same seller was selling another Famicom-lookalike that did not even have the Nintendo logo on it!

Here is the suspect Famicom I won on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8188550538

Comparing it to other pictures of the Famicom (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Famicom.jpg ), there seems to be writing in chinese above the "Nintendo" logo on its front side, and the writing on the power&reset label is chinese as well. While the unit might still be an original Famicom system, China uses PAL and not NTSC to my knowledge, so the auction describing it as authentic AND NTSC would still be incorrect.

And just for reference, here is the other Famicom that was auctioned by the seller, which misses a Nintendo logo altogether:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 50480&rd=1

I hope someone here can help me clear things up. I need to know the truth ASAP!

by Great Hierophant on 2005-05-05 (#2001)

If those are not true Nintendo-made Famicoms, then they are the closest I have ever seen to the real McCoy. I think they are real. The one with the Chinese lettering on the stripe may be a PAL Famicom that was released in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was very odd that they saw an official release of both the NES and the Famicom (perhaps a general Asian version), but I have seen no evidence of specific Famicom games for Hong Kong Famicom.
The one without any lettering at all may be a pirate or a very early Famicom (1983), made before the better known stripe design. The most common Famicoms have the Nintendo name inbetween the line to the right side of "Family Computer." Other Famicoms, probably manufactured later, also have the "FF" symbolon the left side of "Family Computer."

by Bananmos on 2005-05-06 (#2004)

Hmm, the auction described it as being NTSC, and I wouldn't pay for a PAL Famicom either. I'm now thinking about if it could be a Famicom from Taiwan, where they use NTSC, but this is just pure speculation on my part. Also, a model on eBay being described as a Taiwan model of the Famicom looks like this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 02540&rd=1

And on this one, the "Family Computer" logo seems to have been replaced with Kanji(?) characters altogether. Also, the box on this one seems to lack any Nintendo logo at all, making the question of separating originals from clones even harder. Is there no expert on these matters present here? :)

by Quietust on 2005-05-06 (#2005)

Bananmos wrote:
And on this one, the "Family Computer" logo seems to have been replaced with Kanji(?) characters altogether.

They're only called kanji when they're used in Japanese; otherwise, they're just called Chinese characters.

Incidentally, in the first one you mentioned (with Chinese power/reset instructions), the characters above 'Nintendo' are 任天堂, which is the proper kanji for 'NIN-TEN-DOU' (though, in Chinese, it reads as 'rèn tian táng' [Mandarin] or 'yahm tīn tòhng' [Cantonese]).

by hally on 2005-05-06 (#2006)

> a model on eBay being described as a Taiwan model of the Famicom looks like this:

Taiwan version is just a hoax. During late 80s-early 90s, this kind of clones which are very close to the early Famicom took Hong Kong and Taiwan by Storm. You shouldn't believe any Hong Kong or Taiwan versions unless it has Nintendo logo.

by Great Hierophant on 2005-05-07 (#2009)

The so-called Taiwan version pictured in the UK auction must be a clone, because no true Famicom has turbo buttons or comes with A/V cables and all true Famicoms come with a microphone in the second controller. (Thats almost always the case for clones, they feel the need to offer something better than the real thing besides price.) Only a Famicom A/V comes with A/V cables, and always Nintendo's multi-out variety and lacks a micrphone. Still, it looks very close to the real McCoy. I wonder if these early Famiclones work as well as the real thing, because the later ones do not.

Taiwan always was particularly lawless when it came to intellectual property laws, so Nintendo would make no money by introducing the real Famicom and games when pirate outfits could undercut it dramatically.

It is possible that the system could be pirated, although as Quietust points out the Kanji logo for Nintendo is properly done but meaningless outside of Japan. Unfortunately, the tell-tale signs (turbo buttons) are not visible in the picture. The cartridge is surely pirated.

by kyuusaku on 2005-05-13 (#2040)

"任天堂" has the same meaning to Chinese as it does Japanese, both will think Nintendo.

Re: Is this a real Famicom? And is it NTSC or PAL?
by Xious on 2010-03-05 (#57557)

The auction has expired, so I can’t see the photos. Can you please post them here?

Nintendo also made a version of the Famicom for the Hong Kong market that was PAL. I believe the nameplate is coloured differently (red text on brass rather than gold text on metallic red) on the PAL HK release. The Nippon release has a red nameplate with gold text on it, so if your nameplate's colour scheme is inverted, you have the HK version.

I've seen clones that are identical on the outside to the Famicom, but never PAL versions.

If it is a PAL version, you can always do an A/V mod to use it on an NTSC monitor/TV.

-Xious

Re: Is this a real Famicom? And is it NTSC or PAL?
by tokumaru on 2010-03-05 (#57561)

Xious wrote:
The auction has expired

Of course it has, this is a 5-year old thread!

Quote:
so I can’t see the photos. Can you please post them here?

Considering the age of the thread, I wouldn't be surprised if no one had these pictures anymore.

by Bregalad on 2010-03-05 (#57577)

Well Xious, no offense but I find you habbit to dig up VERY old threads VERY frequently to be a little annoying. It's okay to bring up an old thread if you really have something to say, but dig half a dozen of them every day sounds a bit like an annoyance to me. I don't know if other users of the board agree with me or not.

by tepples on 2010-03-05 (#57581)

"Posting and You" sums up my opinion on necro posting: "It is always better to post in an existing thread than to start a new one." At least it shows someone is learning to use the Search button.

by Xious on 2010-03-05 (#57583)

Bregalad wrote:
Well Xious, no offense but I find you habbit to dig up VERY old threads VERY frequently to be a little annoying. It's okay to bring up an old thread if you really have something to say, but dig half a dozen of them every day sounds a bit like an annoyance to me. I don't know if other users of the board agree with me or not.

I don't know what you are talking about mate. In my entire posting history, I have reopened two threads that were older than a month, and there were both on this board, yesterday.

I generally don't respond to a topic that is off of the first page or two pages of a board and in the case of FCDev, there is only one whopping page that goes back five years, making 5-year old threads the most current available and therefore still viable.

And, so what if it is a 5-year old thread, when for the record, my reply supplied new, accurate information that was never offered on this board. I don;t care about the photos, i care about supplying and learning obscure data and facts about video game products.

I guess that you addictively read every topic and every post, whether or not they are of any interest to you. I do not. I read and respond only to threads that in some way interest me, or those for which I have a reasonable store of knowledge, and that is why you will see almost all of my responses in the HWDev section. If you don’t want to read replies to 5-year old posts, then just ignore them. 'Tisn't as if you have to read them, unless it's some OCD-thing for you.

-Xious

by tokumaru on 2010-03-05 (#57586)

Bregalad wrote:
Well Xious, no offense but I find you habbit to dig up VERY old threads VERY frequently to be a little annoying. It's okay to bring up an old thread if you really have something to say, but dig half a dozen of them every day sounds a bit like an annoyance to me. I don't know if other users of the board agree with me or not.

I was a bit annoyed too... Although I usually agree that using existing threads is better than making new ones, you should only do it if you have something new to bring to the table, otherwise there is no point (i.e. what you think about a certain topic that was discussed years ago doesn't matter if you don't have any new info).

I think that some of Xious posts were relevant, but some were pointless. I wouldn't worry about it much though: He's a fairly new member and probably got carried away with the subjects he finds interesting. I'm sure that phase will soon pass and he'll get the hang of things.

Remember, a lot of us started with pretty awkward posts too, but eventually we felt right at home.

by Celius on 2010-03-05 (#57595)

tokumaru wrote:
Remember, a lot of us started with pretty awkward posts too, but eventually we felt right at home.

Oh god. I still owe you guys a million dollars each for putting up with my first 500 or so posts... I am ashamed, embarassed... And deeply apologetic. Okay, that's a little over the top , but still, my earlier posts were among the worst ever.

I don't see a reason to really be annoyed when someone digs up really old threads. If you're posting something relevant, informative, or you have a question of some sort but you don't want to start a new thread, then I say go ahead. It's not like Xious is posting random spam all over, so I don't mind.

by Bregalad on 2010-03-06 (#57633)

tepples wrote:
"It is always better to post in an existing thread than to start a new one."

Again, if it was always better, nobody should ever make new thread and the whole board should be compacted in a single thread. This makes no sense obviously, so this sentence is just wrong.

Yeah maybe I reacted too quick and exaggerated when posting what I post. However, I consider a thread to be 1-month old quite old, in fact if nobody posted for one-two weeks or so I consider a thread to be "finished". So digging a 1 month old or 5 year old thread are both digging to me.

And Celius is right that we all started to write retarded posts :p

by Xious on 2010-03-07 (#57648)

Then Bregalad (Quickbeam/Hasty) is an accurate name for you, as frankly the notion of a month-old thread seeming too old to reopen is (to me) absurd. I participate in forums where threads over a year old are reopened all the time. In fact, to me a year of time isn't all that long, but I'm guessing that I’m probably a great deal older than most of the community here. Heck, often I don't even have the time to read the threads on a forum for over a month or more, while I work on various projects, as was the case last month.

As for whether or not you feel that I'll 'grow into this', I've been posting on BBSes, Usenet and forums for over 25 years, so it's not like I’m new at this, but I do have a completely different relativistic sense of time from you, seemingly. If you feel that re-opening a month old thread is digging, then just ignore my posts in those threads and don’t read anything older than one month, as it'll save you from wasting your time.

As to reopening a five-year-old thread, yes, I'd agree that it was ancient, but it is still one of the most recent threads on the FCdev board, which makes it (to me) active. I didn’t even notice the year of the thread until you pointed it out, as it was still on the first (and only) page of this board.

Regardless of its age, the information that I added was seemingly unknown by the rest of the community, else I suspect that someone would have mentioned it in the last five years, so I believe that it was informative and relevant to the spirit of this forum.

Did anybody else know how to identify a Hong Kong regional (official Nintendo) Famicom at a glance or that Nintendo made PAL FC units for HK? I don’t have a photo of the unit owned by the original poster, and this is why I always link images from my own server, as I know they will remain indefinitely static. I can always take photos of the JP and HK market versions side-by-side, but given that nobody seemingly appreciates the facts that I gave on the subject and instead you made it a case to passive-aggressively tear me a new blower—which I find to be very insulting and childish—I don’t know why I should bother.

For the record, the information that I added to this thread is handy for anybody buying a Famicom unit, as if it has the gold nameplate, then it's PAL and you should avoid buying it if you don’t want to modify it for use. I’d say that was pretty informative and relevant to the original post in this thread. Can you argue that? How many other folks knew that off the top of their heads?

I joined NesDev for the exchange of factual information and to both assist its members and potentially gain the aid of others in my own endeavors. I’ve been a tech and systems engineer for nearly 30-years, and I know a great deal about vintage video game and computer systems. I don't ask a lot in return for what I do, but I’m not a doormat, and if you have a problem with me, you should send me a PM rather than making an off-topic rant in a thread. Somehow, I think there is probably a forum rule about that.

It really comes down to the same simple point: if you don’t want to read reopened threads that are over a certain age, then don’t read them. I didn’t force you to do so and you can easily identify the longevity of a thread if you care about that sort of thing.

-Xious

Bregalad wrote:
tepples wrote:
"It is always better to post in an existing thread than to start a new one."

Again, if it was always better, nobody should ever make new thread and the whole board should be compacted in a single thread. This makes no sense obviously, so this sentence is just wrong.

Yeah maybe I reacted too quick and exaggerated when posting what I post. However, I consider a thread to be 1-month old quite old, in fact if nobody posted for one-two weeks or so I consider a thread to be "finished". So digging a 1 month old or 5 year old thread are both digging to me.

And Celius is right that we all started to write retarded posts :p