Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

It would be nice to find a complete database for the nes console as well as the production runs of the boards inside.

Here's the idea I'll start a documented list of CPU-01 though 11 and try and place the correct serial number to the board which should give us a good idea of how many boards where made in a run

Of course the 4-11 runs millions and millions of units were sold but figuring out where 4 started and 11 began will take a lot of work

N0000001 would be considered the first of made or at least what this timeline will be based on

N0000131 CPU-01 - Source YouTube Video New York
N0068942 CPU-02 - Source I own it
N0203814 CPU-03 - Source Google nes serial number registry. It's a started database from a nintendosge group - posted by a user named dafoomie (it's in alphabetical order) of course it hasent been updated since 2010 but still it was a nice start a lot of intresting info for a timeline

That's the start now it's up to the rest of the world to fill in the blanks please post photos of any serial you have close to 10 100 50,00 100,000 250,000 500,000 1 million and so on and who knows what the highest serial out there is. I'm really interested in 1-3 first and the earliest 4 anyone can find please post photos of these early boards

The CPU had several revisions. For example, some of the earliest versions had no looped noise mode, those ended up in Arcade machines.

Here's the next question what kind of collector's value would these earlier boards and complete consoles be worth. I'm sure a lot of the early ones were scraped for parts.

They are such simple machines but so much fun. It's important to remember the NES and all of its great games

As far as we know, the US NES-CPU-XX revisions never came with a physical CPU revision less than the 2A03E.

I vaguely suspect the NES-CPU-10 and -11 were only used with the 2A07.

Kind of tangentially related, but I was trying to come up with a complete set of NES CPUs and PPUs.

I am fairly sure I have a complete set now, or mostly so. I have the following revisions:

CPU's: blank, E, G, H
PPU's: A, B, D, E, G, H

I suspect that the first "buggy" systems had a blank rev PPU in them. So far, A rev PPUs are the
earliest that have been found. the A and B revs are definitely functionally different from the
D and up revisions.

The blank rev CPU (missing looped noise) was used up to the D rev PPUs it looks, and then
I think they "harmonized" the CPU rev with the E revision, so the following sets
were released:

PPU CPU
A <blank>
B <blank>
D <blank>
E E
G G
H H

So far, CPU revisions between blank and E have not been found, neither have
F revisions of either CPU or PPU, and the C rev PPU hasn't been found either.

It appears too that there's only only rev of the PPU chips as well. I am not
sure if a toploading PAL system (do those exist?) have a new rev or not
though.

The A and B rev PPUs do *not* pass most of the blargg PPU timing tests,
which is interesting. D and up seem to pass them. I was going to do some
more testing but haven't had time.

I know it's a single data point, but Electronics Junker seems to have a 2C02C.

Your buddy Jason has one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTRyxJvXbAg, and they do have the A revision chips and a revised PCB so no nasty stock video output.

My square button Famicom had a blank, and a B:



Interestingly, the same PCB has surface mount chips here and there. Strange how parts were dealt out...

I don't have it any more, but all the games I played seemed fine, aside from not having looped noise.

those surface mount RAM chips sure are cute. I like the metal heat spreader that's double stuck to the PPU. I have seen that before, and my E rev PPU had one of them as well. Underneath the heat spreader the chip has the usual E rev markings and is otherwise normal looking.

The B and A rev PPUs had a silicone rubber "heatsink" type thing under them for some reason. I find it amusing that nintendo thought the PPUs needed heatsinking (those metal heat spreaders, the rubber silicon thingus, and the large aluminum sinks in the famicombox) even though the CPU gets a fair bit hotter than the PPU does. I have never seen them heatsink a CPU.

At least not until the Nintendo 64.


Nintendo 64, the last passively cooled Nintendo console, had heat spreaders on all processors.