Famicom cartridges on NES with Expansion audio

I'm sorry if this question has already been asked, but I searched the forum and couldn't find an answer...

I have a NES that I modded to get the expansion audio from my Everdrive roms. That works fine, but I'd prefer to use the original cartridges for some of my Famicom games. Can I just buy something like this, or is there a specific adapter that can play Famicom games with the expansion audio?:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271741053775

Thanks for your help.

(Respectfully, not judgementally): you should have been able to answer this one yourself, especially if you modded your NES for this to begin with.

The Famicom-to-NES adapter needs to make sure pin 46 ("Audio to RF" in this diagram) is passed through to the console.

If the product on eBay doesn't say it does, or the picture is not clear enough to determine where pin 46 is / if it's passed through or not, then you need to ask the seller. If they don't know or can't verify (which is ridiculous, since a simple continuity test with a multimetre is enough), then I'd suggest not buying the product.

I appreciate the response, but I was hoping someone could share a link of a known good adapter...or at least a link to an adapter they've been able to mod for use in a NES. Do you own one of those?

I do, specifically one taken from a Stack-Up cart^[1] -- but I also own both a Famicom AV and a NES so I don't really have need for an adapter.

"A link to an adapter" probably wouldn't be helpful, mainly because most of the adapters are vague/ambiguous and there are tons of Chinese clones which may or may not be identical (e.g. an adapter that looks a certain way and passes pin 46 may be cloned by a company in Taiwan or China who chooses not to pass pin 46, yet both adapters look nearly the same).

I don't know of anyone present-day who makes/manufacturers such adapters. Maybe someone else does?

I'd really suggest just asking the eBay seller. Think of it this way: if they don't know, it's in their best interest to find out using a continuity test, because then they can put that in their auction description ("supports pin 46 pass-through for Famicom expansion chip audio; will work if NES is modded to support this!"), which in turn would make them more money. The test takes 15 seconds, if that.

Edit: I think I know why nobody makes these. The "NES side" of the connector needs a CIC chip for it to work on a NES (and the CIC chips differ depending on if NTSC or PAL), and those chips are Nintendo-proprietary. Famicom carts don't have CIC chips. So after-market adapters must either have a way to fake out the CIC chip in the NES console, or have their own pirated version of Nintendo's CIC. So if someone was to produce an adapter present-day, they'd probably have to make a little socket for the CIC chip and tell the purchaser "you need to get a CIC chip yourself" (desolder one from a random NES cart).

^[1]: Some (not all) first-gen NES games from Nintendo circa 1985 contained Famicom carts with Famicom-to-NES adapter boards inside called "NES-JOINT-01". These adapters do pass through pin 46 (I just verified with a multimetre).

However, the NES-JOINT-01 adapters (when removed) do not work well with NES front-loaders because there is no shell/casing that surrounds them, making them difficult to get in/out of a NES. Plus, they'd require you to open up your Famicom carts, pull the PCB out, put it in the NES cart which contained the adapter (assuming it'd even fit), and then use them that way -- it's not very feasible. "Pre-packaged" products like what you've been linking to are much more usable.

Here is some long highly OCD/weird/ranty thing about the NES-JOINT-01 adapters. The easiest way to detect if they have an adapter, by the way, is to look at the cartridge pins -- the ones with an adapter tend to have little "tails" on each contact pin, while non-adapters don't. Just in case you wanna go on a quest to find one. I can take a picture of what the "tails" look like (vs. a normal cartridge edge connector) if you need a comparison. (Someone in that thread did post such, but the images are long gone)

I have an NES-JOINT adapter taken from a Gyromite. (I don't feel bad, because it was Gyromite.)

Preparing it to work with the NES expansion audio mod just requires one extra wire soldered on (connecting Famicom cart audio out to NES expansion pin 5). For the expansion audio mod inside your NES, though, tou should use a potentiometer instead of just a fixed resistor, so that you can adjust the volume. Famicom games did custom mixing inside the cart, so there's no one resistance value that will be satisfactory for all of them, the output varies considerably.

I have to take apart my NES to fit the NES-JOINT + famicom catridge inside. It doesn't normally fit in the tray carriage.

I just picked up a Gyromite that looks like it might have the adapter from the eBay pictures (For $5 I'll take a gamble). I'll try and choose a resistor that sounds good with my Gimmick! cartridge since that's all I wish to use it for. On the NES side I'm using an ENIO board which has the proper connections for audio mixing already. I'll post what resistance I go with for Gimmick once it's done.

Honnestly I got a Gyromite adaptor and it is absolutely terrible. Since you're going to mod your console anyway by adding a resistor to allow external audio, you might as well cut the pin 4 of your CIC, and get a confortable FC->NES adaptor instead of using the Gyromite one, which is not usable in practice, as it is a bare PCB without a box. You cannot insert and remove it easily from the console.

I wasted $40 on that Gyromite adapter and it is annoying, I could have done something better with that $40 (like buying a Famicom haha).

I really appreciate everyone's help and responses. I think my best bet is to email some of the eBay sellers and see if they know. If not, maybe I'll just buy one and if it doesn't pass the expansion audio through, hopefully I can open it and add the one wire necessary.

As a backup plan, I already own a copy of Gyromite with the Famicom adapter in it. I'd rather not use it though, both because I really hate destroying perfectly good games...even crappy ones.

I don't think any adapters will work right out of the box. Maybe the one sold by krikzz himself: http://shop.retrogate.com/Famicom-To-NE ... -FTNES.htm

The Krikzz one doesn't come with a case though, otherwise I'd much rather use his; His stuff is always good quality. Also, I think that adapter is perfect if you'd like to convert just one game to NES format. I'm sure I'll mostly use this to play CVIII, but I'd like the option for other famicom carts too.

I don't know how you screwed yourself out of $40 for a Gyromite cartridge, but the plan here is to do a little bit of plastic work to make it into a more presentable and re-usable package.

Not unless you tie some kind of ribbon to it, which is what I did with mine. And of course with the top loader there really aren't any issues removing/inserting it.

Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Inserting cartridges with the Gyromite adapter in the USA toploader is hell you cannot know where you should aim because you don't see well in the console, and the adapter is stuck in the console when you remove the cartridge, and hard to pull off.

LOL, I own that converter and I've never had an issue with using the Gyromite adapter on it.

Then you're some sort of wizard, since I've never bothered trying it on my front-loader because simply looking at the adapter + how the front-loader is designed tells me it's going to be annoying to get in/out, combined with the aforementioned story saying the same thing.

ApolloWizardBoy. :P

On the other hand, someone could market/make a "shell" for it that would be more akin to the plastic/style of adapters made in the 80s/90s...

In my experience most famicom carts are slightly too thick to slide into the tray, anyway, because of the bar across the top of it. When I say I take my NES apart to use it, I mean that I take the cover off and remove the tray assembly entirely so I can stick it directly into the cartridge slot (and use a weight to hold it into the "ZIF" connector).

Yup, that's exactly what I figured would be needed for the 1st-gen cart adapters to be used reliably. I'm not saying they *can't* work without taking the NES apart, but the amount of finesse + attempts would make it infeasible, not to mention the possibility of damaging the console (hey let's link console edge pin 35 to cart pin 37... what's the worst that can happen?!")

P.S. -- Unrelated to thread: *super* excited for LizardNES next month! Booyaaaaaaahhhh!