Mitsumi quick disk drive belt code#

Not unlike the Starpath Supercharger for the Atari 2600, the use of RAM allowed games to split the amount they would use for code and the amount of extra RAM they could use. The RAM adapter also contained 32KB of RAM for Program Memory and 8KB of RAM for Character Graphics Memory. The sound channel modulates an arbitrary 6-bit waveform. Inside this RAM adapter was a custom ASIC chip called the 2C33 that interfaced with the disk drive, provided the extra sound channel and came embedded with an 8KB BIOS ROM. Nintendo must have had made a pretty penny replacing drive belts for systems out of warranty and they offered the service until 2003. Although the NES front loader cartridge connector will win no awards here, the pins can be cleaned and bent back.

The drive belts will become loose, can break over time or even melt, and the circumference is a custom length. The disk drive itself has a head that will need cleaning, and the custom format means that getting disk cleaning disks will be tricky. In fact, I have read of people recently buying disks sealed in the box and having them fail.

Like floppy all disks, the magnetic media can wear out over time and stray electromagnetism can make bits unreliable. The disk had no dust cover on them, making them prone to dust. Unfortunately, this device is probably the most unreliable device Nintendo ever made. Nintendo had to periodically service these machines with new games. This may have worked relatively well in Japan's more densely populated urban areas, but the more rural areas may have felt left out due to the distance required to travel to get to a shop with a Disk Writer. Considering that renting games was illegal in Japan, this was a good way to allow children to sample many games at reasonable prices. Nintendo set up Disk Writer kiosks in stores across Japan to allow gamers to purchase new disks and rewrite old disks. Piracy was pretty commonplace, despite Nintendo's security measures. Moreover, Nintendo's own licensing policies swallowed up a large portion of the profits, already smaller due to the lower prices for disk-based games. The main advantages of the disk system, namely space and saving, had quickly become affordable in cartridges and companies would charge extra for the privilege. Some major developers like Capcom and Namco did not devote much attention to the disk system. Third parties interest in the system and the number of games released for it dried up by the end of 1988. Also, after the release of Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally on April 14, 1988, Nintendo no longer devoted exclusive games to the system, with the exception of PC-style adventure games. Nintendo made money off each console sold. This is despite buyers having already paid 14,800 Yen for a Famicom. As it found its way into at least 20% of Japanese Famicoms, as an add-on it would appear to be successful.

19.35 million Famicoms were sold compared to 4.5 million disk systems. While the Disk System was not Nintendo's greatest success, it was hardly a failure. While Nintendo was off in magnetic-media land, its third parties carried the disk-less console and developed new cartridge hardware to increase drastically the amount of ROM space available to the games. The actual situation with cartridges became more complex than Nintendo wanted. By contrast, excluding ports and revisions of cartridge games, Nintendo released twenty-six FDS games during the same time period. It did not release another cartridge for two years (Punch-Out!!, November 21, 1987) and only had released ten cartridge games by the end of 1991. The last cartridge game it released for the Famicom before the disk system's release , Mach Rider, was released on November 21, 1985. Nintendo focused its efforts on the disk system for quite a long time. At the time, Nintendo heavily promoted this peripheral as the future of gaming as it saw it. Disks with new games typically cost 2,600-3,400 Yen, but the cost to rewrite a game was only 500-600 Yen. On February 21, 1986, Nintendo released the Family Computer Disk System accessory at a cost of 15,000 Yen. Cartridges for the system typically cost 4,500-5,500 Yen. Nintendo released the Family Computer (Famicom) on Jin Japan for a cost of 14,800 Yen.