NES Carts on Play Choice 10 Arcade?

[8way]

Does anyone have any info on how to make the adapter to allow playing regular NES cartridges on a Play Choice 10 arcade? I found the new BIOS you need to flash to it and all the info on that, but nothing on the adapter. Any ideas?

[Howard_Casto]

Well let me ask this very important question....

Why would you wan't to do that?  Pc10 uses a timer system and thus it's very annoying to be playing, run out of time and lose your game.  On top of that the cab takes up a ton of room considering you can get identical gameplay on a nes. 

Regarding your question, I'm not sure you can.  I vaguely remember some german guy posting details about new bios he wrote a few years back but nothing ever came of it.  Afaik no adaptor was ever built.  You can probably find pinouts of both systems via google though and make one out of a jamma socket and fingerboard.

[Dav]

Well let me ask this very important question....

Why would you wan't to do that?  Pc10 uses a timer system and thus it's very annoying to be playing, run out of time and lose your game.  On top of that the cab takes up a ton of room considering you can get identical gameplay on a nes. 

Because we already have a pc10?  It's a pain in the neck to hook up a NES and play with those rinky dink controllers when I have a pc10 already.  Plus the video output on a pc10 is superior to a NES.  Also can you play famicom games with the onboard sound on a NES?  Probably not easily anyway.


I made an adapter for myself.  I'm not sure if I'm going to sell any or not.  I don't have the time right now.  As you can see there's more to it than just some wires.  My design uses 6 logic chips.

First prototype using the replacement edge connectors from ebay cut down.






Second prototype after I was able to source the correct edge connector.



I'm going to be ordering a production run for myself soon, but like I said I'm probably not going to sell any at this time.

As for the bios there's 2 already, I went ahead and wrote my own since the others don't accept coins.

[8way]

WOW had no idea it would be that complex. But thanks for the info anyways. The reason I wanted to know was because I recently got a free Play Choice 10 cab fully working. So I was doing some research on it and came across this http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3b3qa/pc10/pc_10nes.htm site. By the way do you have the schematics to that design of yours?

[Howard_Casto]

Personally I would just look into selling it and getting a cooler cabinet now that it's in working order.  Nes freaks will pay decent money for one.  Why I dunno as it's basically a nes only it takes up waaay too much room to be practical for the 10 games it can hold. 

I pretty much disagree with everything that dav said except for the just happening to have one part. 

The nes controller isn't "rinky dink" it is so good that ALL consoles use this same basic layout even today.  And if rinky dink is a crack on the size of the controller, it is actually much larger than most modern controllers if you look at the size of the d-pad and buttons.  On the other hand the nintendo joystick is probably about the worst arcade stick ever made, and isn't very popular amoungst most people.  Mind you it is a hassle to get the nes out every time you want to play, but that's what emulators are for, or better yet just leave it hooked up.  The superior video quality is only superior on paper.  The games were made for the nes, not the pc10 and thus their graphics were optimized for coaxial and composite out.  All hooking it up to a rgb signal does is make it look more pixelated than it already is.  Sharper =! better.  It's kind of akin to these console freaks that get vga boxes for consoles, thus giving a picture that is technically a higher res, but what you get is a lot of pixelated polys instead of some polys that are naturally smoothed by the down-sampling from the output.  Finally a refrigerator sized cabinet that only plays nes games is sort of a waste compared to a bread-box sized nes and your tv, which take up virtually no room. 

That mod doesn't look like something that would be cheap/easy to build either. 

You've got to ask yourself if it's worth it. 


There might be a reason you got it for free. 

[MaximRecoil]

On the other hand the nintendo joystick is probably about the worst arcade stick ever made, and isn't very popular amoungst most people.

Comments like this usually come from people who are not good at any Nintendo arcade games.

A 300 pound NES with a timer doesn't make a lot of sense to me; not when I first saw them in the mid 80's and not now. If I had a dual monitor one I'd [de]convert it to a Punch-Out without a second thought. If I had a single monitor version I'd convert it to anything Nintendo other than PC-10.

If I was going to have a large, glorified NES, I'd rather it be VS. hardware due to the lack of a timer. I preferred playing Excitebike in the arcade to playing it on a NES, and could do better in the arcade as well, even using the "worst arcade stick ever made" (lol). Not to mention that the VS. hardware version of Excitebike used a better choice of colors and had better screens after finishing a track IMO.

Still though, regardless of what I think of PC-10's, I think what Dav did is very cool, especially the writing-his-own-BIOS-to-accept-coins part. I'm wondering, what is the purpose of the 6 logic chips in the adapter? and does everything work well with your custom adapter and BIOS? any bugs?

[Howard_Casto]

On the other hand the nintendo joystick is probably about the worst arcade stick ever made, and isn't very popular amoungst most people.

Comments like this usually come from people who are not good at any Nintendo arcade games.

No they usually come from people who know what they are talking about.  

Nes joysticks are horrible.  The shaft is too narrow and too short and the restrictors (for 4 way games like donkey kong) are positioned in such a way that te shaft can get caught up a little. Compare this to say a pacman joystick, in which shaft length/width, restrictors and everything else is spot-on.  The 8-ways are only slightly better, but on them, again, the shaft is way too short, forcing you to play overhanded.  This is because the 8way's are only used fo nes-era games, which need a short throw because they are supposed to be played on the frikkin nes, not an arcade machine. 

Just because I can beat donkey kong and vs super mario on these shoddy sticks doesn't mean that I think the are great.  Quite frankly if you were to list all the joysticks ever to be put on an arcade machine, the nes sticks would be on the bottom of the list.  If they wanted the sticks to be more console game friendly, they should have used data east style sticks with a shortened shaft.

I've never been a fan of nintendo arcade games, the sole exception being vs super mario.  Donkey Kong is overrated, as is punchout (at least the crappy arcade versions are).  Take those away and your choices for conversion are really limited.  Popeye is down right horrible, as are most of the nintendo gems like baloon fight and ice climber.  Even the ones that are good aren't good enough to have such a mammoth cab dedicated to them.  So while I thought about suggesting a conversion as well, when it coems down to it there isn't anything good in the nintendo line to convert it to.  If you are a really big fan of donkey kong I suppose you could do that.  I've probably even got a 4-way dk stick lying in my junk bin.   

I would say mame it, but you'd be stuck trying to play games on those horrible sticks and to put any other type of stick on it would ruin it.  I could also suggest putting one of the light gun games in it, but again, while some are decent, they really don't warrant taking up that much space.

So like I said, sell it and get yourself a nicer cab. 

[MaximRecoil]

No they usually come from people who know what they are talking about.  

Nes joysticks are horrible.  The shaft is too narrow and too short and the restrictors (for 4 way games like donkey kong) are positioned in such a way that te shaft can get caught up a little.

I've never had the shaft "get caught up a little". The 4 way restrictor is the best part of a Nintendo stick; very solid and positive feeling as opposed to the mushy boundaries you get with some other sticks. The diameter of the shaft is irrelevant, unless you can explain how that affects gameplay. They are short compared to most other joysticks, but I haven't figured out how this is detrimental yet.

Compare this to say a pacman joystick, in which shaft length/width, restrictors and everything else is spot-on.

I never cared much for the Pac-Man joystick. From what I remember of them, the balltop was too large making it feel clumsy and the grommet was too stiff. I've never cared much for grommet based joysticks anyway.

The 8-ways are only slightly better, but on them, again, the shaft is way too short, forcing you to play overhanded.  This is because the 8way's are only used fo nes-era games, which need a short throw because they are supposed to be played on the frikkin nes, not an arcade machine. 

I don't play "overhanded" on a Nintendo joystick. I rest my hand to the left of the joystick on the control panel. I push the joystick to the right with the area of my forefinger between the knuckle and the first joint, and to the left with my thumb. I push it up with my thumb as well, and down with the tip of my forefinger.  It is very natural and not at all tiring, even when playing for very long periods of time; and that doesn't work with a joystick that is taller with a larger balltop and a stiffer throw; such as a Pac-Man joystick or a Wico.

Maybe it is a matter of dexterity. I have better motor control with my thumb and forefinger (the same digits I use for drawing, writing and soldering) than I do trying to hamfist a tall joystick with a jumbo balltop.

Just because I can beat donkey kong and vs super mario on these shoddy sticks doesn't mean that I think the are great.

First of all, the contruction of the Nintendo joystick is not "shoddy"; period. Secondly, you can "beat" Donkey Kong on an arcade machine; as in, get to the "kill screen"? Do you have any evidence that you can do this? Given that you don't like the joysticks and you claim that Donkey Kong is "overrated", I find it hard to believe that you've put in the time to master Donkey Kong.

Quite frankly if you were to list all the joysticks ever to be put on an arcade machine, the nes sticks would be on the bottom of the list.  If they wanted the sticks to be more console game friendly, they should have used data east style sticks with a shortened shaft.

I don't know what it is with you and your making distinctions between console and arcade games. I could see your point if you were talking about a modern PC game designed for a mouse and keyboard, but games designed for a 4 or 8-way directional control and one or two buttons? Just what kind of code do you think the designers were coming up with that made their NES games more suited to a NES controller than to a joystick and arcade buttons? On top of that, any game that requires rapid button pressing will work better with an arcade setup than with a game pad, because you can tap a mounted button with your finger faster than a button on a controller with your thumb.

I've never been a fan of nintendo arcade games, the sole exception being vs super mario.  Donkey Kong is overrated, as is punchout (at least the crappy arcade versions are).

You sound ignorant calling something "crappy" simply because it doesn't appeal to you. There was nothing "crappy" about Punch-Out on a technical level. If anything, it was ahead of its time on a technical level. Now, I understand that you are young and your primary exposure to the game was in the form of a NES, but that doesn't excuse your sloppy terminology.

Regarding Donkey Kong, I'm not a big fan either, but it is not "overrated". It is not even possible for something to be "overrated" when the rating is based on something that is entirely subjective in the first place. If Nintendo had overrated the technical specifications of the hardware, then you would have a case for Donkey Kong being overrated on those grounds only. When dealing with everyone's opinion of the game, it is simply rated how it is rated. There is no such thing as "overrated" in regard to overall opinion; unless you think you can establish a "correct" opinion as a baseline. Good luck with that.

[Dav]

Some of us just happen to like arcade games.  For us guys that were around in the early '80's consoles were just cheap imitations of the real things and they always will be for me.

The reason it's complex is you have 10 carts connected to the bus at the same time.  You have to keep 9 of them quiet.

As for costs, that size board will run less than $10 my costs and the chips are 30 cents a piece.   That's way cheaper than what hacked up pc10 carts sell for on ebay.

[Howard_Casto]

Some of us just happen to like arcade games.  For us guys that were around in the early '80's consoles were just cheap imitations of the real things and they always will be for me.

Not in this case.  You aren't playing arcade games, you are playing console games.  So in that respect you are playing a cheap imitation of the regular way in which the games are supposed to be presented. 

The pc10, by nintendo's own admission was nothing more than a marketing tool to get kids to buy new games for their nes.  The intent was never for you to play the entire game on the playchioce, the intent was to get you hooked so you'd go buy it, as it'd cost that much to get enough time to beat the game on the pc anyway.   The reason only a handful of carts were made for the pc 10 was because, well this was a bad idea.  Why pay a quarter for a few seconds of gameplay to demo a game when you can do it at a department store kiosk for free?  For that matter, why not rent the game for a couple of bucks and hold on to it all week?

I think you are getting off-topic dav... this isn't a console vs arcade thing, this is a console vs console thing.  One is tiny and makes sense to the average person, one takes up the size of a fridge and doesn't to most people. 

As for you M.R,. I don't know where you get off.  I started off my paragraph with "I'm not a big fan of nintendo arcade games" so how in the blue hell do you assume that anything I said after that I stated to be "fact"?  It was all opinion.  Mind you it's probably the average man's opinion, but that doesn't really matter.  If you like nintendo arcade games then great, I was just trying to suggest what to do with the cab based on my experiences.  I have a lot to say so I'm not going to waste my time by putting "in my opinion" in front of every single opinionated statement I make. 

I disagree with the resposes about the sticks btw.  Buttons on a console are FAR easier to press more quickly, you just prefer arcade buttons.  It's simple math... you have less than 16th of an inch to depress on a console pad while a good quarter of an inch to depress on a arcade button.  Same goes for a d-pad verses a stick.  The throw on a nintendo stick is farily large considering it is used on nintendo games that were meant to be played on a d-pad, which has instantianous "throw".  It's not about the physical inputs, it's about responsiveness.  The nes aracde panels aren't responsive enough for a lot of the pc10 games.  That's the main reason I dis-like the arcade versions of punchout graphics aside (I prefer the more cartoony look of the consoles)  the dpad responded quickly and worked a lot better for a boxing game. 

What do you mean by proof on the DK stuff?  I didn't exactly take pics of me beating it in the arcade in the late 80's when I was a little boy.  Back then I was a lot younger and my taste for video games was a lot less sophisticated.  Dk is great when you are 10, but when you are 26 you realize it doesn't hold up so well over time.  I don't have the attention span left to go through dk anymore.


But our friend 8way hasn't responded anymore so there isn't any point in continuing this, I just wanted to set the record straight.

[8way]

OK if you guys are done fighting now , can we get back on topic? I would like to give this adapter a try. If Dav or anybody else has the info on how to make one and are willing to share the knowledge, please post or PM me. Thanks.

[Raven..]

I would love to have one of those adapters too!  I have a single monitor PC-10 I built for my wife out of an old Popeye cab, and a spare two-monitor board in a box.  I think I have 18 carts total right now.  You can set the PC-10 to freeplay and not have to worry about the timer, by the way.

I  also have a Nintedo Vs Dual upright and a Vs Dual cocktail (along with a bunch of boards). Both systems are a lot of fun to have around. 

Are they basically an NES in a giant box?  Yes.  Who cares, I have plenty of room and like the way they look. 

[8way]

I would love to have one of those adapters too!  I have a single monitor PC-10 I built for my wife out of an old Popeye cab, and a spare two-monitor board in a box.  I think I have 18 carts total right now.  You can set the PC-10 to freeplay and not have to worry about the timer, by the way.

I  also have a Nintedo Vs Dual upright and a Vs Dual cocktail (along with a bunch of boards). Both systems are a lot of fun to have around. 

Are they basically an NES in a giant box?  Yes.  Who cares, I have plenty of room and like the way they look. 

Finally someone I agree with. The whole reason I want to do this is, the cab was free, I have the hardware to do it with, parts needed are cheap, and I love to mod

[MaximRecoil]

As for you M.R,. I don't know where you get off.  I started off my paragraph with "I'm not a big fan of nintendo arcade games" so how in the blue hell do you assume that anything I said after that I stated to be "fact"?  It was all opinion.

Like I said, sloppy terminology.

Mind you it's probably the average man's opinion, but that doesn't really matter.

I didn't see any opinion from you that is "probably" the average man's opinion. For example, with the games that you claimed to be "overrated", if the "average man" agreed that these games were not that great, then they wouldn't be rated highly in the first place. It would be like saying that the average man's opinion is that Poly Play is "overrated". 

I disagree with the resposes about the sticks btw.  Buttons on a console are FAR easier to press more quickly, you just prefer arcade buttons.  It's simple math... you have less than 16th of an inch to depress on a console pad while a good quarter of an inch to depress on a arcade button.

Your simple math doesn't establish what you think it establishes. With the small variances we are talking about here, travel distance of a button has little to do with how fast you can repeatedly press it. You can press a button faster by tapping it with your finger, where most of the motion is in your wrist and elbow, than when you are holding a control pad and trying to tap fast with only your thumb. This is why it is common to see someone with a control pad, when they have to tap a button fast for whatever reason in a game, to take and rest the right side of it against their lap or whatever so they can free their right hand to tap the button rapidly with their finger arcade style. 
 

Same goes for a d-pad verses a stick.  The throw on a nintendo stick is farily large considering it is used on nintendo games that were meant to be played on a d-pad, which has instantianous "throw".

I'd still like to know how you think a game that was "meant" to be played with a D-Pad is any different than one that is "meant" to be played on a joystick. Do you think there is a special way of programming games for D-Pad use?

It's not about the physical inputs, it's about responsiveness.  The nes aracde panels aren't responsive enough for a lot of the pc10 games.  That's the main reason I dis-like the arcade versions of punchout graphics aside (I prefer the more cartoony look of the consoles)  the dpad responded quickly and worked a lot better for a boxing game.

The arcade controls are responsive enough that I can marathon both PO and SPO. I can marathon the games on MAME with a D-Pad (Playstation controller with USB adaptor) or on my arcade machine; it doesn't make a difference to me; your "simple math" notwithstanding. In fact, I don't like the responsiveness of the NES version of PO, and it has nothing to do with the controller. The NES version simply has weird counterintuitive timing built into the game itself. The dodge function has a slight delay and is twitchy, most likely due to the less frames of animation compared to the arcade. Arcade PO and SPO simply have better mechanics, not to mention graphics and sound.

What do you mean by proof on the DK stuff?  I didn't exactly take pics of me beating it in the arcade in the late 80's when I was a little boy.  Back then I was a lot younger and my taste for video games was a lot less sophisticated.  Dk is great when you are 10, but when you are 26 you realize it doesn't hold up so well over time.  I don't have the attention span left to go through dk anymore.

Not many people can reach the kill screen on Donkey Kong. Being able to do that puts you in the running for a record on the game. Setting a top record on DK is a big deal too, the last time it happened it actually made the mainstream media.

So just to be clear, your claim is, that when you were 10 in 1990 or so, you found a DK machine still on location (last one I saw on location was around '83 until the retro arcades came along in the late 90's/early 00's) and you played it enough that you got good enough at it to reach the kill screen, and yet you care little for the game these days and never even liked the joystick. I don't mean any offense, it is just difficult to believe without evidence. Do you remember your score range for reaching the kill screen?

[Dav]

Some of us just happen to like arcade games.  For us guys that were around in the early '80's consoles were just cheap imitations of the real things and they always will be for me.

Not in this case.  You aren't playing arcade games, you are playing console games.  So in that respect you are playing a cheap imitation of the regular way in which the games are supposed to be presented. 

The pc10, by nintendo's own admission was nothing more than a marketing tool to get kids to buy new games for their nes.  The intent was never for you to play the entire game on the playchioce, the intent was to get you hooked so you'd go buy it, as it'd cost that much to get enough time to beat the game on the pc anyway.   The reason only a handful of carts were made for the pc 10 was because, well this was a bad idea.  Why pay a quarter for a few seconds of gameplay to demo a game when you can do it at a department store kiosk for free?  For that matter, why not rent the game for a couple of bucks and hold on to it all week?

I think you are getting off-topic dav... this isn't a console vs arcade thing, this is a console vs console thing.  One is tiny and makes sense to the average person, one takes up the size of a fridge and doesn't to most people. 

No you're wrong, if it comes in a large wood box, accepts coins and lives in an arcade it's an arcade game.  Any arcade collector can tell the difference.  You obviously are not.  Clearly some arcade games are better than others, but that doesn't make them that much less interesting to a collector.

Actually my PC10 takes up less space than my NES,  as I have the pcb with a jamma adapter.  And of course I don't use the nintendo sticks, which are a little small for my taste.  And there's no question the video is better on a pc10.

[Raven..]

Come on Dav...build me an adapter.  (or at least send me the plans).   

[StephenH]

The reason NES Cart to PC-10 is complex is the following:


1) Playchoice-10 carts contain more data then the NES cart does.  There is a Z80 ROM that is used for the MENU PROCESSOR, which contains the game instructions.  The Menu processor is the part that displays game instructons, controls the timer, and allows the user to select and change games.   The menu processor also stops the game and displays a "Continue" message when time runs out.

2) PC-10 carts use a different connector than NES does to accomodate the menu data and game code in one cart.

3) a PC-10 board contains a BIOS Rom to boot up and control the timer. 

4) PC-10 carts also contain a protection chip whic his used to prevent NES carts from being bootlegged and hacked to work on a PC-10.  This encrypts a portion of the menu processor code, and the protection PROM contains a Z-80 instruction that is different from each game. 

5) A PC-10 board contains a bankswitch mechanism for selecting which game ROM data gets sent to the game processor (N2A03).

6) The PC-10 game boards menu processor can also control the following inputs to the game processor:  Reset, Stop, and disable inputs.  These are used for changing games, allowing the game to pause when time is up, and to disable the game controls. 

[markrvp]

I'll also say that I do not like Nintendo arcade sticks and have found them broken on several arcade machines.  I much prefer the Pacman joystick for 4-way games.

[fredster]

Don't you think it would be easier (and pardon me for not reading all this thread) to convert the NES to run in the arcade machine instead?

There are all kinds of weird video issues you'll run into with sync.  I can't imagine all the issues you'd have to hack.

[Nannuu]

I'd say Mame it but only use the Nintendo VS arcade games.  Then add a NES emulator so you can play all of the NES versions.  That is much less complicated and will play all of the games.  I agree with what you want to do 8way but it just seems like it would be nicer to play ALL of the games and not just a few.  I had to skip some of the posts though as my eyes were tearing up with laughter so I may have missed a similar comment above.

[Kremmit]

I would never play Donkey Kong Jr with a Pacman stick, and I would never play Pacman with a Nintendo stick.  I think the PC10 was a poor choice to invest my quarter in when I was a kid, and I think it's neat to hack one to do more stuff today.  I would never actually undertake the project myself, and I would never tell somebody else they're wrong to do so.

Most importantly, I would never get involved in a giant stupid-butt arguement on the internet about any of it, particularly with Howard or Maximum Recoil.  Geez, you guys, can't anybody have their own opinion?

 

[Stingray]

Most importantly, I would never get involved in a giant stupid-butt arguement on the internet about any of it, particularly with Howard or Maximum Recoil.  Geez, you guys, can't anybody have their own opinion?

 

Kremmit as the voice of reason... who woulda thunk it?

-S