NES-101 travels & mishaps

[zionfarm]

Hello everybody,

Boy do I have a story/testimony for you guys, I recently acquired a NES-101 from EBay with a couple games for a decent price. Now a little back story, after watching all of the My life in gaming videos on youtube and reading and watching numerous RGB videos. I was set on getting a NES-101 system one day. So I went out first to my local video game areas here in Korea. But to my luck and obviously being in a Asian country all of the systems were either gonna be Korean or Japanese systems. So I said to myself I would just look and test but buy eventually purchase from Ebay or Amazon. So I went the Ebay route and with patience and a lil bit of sniping I got a one owner NES-101 with two controllers, one light gun, and 6 games. The guy was very helpful and courteous when it came to shipping to my military address over here in Korea.

At this time I have been waiting around 10 days for my package to come arrive in country. It normally takes around the same time 10-14 days for packages to arrive to a military address any where in the world............except when your unit is at a remote location and your unit has to pick up the mail from a hub station like Yongsan Korea which is like 1 hour and 20 minutes from my location of Panmunjeom right next to the demilitarized zone (DMZ). So this past Friday our mail handler picked up our mail from Yongsan and I was intent and knew my NES would be in here on the camp. What I saw when I got up to the mail room was devastating to my eyes as my heart dropped into my belly. The box looked liked it had fell into the ocean or something..........I will let the pictures do describe what it looked like.




The mail handler told me man I don't know what happened to your box. He said the post office got it like that and they had no words for him or for me. Now I'm a pretty resilient guy that never loses his cool for anything. So I stayed positive and prayed that it was packaged good enough inside the box to survive the trip from the states to Korea. So I got all my mail and went back to room with excitement and a bit of nervousness with a whole lot of Dam........running through my head. On a positive note I also picked up a black Retron 5 to hold me over once I get all of my systems off for RGB modding. I immediately unboxed the soggy box that held my NES-101 along with the games it came with. Inspected all the games and the system not knowing if it would power on after being in a hurricane rain storm, and everything kinda looked good. I powered on the Retron 5 and tested out all of the games and to my luck...............................................................they all worked!!!!!!!!!

Now I just needed to test the system to see if it would work. Saturday morning I decided to put the NES in front of my dehumidifier for a good hour just to dry out any components that may have been damped. That night I decided to test out the system but had to wait seeing that I have the Playstation 3d display that does not have a RF connector to it. So I packed up the system with the two controls and two of the games, Legend Of Zelda (Gold cartridge, & Kung Fu) and I headed to my office. I get to my office and go into the conference room and to my luck the 120V power converter does not work. So now I'm like hmmm where can I test this thing out knowing that I need a TV with a RF hookup in 2015. Light Bulb!!!!! goes off in my head, our gym has a big Ass 50 something inch TV in there with a RF hookup. I headed over to the gym and begin to unscrew the AFN coaxial input (Armed Forces Network). At this time I'm patiently waiting to see if this thing will power up. I finally figure out how to change the TV channel on this Korean TV to channel 3. So moment of truth after a lil over 18 days of waiting for my NES-101 to arrive in Korea.......The fist game I put in is Kung Fu and nothing, the TV is detecting the NES input but no video. So I go for the Legend of Zelda and Boooooooom, the system turns on.

At this time I'm so excited that this twenty something old gaming system still works after being in a damp box which may have gotten soaked but luckily for me it didn't get all the way to the system. so I finally get Kung Fu to work and I try both of the controllers and they both work. Man I must say that this lil system is one tuff lil sucker to make it all this way.

[flojocabron]

Wow!

Glad you got it working despite all that hardship!

Bust out some q-tips and some rubbing alcohol (high percentage) and give that games metal contacts some cleaning.

Its the best you can do without opening the cart.

Edit: crap! You did fix it! Didn't read far enough, I was making breakfast and took a quick look at your story.( End edit)

Put up a pic too! Please.

Unless your job is top secret?

[Tanooki]

Good story, and Nintendo used to make systems that were rugged like a brick and lasted like one too regardless of what kind of weather got thrown at the things (turned off at least.) I'm kind of not surprised it worked if it was dry when you fired it up as it wasn't powered when you had it in transit to fry something. I guess you can throw this one on the wall with the other crazy stories over the years such as the Gameboy that got mortared in the Gulf War and melted but still played Tetris to others of those things left outside during an entire winter with snow and working fine dried in the spring. Imagine that anything since the N64/GBC era it would have been probably done in depending where the water got to it.

[zionfarm]

I will upload some working pictures of the NES once I get back from the field.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TSTR]

They sure don't make em like they used to, eh?

[Tanooki]

No they don't. The last Nintendo console I had was the WiiU and it was the first NIntendo console ever to up and die on me, ever. That huge stupid update they did like 2 years ago to add a lot of functionality delayed to the system, it broke the flash chip in my system in the process of writing it and it nuke my launch system. I was a month out of warranty but Nintendo because of that replaced it, annoyingly with a refurb that had a scratched up (light-moderately) frame to it while the one I sent in was spotless. I totally lost interest after that almost completely, then the game issues of them not existing from third parties and I sold it basically unused.

I got a GBC lime one over the weekend that looked like it might be salvagable as it wasn't in the best of shape. I put an hour into it cleaning out junk in the battery back, used my pinball Novus 1-2-3 kit on the plastics, stripped it to the bones and sanitized and degrimed it and it works great and looks very nice. It could use a new plastic lens but the scuffs while numerous are not deep and don't light up when the games are in play. I know it was treated roughly, but you try that with a modern handheld and it'll shatter.

[Exhuminator]

Nintendo used to make systems that were rugged like a brick and lasted like one too regardless of what kind of weather got thrown at the things (turned off at least.) The last Nintendo console I had was the WiiU and it was the first NIntendo console ever to up and die on me, ever.

The last Nintendo console to made from purified nintendium was the GameCube. Nintendo got cheap after that, and have been using inferior alloys since.

[TSTR]

Nintendo used to make systems that were rugged like a brick and lasted like one too regardless of what kind of weather got thrown at the things (turned off at least.) The last Nintendo console I had was the WiiU and it was the first NIntendo console ever to up and die on me, ever.

The last Nintendo console to made from purified nintendium was the GameCube. Nintendo got cheap after that, and have been using inferior alloys since.

That got a good laugh out of me.

[Tanooki]

Ditto. I've heard the term but but never looked it up, just knew it had to do with durability but that link is a laugh. I would agree from the exterior of them. Trust me I've seen stupid people take them by the handle and throw the things out on the ground at flea markets out west. You'd think the handle would break off or the door or black circle on it would pop but no, just a scrape or a scratch -- then they'd still work. I just didn't include them because any optical drive will fail far sooner than hard parts like carts and slots because you got motors(gears/belts) lasers that can fail or get out of sync, etc. But yes the GC is about as rock solid as a disc based system for gaming ever will be.

That part you quoted I was thinking specifically about their pre2000s stuff such as the n64 and the Gameboy/GB Color. And the metals comment is a laugh but no joke. Back when I was at midway we had this stock 64 we used for post testing of final builds before shipping and one of them failed for whatever reason. It still powered but wouldn't read. We took it outside for some 'fun' and I kid you not it would NOT die. The biggest dude we threw at it was in excess of 300lbs and very tall, this big black dude named Tony who was a pro-wrestler in training in the local circuit. He got to elbow dropping it, stomping it, nothing worked. Eventually it had to be balanced up against a cement curb for similar abuse to finally break open and even then the motherboard wouldn't crack, just chipped the edges, due to that huge metal bar across the board inside it just wouldn't die. That thing would put even the NES and SNES to shame as far as being bomb recover worthy like that Desert Storm mortar attack Gameboy that still played Tetris. You probably could make a bomb squad suit out of the things and have no worries in life doing that job.