Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Discuss technical or other issues relating to programming the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, or compatible systems. See the NESdev wiki for more information.

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Jaysin
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Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by Jaysin »

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
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Dwedit
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by Dwedit »

The CPU had several revisions. For example, some of the earliest versions had no looped noise mode, those ended up in Arcade machines.
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Jaysin
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by Jaysin »

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
lidnariq
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by lidnariq »

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.
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kevtris
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by kevtris »

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.
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lidnariq
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by lidnariq »

kevtris wrote:the C rev PPU hasn't been found either.
I know it's a single data point, but Electronics Junker seems to have a 2C02C.
Great Hierophant
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by Great Hierophant »

kevtris wrote:
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.
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.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by mikejmoffitt »

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

Image

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.
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kevtris
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by kevtris »

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.
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tepples
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by tepples »

StevieGoodwin
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Need a new NES-CPU-01 board! Does anyone have one?

Post by StevieGoodwin »

Hi guys, Sorry for bumping this post, forgive me, but i’m kinda 6 years late
to the game here, but i also have an NES
with a low serial. It’s serial is N0213020 and it
has a 1985 motherboard in it as well
but it’s revision is NES-CPU-03.
CPU is an 2A03E and PPU is a 2C02E.
Image
Then on March 20 this year, I’ve gotten another
low serial NES for $200 on eBay that also has an 1985 motherboard in it
with serial starting with N0092700.
Interestingly, It’s revision is NES-CPU-01 on board when
i found the revision when i opened it up. :D
But when i first got the NES-CPU-01,
It had some serious problems though, Whenever i used an original NES AC adapter, I would get horrible buzzing noises and black and white bars on my screen. When i tried a Sega Genesis Model 1 (MK-1602) DC adapter, It then worked and got a blinking blue screen on my TV indicating that there’s no game inside. But then 2 days later on March 22, The CPU-01 unit unfortunately died and then there was a horrible smell coming from the RF modulator box and there was no power light anymore when i put the NES back together and i was so upset at this point that i ruined such a rare find! 😢😡 (The machine died). I then tried using a Weller’s soldering iron and soldering wick to remove the RF box to replace it with a new one. I tried replacing the caps on the old RF box, but i accidentally ripped off a solder pad and then even with new caps, The NES still wouldn’t power up. 😢 Then i tried to desolder the entire RF box to replace it from another NES board i had, Well, my iron just couldn’t generate enough heat to wick all the solder away from the board. What am i doing wrong? If i can’t get my CPU-01 board working, Does anyone have a spare board for me that i can use to repair my N0092700 console? It cost me so much money and i can’t pay that much money for a NES and i found another CPU-01 on eBay, but that’s like a $1,000,00 and i’m not paying that much for an NES. Or is it better if i just send my old board to someone on this forum who does know how to repair these.
calima
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Re: Building a Timeline of NES CPU Production

Post by calima »

There are new NES mobos being made like OpenTendo.
Pokun
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Re: Need a new NES-CPU-01 board! Does anyone have one?

Post by Pokun »

StevieGoodwin wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 9:28 am It’s serial is N0213020 and it
has a 1985 motherboard in it as well
but it’s revision is NES-CPU-03.
CPU is an 2A03E and PPU is a 2C02E.
The PPU says 2C02E-0 in the picture. CPU rev E and PPU rev E-0 is as early as they go for NTSC NES AFAIK. At least a NES-CPU-01 board in the N0045000 range is reported to use that.
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Memblers
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Re: Need a new NES-CPU-01 board! Does anyone have one?

Post by Memblers »

StevieGoodwin wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 9:28 am It had some serious problems though, Whenever i used an original NES AC adapter, I would get horrible buzzing noises and black and white bars on my screen. When i tried a Sega Genesis Model 1 (MK-1602) DC adapter, It then worked and got a blinking blue screen on my TV indicating that there’s no game inside. But then 2 days later on March 22, The CPU-01 unit unfortunately died and then there was a horrible smell coming from the RF modulator box and there was no power light anymore when i put the NES back together and i was so upset at this point that i ruined such a rare find! 😢😡 (The machine died). I then tried using a Weller’s soldering iron and soldering wick to remove the RF box to replace it with a new one. I tried replacing the caps on the old RF box, but i accidentally ripped off a solder pad and then even with new caps, The NES still wouldn’t power up. 😢 Then i tried to desolder the entire RF box to replace it from another NES board i had, Well, my iron just couldn’t generate enough heat to wick all the solder away from the board. What am i doing wrong?
It sounds to me like some diodes in the bridge rectifier failed. The DC adapter would use two diodes, while the AC adapter uses all four. That may be why it was working with the DC adapter.

The RF box is very difficult to remove because all the metal, plus the ground fills on the mainboard conduct the heat away. The technique I use to remove one uses a desoldering iron, temp cranked up, in addition to a desoldering gun, also cranked up. You might want to add solder to the joints first, and you almost need a second person to help hold that second iron on it.
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Ben Boldt
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Re: Need a new NES-CPU-01 board! Does anyone have one?

Post by Ben Boldt »

Memblers wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:23 pm You might want to add solder to the joints first
I do a lot of soldering of heavy stuff where I work. (We design power supplies.) I have a couple more pointers.
  • Use lead-based solder instead of lead-free. #1 important tip. "RoHS" or any green color anywhere on packaging = do not buy that solder. You want it to have part Tin (Sn) and part Lead (Pb). Not pure tin, not pure lead.
  • Don't use hot air for anything heavy like this. Hot air is best for SMD parts.
  • Unsoldering the metal chassis can be done with a solder sucker and/or wick/braid.
  • When all that is left attached is the pins, you can take a thick solid wire, like used in romex in a house. Bend it to a U shape to fit exactly the pins inside the U. Use a soldering iron to solder it down to all pins, adding plenty of solder to do that. The inside of the U should be full of solder without gaps. Then run your soldering iron back and forth along that thick wire and soon everything, including all pins, will flow at the same time so you can remove it. Then cleanup can be done easily with solder sucker/wick/braid.
  • Do not place any NES PCB on a solder pot. It will burst instantly from low quality, old age, and moisture inside.
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