From James D Pollock <xxxxxx@postoffice.worldnet.att.net>
Date
At 03:58 PM 4/16/00 -0400, you wrote:
>up. In the process of sorting through them, I noticed two of them had no top
>side labels. Thinking they had worn off, i pulled them out to look at the
>flat side, and what I saw was quite the surprise; microchips!
These are development carts. They have the standard NES cartridge body, but
there are sockets where the ROMs normally go. Then you can insert EPROMs
in the carts as you develop them. They are rare, and useful if you choose
to develop NES games, otherwise, about the same as a normal game. There
are about a dozen and a half different cartridge types, it sounds like you
have some of the latest if they are stamped '92.
They will work in a standard, front-loading NES if you pop the little
retaining
brace that runs across the top of the cart carriage. It will pop right off if
you pull on it, but it'll come all at once and you'll whack your fingertips.
A small price to pay for the ability to run development carts.
>My question is this: Are these illegal copies, or are these the review
>copies / beta copies / etc that Jaleco would have sent to a game magazine
Yes, or for internal development. Usually only the ROMs were exchanged
between the licensee and Nintendo (and therefore Nintendo Power) because
of course NOA had all the development carts and it's cheaper to modem than
to ship fedex. For final submission, a game publisher had to provide three
sets of physical ROMs to NOA.
>for review? And what do the PRG/CHR abbrevations mean? Program and
>Characters?
Yes, PRG is program and CHR is character. By character, of course, they
mean graphics.