Really bad fake CIB Little Samson on Ebay

[guitarzombie | 924]

4 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Looking a bit closer too, it seems that this board has an MMC3B mapper chip, but Little Samson uses an MMC3C on legit copies.  My guess is that it's not the board you would receive if you were dumb enough to buy it.  There's no reason this title would ever use an MMC3B chip unless it's a repro or a completely different game.

I would not go by this mapper variant at all.  Esp if you're using bootgod.  Anything from types of chips, to mapper variants can be all over the place.   The bottom line is this, verify the chips (NES-LS PRG etc) and the label.  Thats already 90% of the work right there.

Edited May 12, 2021 by guitarzombie

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

10 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

I would not go by this mapper variant at all.  Esp if you're using bootgod.  Anything from types of chips, to mapper variants can be all over the place.   The bottom line is this, verify the chips (NES-LS PRG etc) and the label.  Thats already 90% of the work right there.

The chips not being legible precludes that possibility.  The mapper variants COULD be all over the place, but by looking up what's there, the last MMC3B release was Contra Force, two months before Little Samson was released.  Also, the MMC3B was being phased out long before that, with only 20 releases in 1992.  The MMC3C was first used in 1991, but only 10 games were released with it prior to January 1992.  Additionally, EVERY MMC3 release after Contra Force uses MMC3C chips aside from Acclaim's (they used their own custom MMC3 instead).  So even though the chips are unreadable, this circumstantial evidence would show that either the board in the listing is NOT the one in the cart, or it's a fake of some sort.  That said, this is not information someone without the wherewithal to look would think about (I didn't until I looked closer).

[guitarzombie | 924]

True, but if that was the case, you would notice the chips not being right way before the mapper anyway.  Now we get into semantics, is a Samson 'legit' if it has real chips, but on a MMC3B board?  I say yes.  What would be the odds of having legit PRG/CHR chips but an MMC3B mapper?  To me its just meaningless. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

6 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

True, but if that was the case, you would notice the chips not being right way before the mapper anyway.  Now we get into semantics, is a Samson 'legit' if it has real chips, but on a MMC3B board?  I say yes.  What would be the odds of having legit PRG/CHR chips but an MMC3B mapper?  To me its just meaningless. 

I agree with that, and with the last game with the 3B chip being mere months before, unless the game requires something that was only available on the 3C revision, I wouldn't automatically assume it's fake because of that.  However, with the inability to see what is written on the ROM chips, I would say the mismatched mapper does increase the sketchiness of the auction. 

[guitarzombie | 924]

5 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I agree with that, and with the last game with the 3B chip being mere months before, unless the game requires something that was only available on the 3C revision, I wouldn't automatically assume it's fake because of that.  However, with the inability to see what is written on the ROM chips, I would say the mismatched mapper does increase the sketchiness of the auction. 

The rom chips didn't look rubbed off to me, but look like EEPROMs.  Those slots for the PRG and CHR chips in the PCB are unique to nintendo (again to combat piracy, which is why you see wires and stuff in there) but its possible they were programmed differently or they were able to get some mask roms out there, although I find that VERY hard to believe.  

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

8 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

The rom chips didn't look rubbed off to me, but look like EEPROMs.  Those slots for the PRG and CHR chips in the PCB are unique to nintendo (again to combat piracy, which is why you see wires and stuff in there) but its possible they were programmed differently or they were able to get some mask roms out there, although I find that VERY hard to believe.  

You may be right there.  Since the only thing visible on them was "inbond," I took to Google.  There's a company called Winbond (the circular thing next to "inbond" is likely the "W" shaped like a logo or something), and while they don't carry any sort of EPROM, they DO carry EEPROMs.  So they won't have the dead-giveaway windows, but they would most certainly be fakes.  I'm curious though - wouldn't the EEPROM still need rewiring to work on an NES board?  Of course, if you're going to that extent, it's not much more work to go and rearrange the code to the required pinout, so I guess that's irrelevant anyway.

I was hoping it was a case of a good cart with a repro box and manual...but now it looks like a straight up fake.  I pity the fool that buys it...and if these guys are legitimate victims thinking they bought the genuine article, I pity them too.

[guitarzombie | 924]

2 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

You may be right there.  Since the only thing visible on them was "inbond," I took to Google.  There's a company called Winbond (the circular thing next to "inbond" is likely the "W" shaped like a logo or something), and while they don't carry any sort of EPROM, they DO carry EEPROMs.  So they won't have the dead-giveaway windows, but they would most certainly be fakes.  I'm curious though - wouldn't the EEPROM still need rewiring to work on an NES board?  Of course, if you're going to that extent, it's not much more work to go and rearrange the code to the required pinout, so I guess that's irrelevant anyway.

I was hoping it was a case of a good cart with a repro box and manual...but now it looks like a straight up fake.  I pity the fool that buys it...and if these guys are legitimate victims thinking they bought the genuine article, I pity them too.

They should.  I saw you were dabbling in repros so I won't be talking out of school.  From the 8k up to 64k chips, they follow a JEDEC standard pinout.  So the EPROMs and the Nintendo Mask Roms are perfect fits.  Up from 128k to 512k (or even 4 Megs I think for SNES.  They actually use 8bit chips, not 16), their Mask Roms change the pinout of the address lines a bit.  Again for more copy protection, so you cant just suck the data off of it easily unless you know the pinout.  You can get away with using a special Hitachi chip EPROM thats a direct drop in for 128k PRG (I dont think it works for CHR) but for 256k you WILL need to rewire.  IIRC there was a program that allowed you to address swap some of the legs, so you had less wiring to do.  MAYBE theres better tech out there to do that?  OR they just threw in any EEPROM in there.  Who knows.