I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, and haven't found a good way of doing it yet. Does anyone have a good and non-destructive method for opening regular Famicom carts? It took me nearly an hour to get into one and it broke the case (it was broken Mario cart anyway). Seeing the layout of the plastic holding pieces should make it simple, but it isn't helping. Any good tips out there? Some pirate carts can be open very easily and with such cheap materials and construction they can be opened and closed easily without damage. I'm going to photograph the cart type and document it for anyone else curious.
I saw a tool that pops open the case on Yahoo once. It was a while ago and I don't even remember what it was called, but at least I can tell you that something out ther does exist for opening them up if you're able to find it. I just did a quick scan of the auctions but wasn't able to find it again.
Do you have any good keywords in Japanese that might help me in searching for them? I keep finding security bit screw drivers with the one keyword I used but doesn't retranslate well: disassembling > 分解 > degradation.
I didn't know there was a tool to do it! Opening carts can be tricky, especially with many old carts with brittle plastic. For many Famicarts, I use the following method: Hold the cart on a hard surface or to your chest*. Grasp one end of the cartridge with your fingers as you would normally do with a Vulcan mind-meld. Thumbs on the sides of the cart, and index fingers on each top half. Push one top part (the rear half) up and away with your (left) thumb and index finger, and push the other top part (the front half) down with your (right) index finger, and pull the case halves away. Arrows indicate magnitude and direction of force. Most Famicarts have the hooks coming from the front half of the cartridge, but beware, some carts have the hooks coming from the back. So switch your orientation in that case. *surface may not be suitably hard in the case of female gamers.
If I come across it again I'll post it here. I don't remember the kanji that they used, but I can tell you that I saw it sometime in the last 30 days so it still might be lurking around.
I didn't see anything in what I've always assumed was the Famicom category, I went through every item looking for anything that looks like it might fit around the cart or into the holes on the top but not luck yet, just a lot of interesting gadgets.
I searched the Famicom "other" category, and the cart section for "action" and "other" games. Those are the sections I usually scan through so I thought maybe I saw it there. That was about 150 pages. No dice...
do you know this site? http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/home.php They got lots of Famicom Game Scans and stuff.
I know about BootGod's database, it's one of the reasons why I was wanting to get into the carts. I have several carts that aren't there yet.
