Computer Depot Inc.

Are you Affected by the Equifax Hack?

You may already know that Equifax has recently had a data breach.  Over 143 million people have had their personal information released into the wild.  Things like Social Security numbers and dates of birth.  Have you been affected?

NEW video up! Defeating Ganon on Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

New Video Up! How to Spot Fake/Repro Games!

Easiest Gaming Mod Ever??

So, continuing with our gaming series, since it has been a popular one: today we take a look at modding a North American Super Nintendo, so that you are able to play Super Famicom (Japanese) games on this "region locked" device.

NES Region Lock and Video Chip

In Nintendo's older device, the Nintendo Entertainment System, there was a chip installed that prevented you from playing unlicensed games. Also, Famicom games (Japan's version of the NES) had a completely different amount of connection pins. A leg on this chip can be disconnected inside of the NES to allow unlicensed games, and adapters have been made to adjust for the pin difference - for example, here is the Honey Bee.

How to Play Famicom Games on your Super Nintendo

The Super Nintendo, however is quiet possibly the easiest region lock to break...literally, you have to break two plastic pieces, and you are done. In the following video, we show you not only this, but a tear down of the SNES. Taking the SNES completely apart not only makes the breaking of the plastic easier and cleaner, but prevents plastic from falling and being forever trapped inside.

Enjoy!

Tools Needed:

Gaming Screwdriver/Bit

Phillips Head Screwdriver

Gaming Repairs

As most of you who follow us can tell, we have been doing some unusual repairs on our youtube channel to keep things fresh. Obviously, we will continue to provide reviews and walkthroughs of normal computer repairs, but it has been made apparent that our viewers are very interesting in our gaming videos. Whether or not we start doing let's plays, remains to be seen, but we have really enjoy the response to our gaming repairs. We only do these repairs by special request in the shop, but we have really kept our eyes open at the flea markets and yard sales for anything that we can fix up to make things interesting. If you have suggestions for new and interesting tech projects that you would like to see, leave us a comment here, on youtube, twitter, or Facebook.

Gameboy Advance Button Repairs

In this episode, we take a look a Gameboy Advance that we picked up at the flea market for a very low price. After leaving we found that the A/B and D-pad buttons did not work on the system. So, in true Computer Depot fashion, we documented our experience of fixing the buttons on the system. You can check out the repair in the video below.

Tools Needed:

Tri-wing Screwdriver

Phillips Head Screwdriver

Q-tips

For our followers out there who are true nerds just like us: you likely have some involvement with gaming. Nerd or no, most people are involved in some sort of gaming community whether its PC, console, or even mobile. I take part in all of the above.

I myself take part in some adventures on Steam, but I also own a PS4, a Wii U, and plenty of of mobile games. However, even with all of the latest graphics and gigantic story lines, nothing compares to my love of my classic gaming consoles and my collection of vintage games. My collection isn't huge, but I am certainly working on it. Unfortunately, with the recent popularity of nostalgic gaming, the price of vintage games has sky rocketed. You can still find deals at flea markets, yard sales, and thrift stores if the local dealers haven't swept them up already to resale.

My current console rack contains an NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, and a Sega Genesis (model 2). As you can tell: I am a Nintendo guy, at least when it comes to the oldies. Would I love to expand my console collection? Absolutely, but I have the core systems that I want except for a few select hand- held systems and the Famicom.

I digress. With all of this in mind and for the vintage nerds like myself, we have created some vintage game maintenance videos on our youtube channel. In this Part 1 blog, lets take a look at cleaning up the cartridges for the ever so classic, Nintendo Entertainment System. In this episode, we save a copy of Ninja Gaiden that by it's appearance doesn't seem salvageable.

I realize this is an off-shoot of what we actually do at Computer Depot Inc, but we thought we might mix it up a bit! Did you guys enjoy this blog? If so, send us requests for more video and blog ideas!

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