@rey @typhlosion cutting the pin is probably safer and easier; when you need to remove a DIP IC and you don't need it to remain functional that's usually the best way to do it is just cut all the pins then desolder them one by one

you do need the 10NES to remain functional but not this one pin; I think there's other stuff that stops the system working if the 10NES is removed completely. i believe the pin you remove is just the one that connects to the reset signal

-F

@rey @typhlosion could be an impetus for you to get some side cutters though! you'd certainly have more use for them outside this project than kassy, who i don't know if she plans to do much hardware work, though i don't want to put words in her mouth of course
-F

@Felthry @rey i would love to get more into this stuff! though i dont really have a workspace for hardware stuff yet.

i did manage to mutilate pin 4 all the way off the 10nes chip somehow. pic attached (mild hardware gore i guess??). um. hopefully that will work??? im honestly kind of really scared, lmao.

@typhlosion @rey Looks like you've done the job there honestly! it's very hard to damage the chip inside by doing anything to the pins on the outside
-F

@Felthry @rey im less worried about damaging the chip inside and more worried about the sheer artlessness of the way i did it having knock-on effects, or of having picked the wrong pin or such

@typhlosion @rey Nope! That is indeed pin 4, and the only possible knock-on effect would be if some metal fragments bridge other pins; just give it a good brushing or even a spray from a can duster to get rid of any of those
-F

@Felthry @rey yknow, if someone told me id be kneeling in front of my bed to screw something and having the nagging feeling im doing it wrong, my first thought would be "awkward date," not "console repair"

@Felthry @rey update: when i put my Golf cartridge in, it boots to a solid yellow screen rather than doing a reset loop. which... is progress! that tells me theres something else wrong, probably with the cartridge.

when i tried Lizard before i snipped the pin, it showed the first frame of the title screen in the reset loop, which tells me that that game was probably on a good cartridge but the lockout chip was fritzing. the fact that Golf shows a solid color tells me maybe its pins are bad

@typhlosion @rey progress! try Lizard in it again maybe? That sounds like the closest thing to a known good cartridge you have

It's also possible the cartridge connector is too oxidized to make good contact; that's easy enough to clean. You can just spray contact cleaner in there and that usually helps, but you can also get these purpose-made things like this https://www.1upcard.com/products/the-1upcard-nes-console-and-game-cleaner-bundle?variant=20327843398

it's just an NES cartridge with a mild abrasive instead of electrical contacts, so it cleans off the oxide
-F

@Felthry @rey yeah, i'll try lizard in it next. that one was completely unused and hadn't even been taken out of the box before i tried it last night, so if that one isn't good it's definitely not due to usage

i did a quick visual inspection of the pin connector on the NES side when i had everything off, and it didn't look corroded (i think someone had replaced it before i got it) which is why i think it's an issue with the Golf cartridge (perhaps corrosion on *those* pins)

@typhlosion @rey yeah there could be corrosion on the cartridge pins too

if someone's replaced the cartridge connector on the NES side that doesn't necessarily mean it's good, for something like this you want pretty good gold plating on the contacts and nintendo used a pretty thin gold plating (which rubbed off over many cartridge insertions) and some of the replacements don't even use gold at all (good ones would probably be like, 30-50 μ" gold and yes that's a very cursed unit)
-F

@rainwarrior @typhlosion clearly i don't know as much about the nes specifically as i'd thought!

gold plating on these types of connectors is kinda the standard, i'd be surprised if nintendo didn't use it
-F

@rainwarrior @typhlosion you definitely have to gold plate the cartridges yeah, edge connectors won't last very long if they don't have a hard gold plating
-F

@rainwarrior @typhlosion aaa now i'm feeling embarrassed, i was pretty confident in most of that but apparently we just got it from some who-knows-where unreliable source
-F

@rainwarrior @typhlosion it's just two card edge connectors connected with a ribbon cable right? should be pretty easy to make, card edge connectors are cheap (though gold plated ones obviously a little more expensive)

i suspect it's going to be a standard spacing too
-F