Are the NES and Famicom compatible?
For all intents and purposes, yes. With the proper adaptors, you can play Famicom games on your NES, and NES games in your Famicom. Just remember when you look for your adaptors that the NES has 72 pins; and the Famicom, 60. There are some caveats, though: For Famicom games with sound chips built-in, the sound from the cartridge will not pass through to the NES. Also, some adaptors inhibit the special scanline or IRQ timing circuitry of the cartridge if the adaptor connector is not clean enough, or if a good connection is not made. Finally, if you are using an adaptor to play NES games on your Famicom, the use of a Game Genie with this combination might not work. The Genie might not fit into the adaptor’s connector, or there might be a bad buzzing noise while the game is turned on. • Is the NES and Famicom hardware identical? From a software standpoint, yes. I know of no way for a game to detect whether it is running on an American system or a Japanese system, unless there are ways to
