Feeble Little Timesinks

Alright, continuing on where we left off:



The old connector is off. However, before we put the new one on, we're in prime position to take care of that pesky lockout chip. Turning the motherboard over will reveal it.



That's it right above those two blue capacitors, the right-lowest of the chips. Disabling it it actually incredibly easy. There are a total of 16 Pins connecting it. 8 on the top and 8 on the bottom. With it situated in the way in the picture, all that's needed to disable it is to disconnect the 4th pin on the bottom set.



Use something small to pull it out and be careful of those caps right there. Once it's disconnected, the chips authentication is disabled. That's all there was to it.

Now, flip it back over and slide on the new 72 Pin connector. From there, just start putting everything back together. Be mindful of which screw went where and what all that screw went through. It can be a bit confusing going backwards.

Also, one pitfall to watch out for is when you reattach the Cartridge Slot Housing, the two screws by where the door will be do not get tightened all the way. Doing so makes the bridge no longer push down. Too loose and the bridge will go down but not click into place. Adjust them little by little until the bridge easily goes up and down and clicks into place each time.



After putting it all back together, you should have an NES that operates like it did when it came out of the box.

This one in particular fired up the cartridge on the first go:



And there you have it. Like I said, detailed instructions are available many places online, so if this is something you want to try out, you have a lot of resources.