I guarantee this little baby would sell like hotcakes if ever it were mass-produced, no question. This little creation of mine, (dubbed the "Super-72 Connector" cause it sounds neato), is a replacement edge connector for the 8-bit NES. You install it in the exact same fashion as the regular replacement connectors and WHAMO! ...Your NES works like new. Now, you might ask "Well, what makes this one so special over the regular ones I can buy online for $8?" The answer is quite simple: IT KEEPS WORKING. (For those of you uneducated to the poor design of the original connector, allow me to explain...)

Long long ago (the early 80s), in a galaxy far far away (I'm assuming Japan), there lived a monkey named Bill. Bill was a special monkey with special needs. He only had two fingers per hand, a third nipple on his forehead, was blind in one eye and fell out of trees into jagged rocks multiple times when he was young and "invincible". Bill also experimented with many drugs later in life when he found it hard to fit in with the other chimps because of his defects. Eventually Bill tried cleaning up his act and got a job working for Nintendo of America where he was appointed the job of designing the 72-pin NES cartridge connector. Thanks Bill! ...You crazy asshole.

I've tried, and believe me, it's pretty hard to think of anything with a worse design than that piece of shit. It's absolutely horrible. Almost lawsuit-worthy when you think about it. (Forgive me if I'm insulting your intelligence, but I figure it should be explained anyway.) If you look at the bottom of any NES game, you're likely to see several little metal contacts on the board. In order for all those little pins to make a good contact with the pins inside the system, you had to push the game downward. (Remember? Slide the game in and push down.) That was they're major design flaw. Over time, many of these pins inside the cartridge connector get bent upwards and don't make a good contact to the pins on the game, if at all. The result? *ahem* Remember those blinking screens? Remember blowing in the games? Remember slapping the system around to make things work? ...Yeah. Thought so. Anyway, we here at StupidFingers would like to present Bill the monkey with the award of Supreme Idiocy for his horrid shitball of a cart connector design. I'd also like to take this moment to extend my middle finger in the direction of Nintendo of America for not jumping on the ball and redesigning that turd when they started noticing problems. (I do not count the "Top-Loader" NES, as it came along much later. There are no excuses.)

Well, I thought I'd adress the problem myself since it seemed nobody else would. (Except you other fellas that came up with homemade solutions. I salute you). My goal was to design a catridge connector that would install just as easy as the original ones (no physical case modification necessary) and have it outperform the originals. ...AND LAST!

Things were a little tricky at first, but all in all, I wouldn't say it was that hard. All you really need are two of the original connectors (already defunct or not, your choice) and the 72-pin edge connector desoldered from a Game Genie. In a nutshell, I dremmeled the two original cart connectors in half (horizontally) and soldered the two "good" ends together, then attached the edge connetor from the Game Genie onto one of the ends and epoxy glued it into place. The end result is a 72-pin NES connector that installs just like the original and works about as good as a top-loader! There's also no need to push the game down since the pins make a perfect contact just by sliding the game straight in. In fact, you can't physically push it down anyway. (Unless you wanted to break something, in which case you'd be insane.) As you'll notice from the images below, the games stick out a little further than usual because of the added length on the connector, but it doesn't keep the lid from closing so it's not an issue. Besides, I think it makes it easier to remove the game when it's positioned like this.

I'll probably be posting a How-To and even offering to sell these puppies once I have enough spare parts again, so keep your eyes out. (No really, keep them out! Be a man and pluck em!) And now for your viewing pleasure, some images of the soldering and various angles of the 'Super-72' connector.