At the time of its release in 1993, the NES-101 barely registered on the radar for most serious gamers. With the 16-bit era in full swing, the low-priced NES ($49.99 at release) was lost in the shuffle. Known as the Top Loader, the cheap looking NES wasn’t as flimsy as it looked. Improved hardware and most importantly, an improved 72-pin connector meant the days of huffing and puffing into non-working game cartridges was a thing of the past.
The NES-101 or "Top Loader" was light years more reliable than the original NES but suffered from a major shortcoming: no RCA AV out!
It would have been the ideal NES system except for one slight oversight: the video composite signal was only pushed out in RF, not higher quality AV. Worse still was the fact the RF output was lousy, most notably in dark backgrounds where faint but quite visible vertical lines would appear. One would assume that eliminating the AV out was a money saving measure to keep the price down.
For years my Top Loader sat on the shelf, as I preferred the cranky nature of my original NES with its high quality output over the visually flawed (but always reliable) Top Loader. Japan had an AV ready version of the Top Loader known as the “Famicom-AV” which I considered but ultimately never bought. After not thinking about it for some time, I eventually game upon this awesome NES Modifying Site. For a reasonable price, I sent out my Top Loader to be beefed up to AV output and as an added perk, threw in a red LED light on the power switch.
With a little bit of modding, the NES Top Loader now has fancy-pants AV outputs!
Game-Tech was very professional, quick and did a fantastic job on my NES. When I tested it, everything worked like a charm and my games have never looked better. And no more blinking screen of death!! The red LED is a nice touch too, though maybe not as cool as this custom mod. Now I have the best of both worlds: a true Nintendo developed console that not only looks and sounds great but is incredibly reliable!
The red LED light is a nice touch, don't you think?
All my games have worked perfectly and there’s not the slightest trace of the vertical lines that ruined the original Top Loader experience. I’d highly recommend Game-Tech if you want some mods done on your classic consoles. Long live classic gaming!
Everything works like a charm!
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