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It appears that I have a pretty early copy of Zelda?


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I opened up my Zelda 1 cart to confirm that it was the original battery that was still working inside the cartridge after all these years after a short discussion about save batteries. I noticed that the dates on the chips were pretty early. The latest one of those that I could identify was 8731, the 31st week of 1987. Neat. 
 

After some googling, I found that the 31st week of 1987 was between July 27th and August 2nd. Zelda was released in North America in August 22nd, 1987, a whole 20 days after the newest chip on this cartridge left the factory. So… this is a very early cartridge, isn’t it? The battery says 87-07, so that probably means it was made in July 1987. Must be one of the oldest batteries ever used in a video game cartridge. And it’s still working! I just find that really cool. 

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Edited by bluejay
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Hey you inspired me to crack open a game I've had since it came out at the store, never left my hands.  Maybe you'd enjoy to do some comparison here?

 

If I read you right 8723 (on the PRG) would be the 23rd week of 1987 (Week of Sunday, April 19) which would put this in June.  The other two dated chips are 8721 (Week of Sunday, May 10th)  and below that 8716 (Week of Sunday, April 5th).  The battery hard to read has 87-05 which would be May 1987.

 

Is that correct?  My battery still works as well which is insane given the time we're talking here on a 2032.  Go Maxell! :D  Glad I just ordered some LR44s from them for my Game & Watches. ;)

 

I remember when we got this game, originally was co-purchased with brother, mom brought us to the store after school the day it came out waiting in the car for it, but he never liked it in the day, turned into a sega douche eating the false advertising of 1989 and I bought him out of it then among some other games tired of the 7 year olds manipulated bad attitude.  He regretted it not too many years later, never touched it again. :D

 

Does yours use flathead screws too?

NES Zelda PCB 1987.jpg

Edited by Tanooki
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Yep, mine are flat headed screws too. 5 of them. I believe they started to use those weird star shaped security screws on the three screw cartridges. 
 

It’s really funny how all sorts of games are suffering from dead save batteries these days and some of the oldest batteries are somehow still alive. 

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Yeah I don't get it.  In all these years, any game I personally bought and have held onto all this time have never expired. The oldest one I have that has a touchy battery which is weird and unexplainable really, is a second hand (mid 90s) copy I grabbed of Sim City on SNES.  It holds data, but every so often after some years it will screw up and torch the data back to factory.  Yet I can come around, play it some more, and it's happy.  I can come back a month or a year later town still there, but then maybe another gap...might be there, might be gone.  The only dead ones I ever come across so far, second hand games, so I leave it up to treatment, environment, and maybe some bad luck of the draw.  Well...that and those dumb pokemon games where the RTC eats the battery alive in like 3-5 years (Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire) as they just choke.  I think Emerald was finally late enough it didn't do that, I'd have to look but too lazy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The dates on the chip indicate the earliest the cart could've been manufactured, but not the latest. A lot would depend on what the normal delay is between a particular chip being manufactured, and it being placed into a cart, and even then there could be outliers where a particular box of chips was misplaced and used in a later run of carts.

 

I found this site, which has an entry for a Zelda US NES cart that has a MMC1 chip dated 8719. The oldest date of a chip on that cart is 8723, which may be why the site lists the Mfg Range for US Zelda as 8723 - 9229. The estimated first run is June 1987. 

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=1332

 

Week 17 in 1987 was April 20, 1987 - April 26, 1987. This lines up with NESdev, which says the earliest MMC1 chips were April of 1987.

https://wiki.nesdev.org/w/index.php/MMC1

 

So the earliest Zelda US NES carts were assembled with chips that were made weeks to months ahead of its release date. 

 

Is there more info on where the various chips and carts were manufactured/assembled? I assume the chips were made in Japan back then, but it's not clear where the carts were made. This 1988 20/20 special shows footage of western Super Mario 2 and Zelda carts being packed up, while the voiceover says (6:47 mark) they videotaped this in Japan. 

 

This video tour of NoA in Redmond, Washington in 1990 shows the NES console being assembled, but no games:

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/15/2021 at 8:54 PM, 0078265317 said:

According to google the legend of Zelda was 

 

February 21, 1986

Release date for Japan...

 

I ran into a NES *internet* expert that claimed he had a Zelda cart in late '86. He mentioned that he lived in the L.A. test market and that's how he obtained his copy early.?

 

Thought it was interesting reading the comments here... I swore up and down, I purchased mine in July of '87 (I correlate that date since we moved into our new home.) I'm seeing here, August seems more like the official date of release. 

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  • 3 months later...
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On 11/27/2021 at 1:04 PM, schuwalker said:

Release date for Japan...

 

I ran into a NES *internet* expert that claimed he had a Zelda cart in late '86. He mentioned that he lived in the L.A. test market and that's how he obtained his copy early.?

 

Thought it was interesting reading the comments here... I swore up and down, I purchased mine in July of '87 (I correlate that date since we moved into our new home.) I'm seeing here, August seems more like the official date of release. 

I 100% purchased mine in July, 1987 in Toys R' Us here in Staten Island, NY. I remember the first time that I read it's official release date was August 1987, and knew it was wrong then. Unfortunately, Nintendo has stuck to this.

 

I don't know if it was early, mid, or late July, but it was indeed July of 1987. It became a personal nostalgia magnet with my best friends who moved to NJ in early September, and we even wrote letters to each other about that amazing July day. We played it every day until they moved. I still have the game, if any marking would help prove it. I suspect that you were correct as well, and also got yours in July.

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9 hours ago, Zap! said:

I 100% purchased mine in July, 1987 in Toys R' Us here in Staten Island, NY. I remember the first time that I read it's official release date was August 1987, and knew it was wrong then. Unfortunately, Nintendo has stuck to this.

 

I don't know if it was early, mid, or late July, but it was indeed July of 1987. It became a personal nostalgia magnet with my best friends who moved to NJ in early September, and we even wrote letters to each other about that amazing July day. We played it every day until they moved. I still have the game, if any marking would help prove it. I suspect that you were correct as well, and also got yours in July.

I live in the same world of internet weirdos re-writing history to fit whatever narrative they want to push in going in circles about history.  On those who pay close enough attention to the dating of things I get push back that it's some old trick of my memory confusing me, but given it was a Christmas present, evidence of that not here (but there) that still exists, and the given launch date of the games and knowing when I got specific titles by such people in certain holidays, birthdays, or the rare random event I know to be true.  The NES test launch is so called pushed as New York area only for 1985, but if you dig deep enough beyond the wikipedia level of group think editing the Los Angeles CA area got a small sampling of them too in 1985.  We had been in the outskirts of that area (orange county) at the time, not sure if I somehow knew(unlikely) and begged for it maybe due to a store display, but my mom drove like an hour or so out of her way, found one, hid it, and had it for us that Christmas.  There was no NYC mailorder, we weren't so loaded to have her take a flight and pay to ship it back, etc.  That year we were shocked, more or less that day ignored the cool toys, and hooked that up and went nuts on Duck Hunt, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley and Super Mario Bros.

 

The following year from allowance and added chores, b'days in Jan and March (have brother), a random gift, etc we ended up pretty quickly swimming in the likes of Balloon Fight, Kung Fu, DK3, Popeye, Mario Bros, Wrecking Crew.  I know for a fact due to how new retailers loved to also dual peddle their games and stuff even at swap meets the one time my dad got me a game was before Christmas, he picked up the sadistic Ghosts n Goblins which really kept us busy.  His mother(not a nice woman, also a former educator too...figures) the ONE time she ever bought us a video game or non-learning game was the just released Gradius that Christmas in 1986 which was under the tree-- shocking.  I wasn't getting all this stuff a year after the fact in 85/earlier-mid 85 to then have a box full of games dunked on me in 1986, there was no catch up, I got stuff as it came out or months after with someones b'day, christmas, etc.  But I get told now and again I'm making it up or whatever, but there was a limited LA drop of NES (pre) deluxe sets, and I had one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's some evidence that The Legend Of Zelda was indeed released in July, 1987 not August. Also shown is an earlier release date for Zelda II, not the "December 1, 1988" date that Nintendo uses now.

 

This is from the GameCube The Legend Of Zelda Collector's Edition. Note the years released in the US:

 

 

20231208_034326.jpg

20231208_034523.jpg

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