PC Engine Console Question for those in the United States

[willowmoon93]

This is something of a repost of a question I had under another post but I hope someone here in the United States can help.

I'm new here and it sounds like Putney and I are pretty much in the same boat.  I have a white PC Engine as well, but it's a PAL B system.  Now I live here in the United States and mine did come with the AC adapter, the input AC is 220V 50/60 Hz, and the output DC is 9V 850MA.  I think what I have to do is go to Radio Shack and get one of those voltage converters. 

So anyone who lives here in the United States and uses a PC-Engine...  How did you get yours running?  I didn't want to plug anything in either or use converters unless I was pretty sure of what to do.  Please help! 
 
 

[SignOfZeta]

You've basically got three problems instead of the usual one that American have with white PCEs.

1) You have a 220v power supply: This means the system probably either came from Hong Kong or Europe. Radio Shack can fix this problem. Get the PS with the highest amperage rating possible with the voltage you need. If it is a 9V system, get the 273-1771. Its like $25 I think.

2) You have a PAL converted unit: This...is pretty much going to screw you. You will need something that accepts PAL, and in the US that's amazing rare outside of a few high end TVs (and then only by enabling a service mode usually). You might find a TV card for your computer that will accept it. I have no idea how extensive these conversions are. That is, will they only convert the RF output to PAL, or does it also apply to the composite (unusable without a CDROM2 system, AV booster, etc) and RGB (unusable without a hack)? Maybe you can un-install the PAL conversion. If you can, then that brings us to the usual problem with RF only consoles from Japan...

3) The channels are different: Even with a straight up Japanese NTSC white PCE, you still may have problems tuning it in via the RF. I think channel 98, or 99 sometimes works. The usual 3 and 4 do not.

So yeah, good luck with this one. If you can verify that the composite output (which comes from the expansion bus on the back) in unefected by the mod, then you can use an AV booster, or CDROM2 to work around problem #'s 2 and 3. Radio Shack will fix Problem #1 If the PAl mod also affects the other modes of input you are going to either have do figure out how to remove it, figure out how to view a PAL source (not easy for most people) or sell it some guy in Europe.

[willowmoon93]

You've basically got three problems instead of the usual one that American have with white PCEs.

1) You have a 220v power supply: This means the system probably either came from Hong Kong or Europe. Radio Shack can fix this problem. Get the PS with the highest amperage rating possible with the voltage you need. If it is a 9V system, get the 273-1771. Its like $25 I think.

2) You have a PAL converted unit: This...is pretty much going to screw you. You will need something that accepts PAL, and in the US that's amazing rare outside of a few high end TVs (and then only by enabling a service mode usually). You might find a TV card for your computer that will accept it. I have no idea how extensive these conversions are. That is, will they only convert the RF output to PAL, or does it also apply to the composite (unusable without a CDROM2 system, AV booster, etc) and RGB (unusable without a hack)? Maybe you can un-install the PAL conversion. If you can, then that brings us to the usual problem with RF only consoles from Japan...

3) The channels are different: Even with a straight up Japanese NTSC white PCE, you still may have problems tuning it in via the RF. I think channel 98, or 99 sometimes works. The usual 3 and 4 do not.

So yeah, good luck with this one. If you can verify that the composite output (which comes from the expansion bus on the back) in unefected by the mod, then you can use an AV booster, or CDROM2 to work around problem #'s 2 and 3. Radio Shack will fix Problem #1 If the PAl mod also affects the other modes of input you are going to either have do figure out how to remove it, figure out how to view a PAL source (not easy for most people) or sell it some guy in Europe.

Thank you SignOfZeta for the information on this one.  Regarding the PAL signal, I have a question regarding this snippet from wikipedia (and I know not everything on wikipedia is accurate but here goes) :  "All PC Engine hardware is natively NTSC, including the European version which creates PAL-compatible video with the use of a chroma encoder chip not found in any other system in the series."  Does this mean the PAL console would switch over to an NTSC signal upon power up, or would it still need to be modded?  I'm not much of a tech guy, so please pardon my ignorance is this department.  Hope you or someone else can answer that too.   Thanks!

[Kaminari]

US TVs don't support 50 Hz at all?

[SignOfZeta]

US TVs don't support 50 Hz at all?

Only in very rare circumstances.

[SignOfZeta]

Thank you SignOfZeta for the information on this one.  Regarding the PAL signal, I have a question regarding this snippet from wikipedia (and I know not everything on wikipedia is accurate but here goes) :  "All PC Engine hardware is natively NTSC, including the European version which creates PAL-compatible video with the use of a chroma encoder chip not found in any other system in the series."  Does this mean the PAL console would switch over to an NTSC signal upon power up, or would it still need to be modded?  I'm not much of a tech guy, so please pardon my ignorance is this department.  Hope you or someone else can answer that too.   Thanks!

Well, I haven't even seen a PAL PCE before, but as I understand it the PAL conversion is done with extra hardware added by hand. "Does this mean the PAL console would switch over to an NTSC signal upon power up, or would it still need to be modded?" I don't know what that question means, but this thing is only ever going to put out PAL until you do something about it. If it were mine I'd open it up and see if I could uninstall the mod. First buy the power supply I guess and check, just on the off chance, that your TV won't play it. You might be one of the lucky ones. Failing that you'll need to either get rid of the mod, or find some other way to tune it.

BTW, does this thing have a SCART cable attached to it, or...how does that work? If it has a SCART you could buy an XRGB2 and tune it that way. Then you'd have VGA, which would just be awesome.

[GUTS]

Sounds like it would be less trouble for him to just buy a cheap turbo or pc engine off ebay, haha.

[SignOfZeta]

Sounds like it would be less trouble for him to just buy a cheap turbo or pc engine off ebay, haha.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right, but this could be an adventure!

[willowmoon93]

Thank you SignOfZeta for the information on this one.  Regarding the PAL signal, I have a question regarding this snippet from wikipedia (and I know not everything on wikipedia is accurate but here goes) :  "All PC Engine hardware is natively NTSC, including the European version which creates PAL-compatible video with the use of a chroma encoder chip not found in any other system in the series."  Does this mean the PAL console would switch over to an NTSC signal upon power up, or would it still need to be modded?  I'm not much of a tech guy, so please pardon my ignorance is this department.  Hope you or someone else can answer that too.   Thanks!

Well, I haven't even seen a PAL PCE before, but as I understand it the PAL conversion is done with extra hardware added by hand. "Does this mean the PAL console would switch over to an NTSC signal upon power up, or would it still need to be modded?" I don't know what that question means, but this thing is only ever going to put out PAL until you do something about it. If it were mine I'd open it up and see if I could uninstall the mod. First buy the power supply I guess and check, just on the off chance, that your TV won't play it. You might be one of the lucky ones. Failing that you'll need to either get rid of the mod, or find some other way to tune it.

BTW, does this thing have a SCART cable attached to it, or...how does that work? If it has a SCART you could buy an XRGB2 and tune it that way. Then you'd have VGA, which would just be awesome.

Nope, it doesn't have a SCART cable.  After reading what it is, I wish I did!!  Oh well ...