NES

The NES is one of the few machines in RetroXR wearing a detailed shell rather than a procedural stand-in — and it is the only one that molds a working RF panel, which makes it the best example of how a pre-composite console reaches a television.

The NES. A phono pair on its flank, and an RF SWITCH jack with a CH3/CH4 slide switch on the back.

Two ways out, both live at once

This is the part worth understanding. The NES carries two outputs, and they work at the same time:

• A phono pair on its flank — mono composite. Video plus a single audio channel.
• An RF SWITCH jack on its back, with a CH3/CH4 slide switch beside it.

You can run a composite lead from the flank to one television and an RF switch from the back to another, and both sets will show the picture simultaneously. Neither output disables the other.

Route 1: composite

The simplest path, and the one to use if your television has a spare phono row.

1. Spawn a Mono Composite Cable from SPAWN → Objects.
2. Plug one end into the phono pair on the NES’s flank.
3. Plug the other into any Composite block on the back of the set.
4. Set the TV’s Source to that input.

Note it is mono composite — video plus one audio plug, not the yellow-white-red trio. It seats in the same row; there is simply one fewer plug.

Route 2: RF, through the switch box

The way most people actually had it. The chain is:

NES  RF SWITCH jack  →  RXR-003 switch box  →  TV  ANT / RF IN

The RXR-003 RF switch. Phono in from the console, coax out to the set's antenna socket.

1. Spawn an RF Switch (RXR-003) from SPAWN → Objects.
2. Plug its phono lead into the NES’s RF SWITCH jack.
3. Plug its coax lead into the television’s ANT / RF IN socket.
4. Set the TV’s Source to the antenna input.
5. Tune the set to channel 3 or 4 — whichever the console’s slide switch is set to.

The channel has to match

On the antenna input, the console’s own CH3/CH4 switch decides whether there is a picture at all. A set tuned to the other channel shows snow — which is correct behavior, not a bug. Either move the slide switch on the console or tune the set.

The ANT IN on the switch is not wired yet

The RXR-003 has an antenna passthrough input, as the real ones did, so a genuine antenna and a console could share one socket. It does nothing at present.

The front panel

① POWER · ② RESET · ③ two controller ports

Cartridges, and the lid

An NES cartridge. It goes in label-up, and the bay is front-loading.

The NES is front-loading, and the bay sits behind a hinged flap. You cannot put a cartridge in — or take one out — while the flap is down.

① the flap, swung up · ② the cartridge bay behind it

Opening it

Bring a controller near the flap and squeeze the grip to latch onto it, then swing it up on its hinge.

Grip here, unlike the Wii's battery cover

The flap takes the grip, not the trigger — the opposite of the Wii Remote’s battery cover. The reason is which object you might otherwise pick up: a remote is something you lift, so a grip-latched cover would fight the pickup. A console is not something you lift, so grip is free to work its lid.

While your hand is inside the flap’s grab box its pickup is muted, so the squeeze works the lid instead of taking the console, not as well as.

1. Grip the flap and swing it up.
2. Spawn a game from SPAWN → Cartridges and push it into the bay. It goes in label up.
3. Press POWER.

You do not have to do the flap by hand every time: inserting or removing a cartridge drives it automatically. Opening it yourself is for when you want to look, or to get a cart out that you did not spawn with.

The controller

The NES pad. Plug its lead into one of the console's controller ports and pick it up.

Two controller ports, so two pads for two players. If you would rather use a real gamepad, spawn a Controller Receiver and plug that into a port instead — see controllers and peripherals.

There is also a Zapper light gun for the games that used one.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Usually means
Snow on the antenna input	The set is tuned to the wrong channel for the console’s CH3/CH4 switch
Nothing at all	The set is on a different source, or the plug is not seated
Picture but no sound	Mono composite has one audio plug — check it is in, and check the set’s volume