How to test old playstation 1 and super nintendo system on hdtv?

The Game Room
1

Have an hdtv thats samsung. Also one that is lg.

A while back i tested my super nes in it and it worked. I think i unplugged the antenna and put in the one connected to my super nintendo and it worked. Now when i do this, it doesn’t work. Such as when i click power, nothing shows up.

I tested my old ps1 games on an emulator and few of the games do work. I then tested my ps1 in my hdtv and even though it loads… example it shows sony entertainment… each of the games i put in doesn’t load. It basically goes the memory slot screen. I then noticed then when i turned it off with power button, the cd doesn’t spin at all.

Also i got it to work by going to av2 mode.
Anyone got any suggestions? I know the ps1 games still work as i tried it on an emulator or computer and that worked.

2

Moved to the Game Room.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

3

If you’ve got access to a PS2 or PS3 that will hook up to your HDTV, then you can play the PS1 games on those. I don’t believe they included a PS1 chip/emulator in the PS4, though.

4

This sounds like the laser and/or spindle motor in your PS1 is not working.

With the SNES, if I understand correctly, you are using a coaxial (RF) cable. You should tune your TV to channel 3 or 4 to see the signal from the SNES.

5

Doesn’t a SNES come with a video out cable that includes composite (3 RCA plug cables: yellow for composite video, red and white for stereo sound)? That should plug into a lot of TVs, even an HD one. Unless they’ve stopped including composite and component video input on HDTVs.

ETA: Like this. (no special affiliation with the vendor; I just clicked on the first Google Image Search return for “snes video cable”)

6

The snes doesn’t have the yellow, red and white cables you are talking about. Only my playstation 1 has it.
I don’t see channel 3 on my tv. I went to channel 4 but it only shows channel 4… it doesn’t show a black screen.
Also when i powered on the playstation, i did it on channel 5 and it powered on except it had the memory card screen and thats all. But the snes has to be on channel 3 or 4? Im confused here. If thats the case, why did channel 5 work for playstation 1?

7

Channel 3 is only if you are using the coax cable to connect, as with the SNES. Try entering “03” on your remote control.

If you are using RCA cables (Yellow, Red, White) you would switch the TV to the appropriate input device. The TV might switch to the PS1 input automatically when you power it on, depending on the TV.

For help troubleshooting your Playstation, you might want to check this board:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/916392-playstation

And the guides here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/916392-playstation/faqs

8

We are going through the same issues with my old 2600 that junior found in the basement.

Do newer TVs even tune the old analog channels these use? The only solution I’ve found is to use a VCR as an RF to video converter.

9

This one I do know about. You have to get a specially modded 2600, or, yes, use a VCR or similar.

The SNES did have a composite cable adapter, but that only came with the second, smaller model. The older ones only came with an RF switch–the composite cable was sold separately.

Oddly, the NES did have direct composite output, albeit not stereo. The top-loader NES used the special composite adapter, though.

The hardest one to get to work is the N64, though. Composite cables won’t work directly, as the system outputs in an unusual resolution that most digital TVs don’t support.

10

I use my 2600 on my HD television. Like the others said, switch it to channel 3. Of course, my HD television came out before the nationwide digital conversion, so a newer one might be different.

11

The SNES uses a composite cable with a proprietary plug on the SNES side. You can still order them online because they used the same cable on several different systems. Use that cable if your TV supports composite, but I’ve noticed lately that a lot of TVs are dropping composite inputs.

A friend of mine has a TV like that, so I used a switch that has multiple composite inputs and a composite or RF output. I used composite to the switch, then RF to the TV and put the TV on channel 3 or 4.

I’m not sure if newer TVs have analog TV tuners, but you have to scan to get any channels to show up. Most people have probably never used an analog signal on a modern TV, so turn on the SNES, switch to analog, and scan the channels. It should pop up on 3 or 4.

Now, if you don’t have an analogue tuner or composite inputs on the TV, there’s another option. I only run an HDMI cable to my projector and all of my sources through my Yamaha receiver. It has just about every input that is available, and I actually run my SNES through a composite input and the Yamaha upconverts it to 720p and sends it via HDMI to the projector. It has what looks like a coax on the back, but I can’t tell if it’s an input or output. It might even be an input for a radio antenna.

Long post, but there’s still several ways to convert older devices on modern displays.

12

Okay i will explain a bit here as why im confused.

For the SNES, how many cables do i have on the back of it to connect to something else? Is it 2 or 3?

I have the power adapter that is connected to the snes to an electric outlet

I also have this small rectangle gray thing that i can connect to the back of my snes and it would go to the spot where i already have the antenna plug into it. I’m suppose to remove my antenna for the tv right and replace it with this one?

Some of you mention about the red, yellow and white cable thats connected to the side of the hdtv. I do have this but the thing is when i look at the other end of it, it has PLAYSTATION ON IT. However, it fits. Is that the cable or it isn’t?

The thing that im really confused now is i had plugged the snes into the hdtv before and it worked. The only thing 100 percent sure is well first off, i used the adapter wire connecting snes to the outlet. But i was pretty close to 100 percent sure that small grey rectange thing connected to the snes… i did connect it to my hdtv. Can someone tell me if i have to do this or not?

The thing is… i really dont recall connecting the red, yellow, white wires into the tv with the SNES.

Also for my playstation 1. I know im putting the right wires in it because it works. You see the sony entertainment. Howver, i go to this screen where it say main menu and memory card cd player. I basically can’t do anything much in that screen. I took a look at the playstation cd doesn’t even spin. None of the playstation cds spin but i did test it out on emulator on my computer and THAT WORKS.

For the playstation, i connect adapter to the outlet. My tv antenna is connected to hdtv like previously. I also connected the red, yellow, white wire to side of tv to the back of my playstation. I also had to make the tv go from TV MODE TO AV2 mode. Can someone confirm i have to go to AV2 mode to make this work? Only other option is tv and pc and obviously that doesn’t work when i click power.

Also i dont have channel 3. We have free tv using an antenna.

So can someone explain me the snes setup and if im doing it correct? I was close to sure i didnt connect red, yellow and white wires to it a while back and got it to work. The reason is b/c if i did, i would have used the playstation one. That wouldnt even work though right? IM really confused b/c if it does require a red, white and yellow wire, i only have the playstation one.

Also for the playstation if it doesnt spin and has that message, that means its going to take a lot of time to fix it or i have to buy something to fix it right? Obviously i wont do it as the playstation isn’t even worth much anymore but i just wanted to test it to see if it would work.

13

Anyone else? Really confused why this doesn’t work but i did got it to work last time. Someone tells me im not suppose to use the playstation red, white and yellow cables into the super nintendo.

14

You can’t use the Nintendo composite cables on a PS1. Nintendo uses a proprietary cable.

15

Okay i got the system to work. But i didn’t do this time was i didn’t put it to channel 3 on the hdtv. I only had the rf adapter and the power adapter and that worked.
Another question i have.
I have 9 snes games. I couldn’t get any of them to work until i blew into each game. I then got all 9 of these games to work.
However, only 2 of those 9 games would load and then i could click start or any button to continue and actually play the game.
The other 7 games… you can’t press anything at all. Basically you see the game load etc but you can’t press anything. And i’m sure it isn’t my snes controller b/c i could press things on the other 2 snes games.
Does that means my other 7 snes games doesn’t work then? Well it does load but you can’t press anything to continue. Is there a way to fix this issue?

16

I like to add that my snes is pretty dirty as well. I never ever cleaned it. However that shouldn’t be an issue right since 2 of the games work when they load and i could actually click buttons and play?
I read online that i could use a qtip and rub some alcohol into the games. Would that work or it wouldn’t b/c the games do load when i blow on it but i can’t press anything.
Also i read online some ppl in forums suggest buying a cleaning kit. The thing is i dont want to spend 30 dollars buyin it as my purpose was to see if the game and system work and then sell it on ebay. And thus i dont want to pay 30 dollars for a cleaning kit only to find out it doesn’t work at all.
Also my playstation 1 doesn’t seem to have the disks spin at all. I did test these games on an emulator and those games do work. However, there is one ps1 game where when it loads and plays, it freezes while on the emulator. Does that mean that game is probably no good? Thus i dont want to sell it on ebay if anyone buys it and then they said the game doesn’t work.

As for the playsation 1 system, i assume its not even worth it to buy the stuff to clean or fix it right because if i sell it, it seems like most playstation 1 don’t even go over 20 dollars max and seems more like 10 dollars only on ebay. Would u agree with this? The condition of my ps1 and snes is pretty worn condition and has coloring.

17

The PS1 probably needs a new CD spindle. Chalk it up as a loss if your intent is to resell. If it had sentimental value to you, you could fix it reasonably easily, probably about $10-20 for parts.

The SNES and its games need cleaning. You can try cleaning with rubbing alcohol rather than buying a kit.

18

I know this is a fairly old topic so BRAINS ZOMBIE whatever, but this post has a lot of wrong info I must correct.

You can connect a 2600 to a TV without modding or a VCR, so long as the TV has an analog tuner. If there are TV’s without analog tuners, that’s a very new thing as even though analog’s been shut down they’ve still kept putting the the things on TV, I guess just for this sort of legacy support. The VCR thing is probably easier and a good way to not have to reach around the set.

The first version of the SNES did come with a composite cable in the box. I know because I’ve had one since it first came out. It’s not an adapter, it’s a proprietary cable, with a Nintendo specific plug on one end and the normal red, white, yellow cables on the other. The only difference in what the later smaller SNES model had is that it didn’t support S-Video (and possibly not RGB (mainly only supported in PAL regions anyway), I’m not sure about that)

Most top loader NESes don’t support composite at all, just RF. Some were sent in to Nintendo and modded to support the same composite cable the SNES used, and a few more were found at retail, but this was not common. The Japanese version of this, the A/V Famicom, did support the composite cable, in fact that’s all it supported.

Composite cables do work with the N64, (and again, it’s the same cable as the SNES) and modern TV’s, at least the several models and brands I’ve tried, it just looks really bad. Not that N64 ever looked that great honestly.

19

If you have a special adapter to allow you to do so, yes. I was mistaken in thinking that you couldn’t do it at all. If you have the old RF switch or, better yet, a simple RCA to coax adapter, you can still hook it up.

I also got an SNES, and I did not the get the composite cables. I got an RF swicth adapters.

This I got from the Wikipedia article, which has since changed. They probably were confusing it with the redesigned Famicom you mentioned.

Must just be your TVs or the games you are using. Because it’s a well-known problem.