The article didn't include any pictures of Famicom carts, but basically, they're about half as tall as NES cartridges. I haven't popped open any NES games, but

The article didn't include any pictures of Famicom carts, but basically, they're about half as tall as NES cartridges. I haven't popped open any NES games, but I'd have to guess most, if not all NES games just used a Famicom sized board to simplify manufacturing. Here's a comparison shot of the NES and Famicom versions of Super Mario Bros. 3: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/smb3j_label/nesfam_2_large.jpg http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/smb3j_labe... While most later systems featured mostly standardized cartridge designs, Famicom carts wildly vary in color and design from publisher to publisher. They're quite pleasing to look at: http://famicomblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/aesthetics-of-famicom-cart.html http://famicomblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/aesthetics-of-famico... Another piece of trivia: The Famicom had a 60 pin cartridge port, while the NES had a 72 pin cartridge port (iirc they removed a few pins, relocated a few from the Famicom's bottom port, and added pins for the lockout chips). A few early games literally consisted of a Famicom game board plugged into an internal 60-to-72 pin adapter. So, for a while, the cheapest way to get a Famicom converter was to rip apart a cheap game like Gyromite and hope it was part of a certain run. You can see the converter clearly here: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/gyro/gyro7_big.jpg http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/gyro/gyro7_big.jp... As for technical details, you're mostly on the dot, but most later games also featured mapper circuitry to allow the NES to address more memory. Some boards used simple 7400 series, while others used customs ICs, some of which were fairly expensive, to expand the system's capabilities. Simpler ones just allowed for more complex bank switching schemes, while the most expensive ones featured things like interrupt generators and additional sound generating hardware. The sky is the limit for what you can stuff in a game cartridge, so the NES and SNES were designed to be very expandable through their cartridge ports. That's part of what makes cartridge-based games special to me; they're not just data on a disc, they're full-fledged hardware extensions of their host console.