The NES actually had a pretty different shell, removable controllers, one audio channel less, and some other hardware differences.
Yeah a different shell catered for the American market and certainly some minor differences, and despite regional incompatiblity, the NES & Famicom have the same core chips and instruction set.
Op is right, the famicom/nes was released in 1983
I concurred with the 1983 release date for the Famicom/NES in Japan. Just pointing out that it's really the same system.