If there’s one certainty in life, it is that Nintendo Famicom and similar NES clone consoles are quite literally everywhere. What’s less expected is that they were used for a half-serious attempt at making an educational family computer in the early 2000s. This is however what [Nicole Branagan] tripped over at the online Goodwill store, in the form of a European market Famiclone that was still in its original box. Naturally this demanded an up-close investigation and teardown.
The system itself comes in the form of a keyboard that seems to have been used for a range of similar devices based on cut-outs for what looks like some kind of alarm clock on the top left side and a patched over hatch on the rear. Inside are the typical epoxied-over chips, but based on some scattered hints it likely uses a V.R. Technology’s VTxx-series Famiclone. The manufacturer or further products by them will sadly remain unknown for now.
While there’s a cartridge slot that uses the provided 48-in-1 cartridge – with RAM-banked 32 kB of SRAM for Family BASIC – its compatibility with Famicom software is somewhat spotty due to the remapped keys and no ability to save, but you can use it to play the usual array of Famicom/NES games as with the typical cartridge-slot equipped Famiclone. Whether the provided custom software really elevates this Famiclone that much is debatable, but it sure is a fascinating entry.
What’s interesting, some of those NOACs have enhanced capabilities.
In native mode, they’re on Sega Master System or SFC level (visually).
Makes some of us left wondering what could have been if the capabilities were used to the fullest.
Then there’s the extra parallel port some Famicoms have.
There’s an fascinating article by user 133MHz from years ago, Mike mentioned here:
https://hackaday.com/2010/09/30/printing-from-a-famicom-clone-computer/
These always look fun, but the provided software is spartan at best. I had an IQ Unlimited, a z80 thing, and in a proper sense it had no games. There was word, spreadsheet, math test and history test. The office stuff could have been sort of useful, but no storage on board so can’t save files.
Makes sense. What’s perhaps important to know is that these family computers were meant to be used in China, mainly.
In the 90s, I think, many of the citizens over there didn’t have access to real computers
and game consoles weren’t really approved by the goverment.
On other hand, famiclone production was strong so the required chips for these keyboard computers were readily available.
Also, by selling such keyboard-equipped famiclones, they could justify game console disguised as educational machines.
The kids in China surely were happy about having access to a library of fine FC games,
but also to have some sort of basic home computer at home.
Here’s a commercial featuring Jackie Chan: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rmOinLOsLrk
To us western citizens this may seem primitive,
but maybe we should look at it from a late 70s/early 90s perspective when we had VC20, ZX Spectrum and so on.
Speaking under correction, of course, since I’m just a random guy on the web.
Of course there had been DOS PCs, too, at some point.
There are many Chinese and Korean titles that run on English DOS with ordinary VGA graphics.
That’s quite different to Japanese market of the time, which had FM-Towns, PC-98 PCs or DOS/V PCs.
You’re mostly correct, although your timeline is slightly off.
Computers were pretty widespread in China by the late 90’s, but even in the late 80’s/early 90’s there were regionally-run computer factories, even clones of the Apple IIe with additional support for Pinyin text and input modes.
In terms of Apple IIe clones, the ones that jump to mind are the “China Education Computer” series (models I, E, G, M, and 2000) manufactured by Shaanxi Province Computer Factory, and the “Zi Jin I” manufactured by Nanjing Computer Factory.
Game consoles were already on the table by the mid-90’s in both Taiwan and mainland China, too. FunTech’s “Super A’Can”, for example – distributed by Dunhuang Technology on the mainland, per Wikipedia – was a failed 16-bit (arguably 24-bit or 32-bit) system based on a Motorola 68000 clone as the main CPU and a MOS 6502 clone as a dedicated audio CPU. Graphically and audio-wise it comes across as a budget SNES, but for an entirely original design, it actually looks and sounds pretty darn decent.
Only 12 games came out prior to the market failure of the system – coming out in ’95 with SNES-era graphics and sound was a non-starter when anyone with means could import one of the mainstream first-gen 3D systems – but some of them are legitimately fun. A bit derivative, but at the end of the day, Bomberman is freakin’ fun whether you call it Bomberman or Boom Zoo. There’s a 2D platformer based on the “Journey to the West” legend, and while it certainly doesn’t give Mega Man a run for its money as far as platformers go, it’s not a total jank-fest. It’s fun for what it is.