There’s a concept that many people have tried, with varying effects: the “educational computer”, a device that a parent can buy for their children to learn the basics of the computer, which everyone will need to know in the future, and can also play games, so the children will actually want to use it. These have ranged from plasticky VTech toys with little more than an electronic organizer, to the Wonder Computer of the 1980’s, the Commodore VIC-20, which was a full computer. This is a prime market fit for an aging 8-bit platform, so of course, the Famicom has been wedged into it too… but not by Nintendo.
Unique, High-Tech, What more could you want?
This is it: a unique, high-tech computer. As we can see, it’s also advertising Contra on the box, along with “8 Bit” games, so immediately, you know that this is a Famiclone, and it’s got a Famicom cartridge slot underneath the cartridge flap. There’s been more than a few of these out there; they’re unique to me because they rarely show up in the United States (I bought this from Goodwill.com), but I would bet to many of the readers of this blog they won’t see this as unique at all.
What’s in the box?
In addition to the computer, you can see a whole selection of peripherals: two controllers, a mouse, a light-gun. And a power supply with a Europlug; further evidence that this is definitely not for the US market. Thankfully, it’s just 9V center-negative, so any plug you can use to power a Famicom should work here as well.
The sticker on the bottom of the system doesn’t match the sticker on the front of the box, but it does give us a release year for this model of the product: 2003. By 2003, the Famicom hardware was definitely old hat; in fact, that’s the same year Nintendo of Japan officially discontinued the system. You can definitely tell this sticker is trying to get you thinking this is relevant to the Windows XP world.
The sticker in the top left corner is long gone. Underneath is interesting, though; you can see three holes that look to the world like the Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock lights you’d see in the corner of a standard Windows keyboard of the era. Was this top case also used for standard keyboards? And if so, what did they do with the cartridge slot?
More evidence of plastics reuse is on the back, which shows a blanking plate covering nothing, and a speaker grille with no speaker behind it.
The actual ports you get are paltry; the common DB-9 ports you see for Famiclones, a power plug, and three RCA jacks. Think that’s stereo audio? (Something we have discussed as a Famicom mod on this blog before) Look closer!
The white RCA port is actually the RF modulator! Audio is the red jack. I’m guessing white, yellow, and red triplets of RCA ports were just extremely cheap at the time of this computer’s manufacture, so why not use them?
... continue reading