A Unique, High-Tech (Family) Computer

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?

This is held together by screws, not plastic clips, which actually surprised me. But inside is just a standard keyboard membrane and a few small PCBs.

The keyboard mechanism is self-contained in the top plastic, and is actually a bit more elaborate than I expected; this is a “slider over membrane” design, where pressing a key causes a tiny point-like piece of plastic to connect the membrane. It works fairly well; you could definitely learn to type on this. Assuming it didn’t bind as much when it was new and clean, anyway.

Where’s the Famiclone itself? It’s just underneath the cartridge port, of course! And also of course, it’s an epoxy blob.

On the epoxy blob was a small piece of masking tape, which I removed for the earlier screenshot. I can’t quite make it out as the ink has unfortunately bled a lot; the first letter seems to be a “V”. A major series of Famiclone chips from V.R. Technology has serial numbers beginning with “VT”, which could be related.

One thing about that controller. You might notice that on a real NES controller, the A button is on the outside edge, and the B button closer to the center. This is labeled in the opposite way– and this is how the buttons are arranged, too. Why did they swap the button positions? I don’t know, perhaps they just don’t like games being playable. The X and Y buttons are turbo buttons, as is commonly the case on four-button controllers being used for the Famicom.

Built-in hardware

This Famiclone has no built-in software or games. That seems to be pretty standard for models with cartridge slots; everything that makes this an educational computer is on the “48 in 1” cartridge. 48 is a much more achievable goal than many multicarts claim.

What’s inside?

An epoxy blob, of course, and 32kiB of SRAM. It’s a shame this is an epoxy blob, because I’m actually quite curious how that SRAM is wired. The NES memory map does not have room for 32kiB of cartridge PRG-ROM (usual amount of area mapped to the ROM) and 32kiB of cartridge RAM, so my assumption is that some sort of banking much be going on here.

Turn it on

But let’s boot the damn thing up already! Worth noting that this is a PAL 50Hz console; that should’ve been evident from the Europlug. I don’t think anywhere uses the Europlug and 60Hz NTSC; though possibly parts of Latin America?

The UI is clearly inspired by Microsoft Windows, though not the Windows XP that the sticker on the console tries to hint at. It’s actually pretty adorable, though having to move the cursor to the top corner is annoying. (Protip: use the page up and page down keys on the keyboard) The cursor can be moved with the mouse, or the controller. What is Super Hero?

It’s a rhythm game of some sort. I can’t recognize the track, and I don’t know how to play the game either; it doesn’t seem like controller inputs are what it’s looking for, or the arrow keys on the keyboard? So I’ll just let it be for now.

This actually has a lot of unique elements. For example, like any good version of Microsoft Windows, it has Solitaire.

And like any good multicart, it pads things out. Not only does it break up Duck Hunt (remember that gun in the package?) into multiple games…

And yes, it is Nintendo’s Duck Hunt. What else did you expect?

The most extreme case is Konami’s Track & Field. It’s here, sure.

But it’s been broken up into so many individual options for individual events that an entire page of the menu is taken up by it.

Also, you know what Konami game is not present on this multicart? Contra. Which was advertised on the box.

There are some educational games. Not really worth noting too much; mostly focused on typing, though it can also sing “Happy Birthday to You”. Since the keyboard is pretty decent, that’s probably actually the best usecase, but making games focused on typing is always a bit limiting. Here’s a classic “press the key listed” game, with a “My First Missile Command” theme.

But we were promised an Electronic Organ. So what does it have for a “MUSIC BOARD”?

That’s right; it’s MUSIC BOARD, from Nintendo and Hudson’s Family BASIC. Just separated into its own option on the menu, just like they did for Duck Hunt and Track and Field. Family BASIC MUSIC BOARD is fine, though I wouldn’t call it an electronic organ. I feel robbed.

But if Family BASIC’s MUSIC BOARD is here…

Then Family BASIC’s GAME BASIC should be here too. And it is! Or at least, I assume this is Family BASIC. (V3, judging by the version number) 32kiB of RAM is much more than it usually has access to, but is likely the purpose of the extra RAM on the cartridge. Very nice.

Unfortunately, this has some severe downsides compared to the real Family BASIC, despite the extra RAM. The biggest being that there is no way to save your work between sessions; neither battery-backed RAM nor a way to interface with a cassette tape. This pretty much relegates G BASIC to a novelty, though it always was one anyways.

Part of the FAMILY?

One thing I wondered here was, if it has Family BASIC on board, would the original one work?

Well… unfortunately, Family BASIC has a very annoying UI where you have to talk to the computer using text. And so I learned that while the keyboard is compatible in the sense that pressing keys makes letters appear, the keyboard matrix has been remapped.

I didn’t even make it to the actual BASIC.

Computers for the whole family

As I noted, the educational computer market has a lot of entries. Many had features like printers; I wonder if that was what the blanking plate was for. This one is very bare-bones. But let’s face it; it was mostly a way for kids to get their parents to get something into the house which could play games like Super Mario Bros. 3, albiet at a PAL 50Hz slowdown.

Still, I think it’s a pretty cool bit of computing history, especially important outside the wealthier countries whose markets I usually look at. I hope you enjoyed!