Battery Backup - Famicom Disk System Games on the NES | @FamicomDojo
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- We explore Nintendo’s many attempts to release Famicom Disk System games on cartridges, the NES design changes that lead to loss of features in popular games like The Legend of Zelda, and which solution finally worked the best. (Hint: it’s cartridge batteries.)
Despite never being released outside of Japan, the Famicom Disk System influenced Nintendo's game publishing philosophy for decades to come. While the benefits of inexpensive rewriteability and saving game progress appealed to consumers, it made pirating extremely easy - which unfortunately also appealed to consumers.
Prior to this, the Famicom Data Recorder was used to store and load just game save data, but while it was based on the standard consumer technology of audio cassettes, was difficult to use, and required Nintendo’s propriety keyboard attachment as as pass-through device. As a result, only a small handful of games were compatible with the technology.
Cartridge battery backup saves had been available for years, but were too expensive for Nintendo’s early-‘80s price points. It wasn’t until later in the decade when costs started to come down that Nintendo pivoted away from these cheaper alternatives.
Unfortunately, switching to a cartridge-only approach caused expensive problems of another sort. The Nintendo Entertainment System was designed from the get-go with sound expansion and game save features in mind, but those add-ons ever came. To make matters worse, the on-cartridge wavetable synthesis sound expansion feature of the Famicom (incorrectly identified in the video as FM synthesis) were completely inaccessible on the NES; even if a developer wanted to include sound expansion chips on every RAM cartridge to replace the common features of the Famicom Disk System RAM cartridge, it was impossible to do so.
Nintendo had no choice but to reprogram their games, a lesson that companies like Konami learned when making the cartridge only version of Castlevania that replaced both the music and the game save option for password codes. While the Game Boy’s Metroid II might have been the first in the series to feature save progress for Americans, Japanese gamers had experienced such luxuries since the original. (Of course, this meant tricks like the JUSTIN BAILEY code we’re not possible on the Famicom Disk System version.)
More about the Famicom Data Recorder: • Famicom Data Recorder ...
See more at FamicomDojo.TV:
famicomdojo.tv/...
Follow Famicom Dojo:
• Subscribe: / famicomdojo
• Podcast: itunes.apple.c...
• Facebook: / famicomdojo
• Twitter: / famicomdojo
• Instagram: / famicomdojo
• Website: famicomdojo.tv
SeanOrange is a retro game fan from the US. Vinnk is a retro import fan who took things one step further and moved to Japan. Together they make Famicom Dojo: a web series dedicated exploring the Japanese history of video games and consoles from the other side of the Pacific.
#Zelda #NES #FamicomDojo
You blew on the catridge! :O
"HEY! Somebody's in here, you PERV."
4:19 : Oh man this is so embarassing. Awwwwwww.
SHH.
Oh man, I thought there was NEVER going to be a new one! I loved it (I swear I watched the first one about 20 times). Your vids have inspired me to grab a famicom off of Vinnk's store, it's been shipping for about a week now, I am stoked.
Queen "A Night at the Opera" cassette insert. Awesome!
Kevin humping that Neo Geo box is classic! Hopefully the boys at Rising Stuff will send me my FDS soon. The AV Famicom I bought is getting pretty lonely...
I know it was your hand that was making the nintendo's mouth move. I could even make out the shadow of it.....still, i really, honestly felt for him.
Good info man, thanks for the post.
My early days of saving was the pause button. I'd play in the morning before elementary school, and come back to a piping-hot Nintendo game.
I think it had something to do with wanting it not to look so much like a video game system, and also because they were trying to get a bunch of the peripherals (like the keyboard, etc) to form this sort of modular platform. But you can see they changed their minds after CES 1984. We should REALLY cover that version of the system if we can. Love to see it in person if we could.
Yes there were. Even Zelda came out as a battery backup Famicom cart in 1994, right as the Famicom was going out of production.
Actually, that's a pretty fascinating topic. I think you just volunteered for a Denshimail! ;)
(Might not come until the end of the season, though, when the Famicom becomes topical again.)
Wow, you're not kidding!
It looks like the annotations are messing up the video -- there's one starting at exactly 4:07. I fear this means I may have to remove/recreate them (I wish you could export/import that stuff!).
For the time being, check out the link in the video description to watch the GameTrailers or podcast versions. I'll try to fix the CZcams one (if I can).
Thanks for pointing it out!
That dude at the end was totally like me when I got my Neo Geo.... but mine wasn't boxed...
Metroid was the first FDS disk I purchased... (a week ago, in fact)
I used Kill Mode to nuke all the saved games immediately, but oh man, it felt good to hold someone else's childhood memories on a floppy disk for that split second...
0:40
MOTHER, awesome catch! :D
I haven't tried it, but theoretically the RAM Cartridge for the Disk System could be passed through the an adapter (which I will show in the new episode), and operate that way. HOWEVER, the sound expansion portion would not work -- something I also demonstrate in the new video.
I have that shirt!
Anyway, another great one. I'm one of the only people I know that owns a famicom disk system around here. I can't figure out how to get my famicom hooked up to american TV, so I hacked the disk system to work through the Top loading NES. Long live the disk system!
Yup, and it's something we take on directly in the next episode.
But if you want to see more Zach Braff, I just sent you a link.
0:09 The evil taunt. 😞😢
It haunts my dreams...
Sean did anyone ever tell you you sound a bit like Mike Meyers?
No, this is a first!
There is so, so much more, both on this channel and the FamicomDojo channel! :)
The video we originally linked back in 2007 that shows all of the differences between the two versions has since been taken down. We should just do our own.
Thanks for correcting me i had entirly foregot about the game cube.
They're for sale at Rising Stuff! Although I think they only have Twin Famicoms at the moment.
It's actually quite easy to use a Famicom on an American TV. Just change the channel to 95 or 96. You can even use an NES switchbox with it.
BTW, you won't get the additional sound channel from the FDS with the top-loader.
okay, the first thing i noticed in this episode is that he had a cartage of mother (earthbound zero)
I can't wait to get my Famicom! It'll be in the mail in a few days! Dosen't come with games though... :-(
Get it yet?
Thanks for the Nintendo history.
Holy crap you are good luck! MY FAMICOM IS HERE!
also the way you save your tracks in mach rider on the nes is the same way on the famicom through audio cassette you can here it when you go to save your track just turn up the volume and listend closely. fyi Zelda 64 uses batter backup to save game data.
That's a fantastic Denshimail question.
Anyone notice that he is holding up mother 1 at 0:40 ? He NEEDS to do a vid on that, its such a good game its impossible not to
I'm getting this question a lot. I think I'm going to have to answer in a new episode!
Specifically why? I don't know. Generally, you are able to overwrite disks (as I mention in the video), so some kid got bored and overwrote it at one of the stations in Japan where you could do that sort of thing.
Some day we should do a Denshimail on how to replace those. It takes some special tools and some solder, and you'd lose all your save data... although if the battery is dead the save data is gone anyway! :/
The Famicom Disk System may not have sold well in the US anyway. Add ons usually never fare well here (32X, etc.). Battery back up is great! But for collectors it's a bit of a pain because when the battery expires ... well there goes your game save abilities. I actually prefer the password system because of this!
No idea either, but I got the last laugh -- 20 years later I found legitimate copies of both Zelda AND Castlevania on disk!
@ 5:03, your looking at your watch, but you didn't wear one!! Muahaha!
Cheers
Interesting and well thought out. Great video.
@denBlackie Glad someone else noticed too! I am a bigtime Queen fan.
The keyboard was for the version of BASIC that came with a program that let you actually write code for the Famicom. I HAVE ONE. I must do a video about it. Actually, I think Vinnk wanted to.
@TheSolidSnake12 Asked and answered in Episode 3: Nintendo Has Moxie -- which you should totally watch, because it's totally awesome. In fact, so are all the other Famicom Dojo videos. ;)
wait couldn,t you add the chip to the cart?
Nope.
ive been bloin in my nes games since 91,they all still work
6:10 technically you could put a chip on duh cart, you just need a pcb dongle plugged in duh expansion port so u can actually hear duh sound
True! That’s a lot of work and inaccessible to most people. Even the ENIO cards aren’t easy to find anymore.
I was thinking that would make a good idea for a series of videos. Reviewing the Japanese games that are radically different than their us counterparts.
7:19 me on my birthday
Everardo Garcia ........
i wonder if any modding hacker ever tried making a disk system that plugs into the nes expansion slot
Yes. Look up the ENIO board. :D
Yup! I'm sure we'll get to that. Maybe season 3.
Pretty much! And we all thought the Red Ring of Death was bad!
I'm sorry! I got that confused for another product. Yes, the card cleaner does clean disks. (Badly-named, but it does the trick! ;) )
If you still don't know, "kill mode" is the erase mode for erasing saved games. Engrish.
0:57 A Night At The Opera!
My first introduction to Queen's music outside of the mad-popular stuff. Life-changing!
@GG2AwesomePancakes It's an '80s Zelda commercial. Kind of infamous.
i actually prefer the famicom over the NES
but i prefer the NES 2 over the famicom
The whole lack of Ganon laughing at the game over screen totally ruins the Japanese version of Zelda II for me.
Incorrect. It is, I quote "a licensed Nintendo product".
Mattel produced the Powet Glove, also very much licensed.
It's exaggerated a bit. If you take out all the parts with me waiting for it, it takes about that long. I think I might have added a couple of seconds for effect.
I got a question.....my Zelda 1 and 2 for original nes had a battery backup. They stayed "on" to keep the game saved (unlike Metroid that gave u this long codes) but now games I hear don't have batterys anymore. Just like a memory card for my camera...it saves info and does not need a Battery or electricty to keep the info saved.
1. Why did not Nintendo do this?
2. How does a Nintendo game cartridge save games now? ( Gameboy)
vacationboyvideos The technology to store fast RAM without a power source didn’t exist for consumer electronics in the 1980s, but once it did Nintendo started using it; I believe the DS was the first system, which was released in 2004, over 15 years after Nintendo started using battery backups instead of tapes and floppy disks.
@@SeanOrange thank u
was that tape that you held up Queen's "A Night at the Opera"?
The NES has an expansion port, but it was never utilized. Nothing will work with it.
The SNES has one, and there was an add-on made in Japan. But I'll get to that in due time!
It's a GREAT way to pass the time...
In the differences video that you link to, some of the sounds a wrong because it's on one of those emulators that doesn't reproduce the sound right.
That's not quite right. Nintendo stopped making the N64 because they released the GameCube (in 2001), but there were still some games that came out for a while after that.
The N64 was cart-based more because of the failure to create the SNES CD-ROM add-on than anything else; Nintendo swore off the disc-based formats even though all of its other major competitors went that route in the same generation.
The sound of the guy yelling is from when you boot the gamecube when pressing start on all four controllers.
bwahaha! ouendan at 5:21.
Wow this was all very interesting tho. :)
That's Orange Hey, when are you guys going to go over the Data Recorder? I started wondering about that thing and how it was supposed to work, so yeah... when you gonna cover it?... or any other things?... Just wondering...
I don't own one, but I imagine that it works like the cassette readers available for a number of home computers from the same period, like the Commodore 64.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_tape_data_storage
***** They did cover it. Check out their Famicom Dojo-specific channel on YT.
Wish I had a Famicom and a disk drive for it.
LOL! I just might have to...I checked it out a while ago on there and they were priced better than anywhere else I'd seen them. But I have no idea how long it'll have to wait. As it stands it's low on the list since then I'd have to get more expensive import fami games.
Isn't it, though? Man. I'm getting my hands on a copy of Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania III) for the same reason.
Dude is that cartridge you're holding Mother for the Famicom? How do you get all these rare games/accessories?
What's that sign on your bathroom door say? I can't make it out...
Oh! And.... O.o Vinnk humping the box was just...... um.... o.O
I really enjoy these videos.
@Minority119 No need to wonder: check out our Microphone Roundup episode for the answer!
the video freezes at about 4:07. and I want to see the second half.
I mean no offense, but as an owner of a ZX Spectrum (it's stored somewhere) I feel that one should not whine over the loading time of the disk system.
Hey sean in the nes version of mach rider how do you save the custom tracks on a cassette deck cause when you go to save the track you can here it coming out of the speaker. If you listend closely and turn up the volume.
Awesome vid man. Very funny, imteresting and well informative. Lol, no offence an' all, but you look like Zach Braff
What's with the "hold reset as you turn the power off" thing?
what was that thing that was connected to the consol that had the data recorder pluged in it.
it seems like it. or there is the possibility that someone performed the "av out" mod on it then removed it.
i got a famicom disk system yeah still waiting for my famicom to be shipped though
Holy shit!
The Scrubs guy is rewiewing games!
There is no clock on your hand! 5:00
QUEEN casette !!
Thou shall not blow into thee cartridge! It corrodes the connectors =)
do you have any cassettes for it.
Cause I'd like to here what the data sounds like on a cassette deck.
cool video. i have the famicom that has the detachable controllers. my first famicom shorted out when i was little (had the hard-wired controller ports) and we replaced it with the detachable controllers version.
My question is, is there any compatible power supply i can use the power it? i don't have the transformer anymore, and even if i did, it's a 220v one. I would need 120v. any ideas?
Can I Do A Tip? Continue how You Are Are Never Change!
Now I really wanna get a famicom :P
More the latter, I think. The entire Japanese title of the game fit into the space where Zelda resides in the English version. They apparently decided to use "The Hyrule Fantasy" bit for "The Legend of" instead.
English is so inefficient, space-wise.
Love how there’s a game informer in the trash
HOLY SHIT J.D. IS THAT YOU
I am yet waiting for an episode where they put a game into the European Version NES and it goes NOM
And if you do have the data recorder could you tell me what the color of the read/write head on the recorder cause if it's the color gold that means it's digital. And it should be able to read/write to a cassette faster.
just got my family computer today!
My Famicom taught me. Hahaha.
Not enough to read Japanese games without getting frustrated -- ESPECIALLY an RPG like Mother 3.
@MarkNESReviews Yep.
@SeanOrange OMG! I DIDN'T EXPECT SUCH A FAMOUS PERSON SUCH AS YOU TO REPLY :D
wait then what is the card cleaner good for if it dosent clean famicom disk?
Get them at RisingStuff! :O