You might just do well to learn the correct pronunciation - sadly, a lingering sense of disappointment persists for those who feel "vocally" disconnected from the origins of such wonderful technology. Not just in terms of phonics, but also in terms of how one might treat the items. A very noticeable pattern I tend to have found, is that the Japanese - in general - seem to look after their property alot better than those of us in the UK. We tend to be...maybe 3rd best, behind Japan, and South Korea. Alot of catching up to do!
I’m a Minnesotan and my parents were one of the test families for the NES/MN lottery system. I remember my dad taking over my NES several times during the week to check his numbers. We were forced to give back the modem at the end of the test, but I remember the device and the interface very well.
Would you mind to share some more details on how this actually worked. E.G. did it have an own game cartridge, or was the software embedded into the peripheral. Appreciate to get access to your memories :)
Ilker Özyavuz As far as I remember the software was embedded. That way it would always be available when powering on. If you had a regular cartridge installed it would overrule the NES modem and start the game instead. I’m trying to see if I maybe have some random pictures of my gaming setup from back then in case the modem is pictured.
@@crowmigration8245 Nothing that exciting.. but it had to be mailed back or risk possible legal action by Nintendo. I'll have to ask my dad, he probably remembers more details.
One of my friends dad was a traveling businessman and often went to Japan. This kid I was SO jealous of, he had Japanese releases of NES/Famicom titles I never seen before. He had this "Game Genie" looking thing that would slide into his NES and would allow the non US versions to be played on his US NES. He then was the FIRST KID to own a NeoGeo that I knew. Envious moments in childhood :D
The NeoGeo was crazy, man. ~ The NG arcades cabinets had slots in them above the coin box in the front. If you has the same game card at home, you could bring there and put in to the cabinet. It would recognize your save file; all you Stats, Unlocks, High Scores, etc. ~ Then, it would update the game card with all new info and when you take it home pop it the NeoGeo console, bam! It's all there. ~ And sh t, man, This was like, what, early to mid 1990's. Crazy stuff. Way ahead of it's time. ~ ✌😎🕹
I had that, too! It may seem moot in hindsight since I also have a Famicon but I still remember it getting some use. I'm in the Philippines, BTW so the Famicom and its cartridges are much more prevalent here than the NES. I got the latter as a gift from my aunt in the US.
You mentioned the Gamecube ports, those are probably the ones that had the most real world use. I had a portable gamecube that I had built for myself. In one port you put the modem or network adapter, attached directly to the bottom was a battery pack, and attached using the very stiff carry handle was a screen. The system would play for about 2 hours on a single charge. Nothing compared to today, but amazing for the time... however, I eventually stopped using it portable and changed the bottom expansion... I added the Gameboy Player that allowed me to play ALL gameboy games from any series of gameboy on my gamecube. In my opinion this is the best expansion ever created for any video game console, it is literally an entire 2nd game console that plays and entire family of other games. And of course Nintendo kept this idea when they released the Wii, with the ability to play gamecube games and even use gamecube controllers and memory cards... at least until someone figured out how to hack the console through the gamecube port to play copied games forcing nintendo to stop selling Wii's with this feature.
The UK was allergic to floppies, so they probably didn't bother adapting a NES for floppies. I'm surprised they didn't make a cassette drive for the west. Either that or ROM got really cheap.
@@cpufreak101 believe it or not, there are people who still think certain games should go away cuz of violence but don't seem to mind having slot machines pretending to be sports games. Like if people still hate the violence then they need the same energy towards micro-transactions.
For the longest time, I have thought of that slot/port as something that the factory used for testing and calibration. I work for a medical device manufacturer, and we build automated pharmaceutical equipment. We have ports, much like what you see under the NES, where we plug into before full on stress testing, to install the OS, calibrate controls, etc. Once we are finished, we close off that port before shipment. It looks like I way off in my assumption. Great video, I learned something new today!
You do find that stuff on consumer hardware on the internal boards, of course: presumably they don't think the plastic shell will affect the performance, which seems like a dangerous assumption!
Like the J_Tag connector on macbooks. Ohh, my DVB-T reciever got a RS232 port on the back. No Idea what that would be for, but my guess is for updating the firmware.
@@SimonBuchanNz Pretty much every Roomba model has a serial port somewhere for OSMOs that were sent out to customers and update the Roomba's firmware if needed, so there's another example.
I remember getting my NES when I was like 6 or so, and I also remember finding that port on the bottom and wondering what it was, I think it was one of the things that really kicked off my childhood hobby of taking apart everything possible.
The saddest part is that port could have been used for expansion audio. Imagine if Nintendo released an addon chip that functioned like a 6-channel N163 (instead of 8) and let developers go nuts with it. It would have been amazing.
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire I remember reading a book about the future of the NES (back in the late 80s) where it predicted that audio expansion would be coming via that port, and said it might even be *in stereo*.
@@fluffycritter See, and I believe that because if you bridge two of the pins, you can get audio out of your Famicom audio expansion games. Real shame Nintendo didn't keep those pins on the cart, Castlevania III could have had a VRC6 on the NES.
I would like to be the one to point out the first microtransaction was on an Arcade game back in the boomer years. And that games today are at least games you complete and for the most part don't need to spend extra on... That is before we talk about the fact the most magazines lied and you didn't have youtube to see gameplay so ports of these great games weren't always great... Which meant that even buying a game in 1988 would have been a gamble. I really don't get this modern obsession with boomers over lootboxes... Yes they are bad in most cases but games like Borderlands and Diablo use random loot as a mechanic. In Overwatch you never have to buy a loot box... They throw them at you to the point that if you've been playing since launch you probably have nearly every skin, emote, spray, etc. To me it's a case of rose-tinted goggles being used. I mean most games from the 8/16 bit era were made to eat coins in arcades and the console ports were sometimes good but mostly bad... I am looking at things like Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, etc. And don't get me started with movie licences. Over the last 20 years we have had everything from the amazing KOTOR all the way up to the Jurassic World park building game... Not like the great movie tie ins such as ET, Terminator, Alien (which is funny considering Metroid took huge influence and managed to be a good game.) Then we get to modern instalments of games... I am sorry but GTA V is way better than the original. I am sorry but the first 2 Castlevanias aren't the best... Simon's Quest is so badly designed. Modern Mario's are way better... Mario 64, Sun Shine and Odyssey are way better than the first game and the "sequal" that was a reskin of another game. I mean even Metroid Prime is better than the original. Final Fantasy 9 was way better than the first 3. It's like with Battlefield games. 3 was amazing until you go back and you miss the QoL improvements... Like vaulting over walls as just one example. I am not saying old games are bad. Or that any is better. Simply saying the boomer logic is flawed. There has always been lootboxes and microtransactions in the form of arcade with RNG. There has always been pay to win... Someone willing to put £100 into a machine has a better chance of completing the game than the kid with £2.50. Difference being that now transactions are used to remove grind whereas in the 80s/90s they used mechanics and design to make you put in more coins. Oh and now microtransactions appear more in F2P games. I mean look at this way... On PC right now you can play Fortnite, Apex, Warzone, Valorant, etc... All for free. Tell me where that was back "in the day" I would much rather spend £5 supporting a dev for a skin than spend hundreds of pounds to get a top score on a machine that is now dead and that score long gone. I would rather have lootboxes in Overwatch and have paid £20 for it as opposed to spending hundreds of pounds to get to a boss battle in a beat em up only for the game to suddenly spike in difficulty just to eek another few coins out of the punter. I would rather have Jeff Kaplin now than Jack Tremiel back then.
ZipplyZane it’s an expansion port that could have been used for plugging other devices into the NES. Except nobody wanted to do anything other than play Mario on a kids toy. I’m sure there’s a video explaining this somewhere 😉
I remember as a kid always wondering what the audio and video ports were for. It was the early 90's and none of our two TV's had such a port. It wasn't until I got a Playstation and had to hook that up through the VCR that I realized what a composite port was and then a little while later to learn that it was called the composite port.
Gotta blame the marketplace for that: too much competition and the breakneck speed of technology to keep up with meant manufacturers were desgining newer consoles rather than accessories for models that would be woefully out-of-date by the time those accessories were designed, developed, tested and shipped. Plus, they never really considered America a primary market to develop for/cater to, nor were any licensing agreements lucrative for any third-party vendors to try, hence things like the Game Genie being unofficial, unlicensed, and unsupported by Nintendo.
Great video! I always wondered what that covered port on the NES was for. The best I came up with was a diagnostic port for repairs and troubleshooting by Nintendo or maybe a docking point used on retail displays. Thank you for making this.
I remember the original AV connector that came with the NES. It had a coaxial connection and a wire to attach to the TV, both attached to a box that fit perfectly in that box hole- without having to break out the cover for that slot, with the grooves in the bottom being perfectly sized for the coaxial cables and connections to fit under the NES as it sat on the floor. This prevented many younger sibblings from tripping over and accidentally disconnecting the NES from the TV.
@@functionatthejunctionhe's just talking about the grey RF modulator that plugs the NES into the TV's cable input. It doesn't plug into the bottom of the NES, but you can just put it there to keep your cables tidy.
My neibor called the nintendo hotline in 1990 and asked what the port was for. They told him it was for a modem so that you can play online with friends
I worked in the Nintendo Call Center back in the late 80s, early 90s. We used to joke that the port was for catching all the Marios that fall down pipes and that it needs to be emptied from time to time.
First, thanks you for the video. Second, I think the idea of having an undesignated expansion port makes sense on any gaming machine. It allows for up selling options without requiring the user to forfeit their original investment. Third, I'd like to see a convention with demonstrations and awards for home-spun peripherals for that port. 🥳
@@RealRedRabbit "How to spot a British person." Probably could have just listened to his English accent tbh. Wanna know how to spot a NON-"British" person? They use the word "British".
You can access the microphone from that port. Also, yes, USA Zelda does still have the microphone function. There were also some home brews a few years back that you could karaoke to 8-bit tunes with the microphone and it would have you an good/great/perfect if you sang on beat. I have no idea where the hell they went..
I remember getting an NES for Christmas 1985 & remember specifically opening up that bottom expansion slot cover & wondering what it was for, realizing the system didn’t come with anything that fit into it I put the cover on & left it alone
I've always wondered about that and I even took mine apart to take a closer look. It didn't take me long to think it was some kind access a tool would plug in for diagnosis, or some kind of dev tool and I wanted to have access to something like that. Thinking I could make my own games. I would have loved one of those NES modems.
I like this video for two reasons: 1. It's quite interesting, I was a Sega kid and never saw this before. 2. It's the proof that retro/tech youtubers CAN clip their nails.
The track at 7:00 reminded me of the flying themes from The Neverending Story. Very 80's. You can tell whoever made it for your video had a whimsical, fantastical childhood. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Fingers crossed that the answer is gonna be one of those “The plastic bits at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.” kind of things.
mmhmm yep Eh, maybe back when the Famicom was first released in 1983. But by 1985-86 (when the NES was released in the US), we already had 16-bit computers being sold to the public. It’s why the NES was marketed as a toy for kids here (and sold for much cheaper than a new PC).
@@johnnymnemonic69 by the time it reached the UK it was looking pretty crap compared to the master system and the St and Amiga. It wasn't cheap and neither were the games. I never knew anyone who had one or even wanted one.
@@meetoo594 🤔 I never knew this, until the first lines of this video. Interesting perspective; we yanks have so much love and nostalgia for that crap machine. Did the 1983 market crash only affect consoles in USA?
@@crnkmnky yup, the first I heard there was a crash was American UA-camrs talking about it. Computer mags etc didn't even bother mentioning it as it really didn't effect us at all, in fact in the UK it was a boom time with soft and hardware manufacturers thriving. We were a nation of home computer users rather than consoles so it was easier for anyone to publish a game or form a software house. I imagine this had a huge impact on the market.
@@TheFearmoths Great comment. I mean even someone who buys a shitendo console or product of theirs have to be either under a voodoo spell or heavily mentally ill to don't know any better.
Looks at "Wall Street Kid" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Kid And Casino Kid en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Kid and tell me that weren't targeting kids top gamble
@@Bramon83 English in general no matter which version is pretty much primitive and idiotic on it's own yet we are forced to use it worldwide. If you want to learn a simple language that should be spoken worldwide that is Serbian. But what do I know, politics know better then me so my fact is just an pointless opinion...
Id love to see if someone could make a modem to play NES to NES, even though it would be a stupid amount of work. Each game would have to have some sort of header or front end to match up with someone else online. Is that even possible doing it peer to peer and not a central server? I know emulation has some network features but I never tried them
I still have cables for genesis and ps1 you can link up 2 of the same systems together with 2 tvs and play 2 player like that. Doom ps1 and zero tolerance for genesis. I know it's not what you were saying though
I’ve got one of Chykn’s ENIO expansion port boards. It works well for Famicom accessories and provides the pin connection for expansion audio. He was planning to do more with it, but not sure what happened to the project.
I got this.The red circles are used by youtube content creators to emphasize parts of the image on screen, commonly in the image "thumbnail" they feel are important, or otherwise would like to call attention to. They can even be different colors, like blue or black, or even pink! Thanks for asking!
@Cutting Yoko’s bra! Apparently monetized videos have to be 10 minutes long as a minimum. Just something I've heard a few weeks ago. Never checked if it's true
I think that it is actually pretty amazing that they had the foresight to put the expansion pack adapter on the bottom of the unit. It would have seemed like such a technological leap to most of us if we would have been able to use them. Kind of like playing online in the 80s
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly *"Seems more like they were trying to keep it a secret by putting it on the bottom."* Unfortunately Sherlock Holmes turned it upside-down and discovered it.
@@electron2601It seems like I kind of remember those. The ones that I remember most just had a cover that was held in place with a couple tabs you pushed in to remove it. As kids we wondered what it was for. My memory sucks, because I have no idea what it was for, and I'm sure this video explained it. lol
The "Nintendo Entertainment System NES version?" What, were there other versions of the NES in Europe than... the NES? Here in the US it was just labeled "Nintendo Entertainment System." (And why is "NES Version" in a completely different font than everything else?) EDIT: Okay so later in the video there's a European Version. Now I'm even more confused.
There were a few different distributors Tonka and Mattel and the machines were slightly different iirc. They both balsed the marketing right up do nintendo eventually marketed the thing themselves.
Okay so the Wikipedia article has more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Configurations Basically there were a few different versions released in Europe and the UK, and they were apparently incompatible with each other via lockout chips, so the labeling was so people would know which games to buy. Which seems like a really bad move in retrospect, since it would just cause more confusion than anything.
dont know what youre talking about mate, the NES was massively popular in Europe, at least here in Norway. I remember as a kid I would collect 10øre coins (basically equivalent to 1cent US, slightly more), and since it was our lowest value coin and also physically very small I would always find them on the ground and like relatives would maybe give me some etc. Well eventually I had over 10,000 of the fuckers and an NES cost 1000 kroner at that time, so I bought an NES with 10,000 10øre coins (we did go via the bank first, to have them counted and exchanged :p )
The three things of my life I'm most proud of: 1) To be alive 2) To be a gamer 3) To be credited ("thanks to...") in the ending of Alex Kidd in Miracle World 2
Great video! I didn't know a lot of that. Back in the day Nintendo was slow to release a 16 bit system. They had officially stated they would make a 16 bit system when the public was ready / needed one, or something similar (it's been a long time so I forgot the exact quote). Meanwhile Genesis and TurboGrafx were raking in the dough with better looking games. I argued for Nintendo to utilize the little known expansion port of existing NES but no one would listen. Time went by and they eventually released the Super NES and so the expansion port was never to be "used" and remained mostly unknown. Finding a video about it and even more was cool! Thank you
This is crazy because I was asking myself what that was for only 2 days ago. Never looked it up and then this shows up on my feed. Thanks for the answer! 👍🏿
The expansion port was also under the SNES (anyone heard about a partnership with Sony for a CD reader peripheral named "Play Station"?) and under the Nintendo 64 (where it was used to connect a reader of backup copies of games on CD) ;-D
I'd always assumed this port was also used to load from multiple carts for those Sears demo kiosks, but it turns out that was a whole bespoke console series, the M-8/M-82.
Finding the port on the bottom was like finding some sort of buried treasure. I remember we called the Nintendo Hotline and they told us direct from Redmond Washington that it could have possibly been used for something like the Sega CD is what they compared it to. They told us there was one on the bottom of the SNES and to keep an eye out because "who knows???" but no we never saw the SNES CD. Thanks cool hotline dude. 👍
Aaaaaaaaand nowadays we've come full circle, with micro transactions and gambling in games unfortunately becoming the norm, and the law is ONCE AGAIN interceding.
They were planing on adding peripherial like the floppy disc drive and modem the Famicom. In Japan they sold discs that you could buy a game and then later bring back and pay to have the game replaced by buying another game
I'm pretty sure it was going to be used for the Famicom Disk System add-on, which Nintendo initially planned to release in North America. They would have had to redesign the FDS though, as the NES was obviously completely different then the Famicom.
TLDW there is an expansion slot and the only peripheral was a modem that was not manufactured at a large scale in the United States of America. edited from TLDR to TLDW Edit 2 I have made this comment longer because the scope of the production of the nes modem was unclear
Interestingly, we visited our local Nintendo headquarters in the 90s (in Redmond I think?) and I specifically asked about that port. And they told me it was a diagnostic port, that when faulty devices were sent in for repair, they said they had a diagnostic harness that connected to that port. That's probably not quite accurate, but that's what they told us.
Love that you mentioned the product Chykn offered, it is amazing. You can connect a 4-player Famicom adapter and play Nekketsu Fighting Legend on your toaster NES. Proto-Smash Bros!
Circumnavigate relates to navigation, as in geographical context. Circumvent is the word he was looking for. It was probably just a mixup, it happens to everyone.
I've personally heard circumnavigate used in the same context. Circumvent is generally used to describe altering something to cause it to avoid something else while circumnavigate is used to describe getting around something. ie. A thief might circumnavigate security systems by maneuvering through blind spots, or they could circumvent them by cutting power and distracting guards. Not saying it's right, that's just how I've always heard it in popular usage. Aside from it's niche, and seemingly intended, usage in geography, this is not exactly a common word.
In addition to the modem, there was an idea for the Floppy Disk Drive system and such to plug into that port. Basically, it would add a version of the keyboard used in Famicom as well as modem, and as well as disk drive. This would be a concept not too unlike the Commodore disk drive which allows daisy chaining over a serial bus. Commodore's serial bus based disk drive were essentially computers with one or more disks drives on a serial based networking port based on the IEEE-488 port which was a parallel networking port. Each peripheral essentially had to have a computer board. Even Commodore's printers had little CPUs, ROM, and RAM as well as an I/O chip and a microcontroller for controlling the printer... while the floppy drives had a floppy disk controller. Each such device would have an ID#. Almost akin to the later ethernet connected devices like your ethernet connected printers. Same thing could be for mass storage devices so you access them via a more fancier ID numbering system (local area network IP address). So in theory, there can be various kinds of stuff Nintendo could have came up with. Including even a hard drive. If the PET could in 1977. They could have implemented something that could be stacked or something. Even a LASERDISC based optical disk.
I can't beleive this needed a whole 12 minute video, I knew what it was from the title and thumbnail, I've known what it was since shortly after discovering it and calling the Nintendo hotline in 1990 and asking them what it was lol Edit: not that in understood what it was back then, but I knew what it was
I'm sorry, it was pretty obvious that this was an expansion port. I thought everyone knew this by now. I figured this out when I was a kid and the Nes was a current console. If you're watching this video for any other reason than why it was created (not what it is) that's on you. Most of us growing up at the time thought it was for a planned but never released Nintendo Disk System. They did plan on releasing one until bank switching was discovered making the Famicom Disk System obsolete. Addendum- Yes, some kids stupidly believed you could insert a Master System cart inside the expansion slot. Gaming mags of the day made endless comparisons between the three 8-bit consoles all the time. Anyone with the ability to read a magazine could tell you the system specs of the Master System dwarfed the Nes in all but sound making the idea of compatibility a foolish proposal.
![10 Weird NES Facts! [Nintendo Entertainment System] | Nintendrew](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DKOtyWggaNI/mqdefault.jpg)
Gentle reminder: Japanese pronunciation is not my forte. It's not even my moat.
It's okay. It's english. I'm used to it.
Drawbridge then?
tim vine would be proud of that one lol
You might just do well to learn the correct pronunciation - sadly, a lingering sense of disappointment persists for those who feel "vocally" disconnected from the origins of such wonderful technology.
Not just in terms of phonics, but also in terms of how one might treat the items.
A very noticeable pattern I tend to have found, is that the Japanese - in general - seem to look after their property alot better than those of us in the UK.
We tend to be...maybe 3rd best, behind Japan, and South Korea.
Alot of catching up to do!
ZeOverman Only if it’s a Bailey by the name of Justin. 😋
I’m a Minnesotan and my parents were one of the test families for the NES/MN lottery system. I remember my dad taking over my NES several times during the week to check his numbers. We were forced to give back the modem at the end of the test, but I remember the device and the interface very well.
Music LabMN I would like to find one.
Would you mind to share some more details on how this actually worked. E.G. did it have an own game cartridge, or was the software embedded into the peripheral. Appreciate to get access to your memories :)
Ilker Özyavuz As far as I remember the software was embedded. That way it would always be available when powering on. If you had a regular cartridge installed it would overrule the NES modem and start the game instead. I’m trying to see if I maybe have some random pictures of my gaming setup from back then in case the modem is pictured.
Forced? Did they come to your door with guns?
@@crowmigration8245 Nothing that exciting.. but it had to be mailed back or risk possible legal action by Nintendo. I'll have to ask my dad, he probably remembers more details.
I still remember getting up super early on Christmas only to find my parents playing the nes. My brother and I had to wait an hour lol.
Ahhh 😂😂..my best friends parents..used to kick our butts..in certain Nintendo games..i used to get so mad
That is a funny memory.
fake no parent would do that
@@werewolffox8918 "HOW DARE YOUR REALITY NOT EXACTLY MATCH MY REALITY! EVERYONES' LIVES ARE THE SAME AS MINE!"
This would have traumatized me if it had happened to me.
"Gambling on a device marketed towards children"
It looks like EA succeeded where the Minnesota Lottery failed
EA: "You're weak"
Minnesota Lottery: "I'm you"
It's not gambling, it's surprise mechanics 🤣
yaaa, bannerjack
its not gambling. it's redistribution of wealth, to the wealthy.
@@cmdraftbrn to be fair, it's entirely voluntary
One of my friends dad was a traveling businessman and often went to Japan. This kid I was SO jealous of, he had Japanese releases of NES/Famicom titles I never seen before. He had this "Game Genie" looking thing that would slide into his NES and would allow the non US versions to be played on his US NES. He then was the FIRST KID to own a NeoGeo that I knew. Envious moments in childhood :D
The NeoGeo was crazy, man.
~
The NG arcades cabinets had slots in them above the coin box in the front.
If you has the same game card at home, you could bring there and put in to the cabinet.
It would recognize your save file;
all you Stats, Unlocks, High Scores, etc.
~
Then, it would update the game card with all new info and when you take it home pop it the NeoGeo console, bam!
It's all there.
~
And sh t, man, This was like, what, early to mid 1990's.
Crazy stuff.
Way ahead of it's time.
~
✌😎🕹
I had a friend who had one of those "game genie" adapter things to play non-US games. If I recall, it was yellow.
I had a friend that had a CDi. I felt bad for him.
@@Aaron48219 YES, yes it was!
I had that, too! It may seem moot in hindsight since I also have a Famicon but I still remember it getting some use. I'm in the Philippines, BTW so the Famicom and its cartridges are much more prevalent here than the NES. I got the latter as a gift from my aunt in the US.
You mentioned the Gamecube ports, those are probably the ones that had the most real world use. I had a portable gamecube that I had built for myself. In one port you put the modem or network adapter, attached directly to the bottom was a battery pack, and attached using the very stiff carry handle was a screen. The system would play for about 2 hours on a single charge. Nothing compared to today, but amazing for the time... however, I eventually stopped using it portable and changed the bottom expansion... I added the Gameboy Player that allowed me to play ALL gameboy games from any series of gameboy on my gamecube. In my opinion this is the best expansion ever created for any video game console, it is literally an entire 2nd game console that plays and entire family of other games.
And of course Nintendo kept this idea when they released the Wii, with the ability to play gamecube games and even use gamecube controllers and memory cards... at least until someone figured out how to hack the console through the gamecube port to play copied games forcing nintendo to stop selling Wii's with this feature.
Yeah, God forbid we have fun with our game consoles.
cutting gamecube backwards compatibility was done for cost cutting on the later, cheaper models, but yeah the wii had a piracy problem
I always thougt the NES would get a Disc System upgrade like the Famicom!
The UK was allergic to floppies, so they probably didn't bother adapting a NES for floppies. I'm surprised they didn't make a cassette drive for the west. Either that or ROM got really cheap.
Thought*
@@swoll1980 wrong
@@Aquarirus No shit... My keyboard doesn't work all the time. I dropped it. I've been spelling thought since I was 5. What's wrong?
@@swoll1980 you dropped ur entire fucking keyboard lmfao
The irony of banning "gambling on a device marketed towards children" considering today with modern games
Gta v: 👀
I still wanna know why there isn't the same energy towards gambling mechanics as is all the violence
@@4eyes2killingyou pretty sure at this point it's largely a point of the only people that care don't know, or know and don't care.
@@cpufreak101 believe it or not, there are people who still think certain games should go away cuz of violence but don't seem to mind having slot machines pretending to be sports games. Like if people still hate the violence then they need the same energy towards micro-transactions.
Mario party games in a nutshell
For the longest time, I have thought of that slot/port as something that the factory used for testing and calibration. I work for a medical device manufacturer, and we build automated pharmaceutical equipment. We have ports, much like what you see under the NES, where we plug into before full on stress testing, to install the OS, calibrate controls, etc. Once we are finished, we close off that port before shipment. It looks like I way off in my assumption.
Great video, I learned something new today!
You do find that stuff on consumer hardware on the internal boards, of course: presumably they don't think the plastic shell will affect the performance, which seems like a dangerous assumption!
Not a bad guess at all though, that is for sure
Like the J_Tag connector on macbooks. Ohh, my DVB-T reciever got a RS232 port on the back. No Idea what that would be for, but my guess is for updating the firmware.
@@SimonBuchanNz Pretty much every Roomba model has a serial port somewhere for OSMOs that were sent out to customers and update the Roomba's firmware if needed, so there's another example.
Idexx?Sysmex?
it’s an expansion slot for peripherals that weren’t released, saved you 12 minutes
There are 3rd parties that made those things for it
How about a spoiler alert? Dick nose.
Not really, you didn't say _why_ the peripherals were never released.
Thanks
idiot. thats why he has a great youtube channel and you dont! dick head!
I remember getting my NES when I was like 6 or so, and I also remember finding that port on the bottom and wondering what it was, I think it was one of the things that really kicked off my childhood hobby of taking apart everything possible.
Oh yes. Nintendo saw into the future and that Port is actually for a broadband adapter so that we can connect ethernet to it and play games online.
The saddest part is that port could have been used for expansion audio. Imagine if Nintendo released an addon chip that functioned like a 6-channel N163 (instead of 8) and let developers go nuts with it. It would have been amazing.
Mhm
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire I remember reading a book about the future of the NES (back in the late 80s) where it predicted that audio expansion would be coming via that port, and said it might even be *in stereo*.
@@fluffycritter See, and I believe that because if you bridge two of the pins, you can get audio out of your Famicom audio expansion games. Real shame Nintendo didn't keep those pins on the cart, Castlevania III could have had a VRC6 on the NES.
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire im waiting for that mario odyssey soundtrack on smb3
1991: “Kids gambling on consoles is a big no-no!”
2020: “Hold my lootboxes.”
Good times.
EA ruined Madden and FIFA. Things that originally were packed in are either gone or cost like 20 dollars.
money is more important than children
it truly is the 20s all over again
@@BrianBurke06 EA ruined all the things.
I would like to be the one to point out the first microtransaction was on an Arcade game back in the boomer years. And that games today are at least games you complete and for the most part don't need to spend extra on... That is before we talk about the fact the most magazines lied and you didn't have youtube to see gameplay so ports of these great games weren't always great... Which meant that even buying a game in 1988 would have been a gamble.
I really don't get this modern obsession with boomers over lootboxes... Yes they are bad in most cases but games like Borderlands and Diablo use random loot as a mechanic. In Overwatch you never have to buy a loot box... They throw them at you to the point that if you've been playing since launch you probably have nearly every skin, emote, spray, etc.
To me it's a case of rose-tinted goggles being used. I mean most games from the 8/16 bit era were made to eat coins in arcades and the console ports were sometimes good but mostly bad... I am looking at things like Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, etc.
And don't get me started with movie licences. Over the last 20 years we have had everything from the amazing KOTOR all the way up to the Jurassic World park building game... Not like the great movie tie ins such as ET, Terminator, Alien (which is funny considering Metroid took huge influence and managed to be a good game.)
Then we get to modern instalments of games... I am sorry but GTA V is way better than the original. I am sorry but the first 2 Castlevanias aren't the best... Simon's Quest is so badly designed. Modern Mario's are way better... Mario 64, Sun Shine and Odyssey are way better than the first game and the "sequal" that was a reskin of another game. I mean even Metroid Prime is better than the original. Final Fantasy 9 was way better than the first 3.
It's like with Battlefield games. 3 was amazing until you go back and you miss the QoL improvements... Like vaulting over walls as just one example.
I am not saying old games are bad. Or that any is better. Simply saying the boomer logic is flawed. There has always been lootboxes and microtransactions in the form of arcade with RNG. There has always been pay to win... Someone willing to put £100 into a machine has a better chance of completing the game than the kid with £2.50. Difference being that now transactions are used to remove grind whereas in the 80s/90s they used mechanics and design to make you put in more coins. Oh and now microtransactions appear more in F2P games.
I mean look at this way... On PC right now you can play Fortnite, Apex, Warzone, Valorant, etc... All for free. Tell me where that was back "in the day" I would much rather spend £5 supporting a dev for a skin than spend hundreds of pounds to get a top score on a machine that is now dead and that score long gone. I would rather have lootboxes in Overwatch and have paid £20 for it as opposed to spending hundreds of pounds to get to a boss battle in a beat em up only for the game to suddenly spike in difficulty just to eek another few coins out of the punter. I would rather have Jeff Kaplin now than Jack Tremiel back then.
Remember folks: If the title is a question, odds are the answer is "No."
Mike Carson “What is this for?” “No”.
Hmm... 🤔
@@ncot_tech see, you proved the point.
Well, obviously. But I still wonder what that port is for.
ZipplyZane it’s an expansion port that could have been used for plugging other devices into the NES. Except nobody wanted to do anything other than play Mario on a kids toy.
I’m sure there’s a video explaining this somewhere 😉
Indeed - see my video titled "When the title is a question is the answer 'no'?".
I remember as a kid always wondering what the audio and video ports were for. It was the early 90's and none of our two TV's had such a port. It wasn't until I got a Playstation and had to hook that up through the VCR that I realized what a composite port was and then a little while later to learn that it was called the composite port.
I was pleasantly surprised later to realize my SNES has AV ports and was so easy to use on modern TVs.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly Praise be the Nintendo multi out!
@@zacharyrollick6169
praise be the video game gods
When 1:52 was playing fireworks had started outside my window and the first thought was "those are intense sound effects"
@Speedstar yeah, that's me
It's depressing how rarely Nintendo uses their expansion slots.
@John wasted potential isn't better than no potential
It means that the systems are well designed
Gotta blame the marketplace for that: too much competition and the breakneck speed of technology to keep up with meant manufacturers were desgining newer consoles rather than accessories for models that would be woefully out-of-date by the time those accessories were designed, developed, tested and shipped.
Plus, they never really considered America a primary market to develop for/cater to, nor were any licensing agreements lucrative for any third-party vendors to try, hence things like the Game Genie being unofficial, unlicensed, and unsupported by Nintendo.
@Joe Cassidy I said rarely, not never.
I suppose the cartridge chips superseded it.
Great video! I always wondered what that covered port on the NES was for. The best I came up with was a diagnostic port for repairs and troubleshooting by Nintendo or maybe a docking point used on retail displays. Thank you for making this.
It was an expansion port, we were supposed to get the disk system
I remember the original AV connector that came with the NES. It had a coaxial connection and a wire to attach to the TV, both attached to a box that fit perfectly in that box hole- without having to break out the cover for that slot, with the grooves in the bottom being perfectly sized for the coaxial cables and connections to fit under the NES as it sat on the floor. This prevented many younger sibblings from tripping over and accidentally disconnecting the NES from the TV.
My first gen NES just 2 av ports on the side. Never heard of one needing a breakout box like that.
@@functionatthejunctionhe's just talking about the grey RF modulator that plugs the NES into the TV's cable input. It doesn't plug into the bottom of the NES, but you can just put it there to keep your cables tidy.
I died a little inside every time the plastic tabs broke.
I was screaming at my phone screen *"What are you doing?! No!!"* LOL!
@@eclogites UA-cam in a nutshell. "Here's an extremely rare artifact, very few were made and I've got one. Time to destroy it for the views"
@@dakat5131 it's their device, they can do whatever they want.
Me too
We can say an NES console was hurt and raped today.
And we couldn't do nothing about it
The
N-ever
E-nding
S-tory
Dude, they made two movies....
They BOTH END And so did the story....
@@SegaDream131 The music at 7:04 in the background...
@@SegaDream131 total rip off for theater goers..
Never ending popcorn tub plus the mega cup o coke= the never ending theater piss....
Oh and the sodium concentration is caustic....
@@SegaDream131 They made three of them, actually.
It's a port for a water-feature, hence the water runoff channels.
Water-cooled NES. Eek out a bit of extra performance so you can play Nightmare on Elm Street with a reasonable frame rate.
Where's Charlie Dimmock when you need her?!
My neibor called the nintendo hotline in 1990 and asked what the port was for. They told him it was for a modem so that you can play online with friends
Bruh
He is saying the truth, I was the Nintendo guy in the phone.
@@luislizano7025 And I was the CIA agent who secretly recorded the whole thing, for 'research purposes.'
And I'm the legendary uncle who worked for Nintendo who had early access to all those amazing games you were salivating in anticipation for :)
And im the phone who was used to call the nintendo hotline
I worked in the Nintendo Call Center back in the late 80s, early 90s. We used to joke that the port was for catching all the Marios that fall down pipes and that it needs to be emptied from time to time.
First, thanks you for the video. Second, I think the idea of having an undesignated expansion port makes sense on any gaming machine. It allows for up selling options without requiring the user to forfeit their original investment. Third, I'd like to see a convention with demonstrations and awards for home-spun peripherals for that port. 🥳
This system never gets old. My friend when I was a kid used the av side ports to hook up to his commodore monitor. Great video as always.
The composite ports are the only reason to own one of these 'VCR' versions versus the top-loader one.
I loved the callback to the Red Dwarf 'Shash' insertion 😂
lol
Captain Rimmer !
How to spot a British person.
Any red dwarf reference makes it a good day 😂👍
@@RealRedRabbit "How to spot a British person."
Probably could have just listened to his English accent tbh.
Wanna know how to spot a NON-"British" person?
They use the word "British".
You can access the microphone from that port. Also, yes, USA Zelda does still have the microphone function. There were also some home brews a few years back that you could karaoke to 8-bit tunes with the microphone and it would have you an good/great/perfect if you sang on beat. I have no idea where the hell they went..
I remember getting an NES for Christmas 1985 & remember specifically opening up that bottom expansion slot cover & wondering what it was for, realizing the system didn’t come with anything that fit into it I put the cover on & left it alone
I've always wondered about that and I even took mine apart to take a closer look. It didn't take me long to think it was some kind access a tool would plug in for diagnosis, or some kind of dev tool and I wanted to have access to something like that. Thinking I could make my own games.
I would have loved one of those NES modems.
I like this video for two reasons:
1. It's quite interesting, I was a Sega kid and never saw this before.
2. It's the proof that retro/tech youtubers CAN clip their nails.
Same, I never even saw the NES growing up, was vaguely aware something had come before the SNES but I only ever knew people with Master Systems.
What do you mean? I have never seen LGR without his nails clean and cut to the quick.
@@nessamillikan6247 Watch any video from The 8-bit Guy or Retro Recipes where they show their hands in close up shots.
Well, thirty years later and I lived long enough to finally find out what that damn plastic cover and slot was for.
The track at 7:00 reminded me of the flying themes from The Neverending Story. Very 80's. You can tell whoever made it for your video had a whimsical, fantastical childhood. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Yes! Exactly what I thought.. love that movie
I thought the same! Glad I'm not the only one.
It does! This is the song he used ua-cam.com/video/2m4WkQontyw/v-deo.html
this title made me think you were saying you could connect the NES to a Sega Master System
Click baited smh
you can.....but it won't do anything..lol ..lol
@@anotherhunkydory why did you say that twice
Every once in a blue moon, UA-cam recommends something I'll actually enjoy watching.
Fingers crossed that the answer is gonna be one of those “The plastic bits at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.” kind of things.
Could you please link me to that video?
I respect anyone who knows the wonders of the Aglet. Well done sir.
Few even think to ask... The Question!
Nice Question reference lol
I thought they were called “Flugel Binders”
It's amazing how ambitious they were with such (relatively speaking) basic tech.
It was cutting edge stuff at the time.
mmhmm yep Eh, maybe back when the Famicom was first released in 1983. But by 1985-86 (when the NES was released in the US), we already had 16-bit computers being sold to the public.
It’s why the NES was marketed as a toy for kids here (and sold for much cheaper than a new PC).
@@johnnymnemonic69 by the time it reached the UK it was looking pretty crap compared to the master system and the St and Amiga. It wasn't cheap and neither were the games. I never knew anyone who had one or even wanted one.
@@meetoo594 🤔 I never knew this, until the first lines of this video. Interesting perspective; we yanks have so much love and nostalgia for that crap machine.
Did the 1983 market crash only affect consoles in USA?
@@crnkmnky yup, the first I heard there was a crash was American UA-camrs talking about it. Computer mags etc didn't even bother mentioning it as it really didn't effect us at all, in fact in the UK it was a boom time with soft and hardware manufacturers thriving. We were a nation of home computer users rather than consoles so it was easier for anyone to publish a game or form a software house. I imagine this had a huge impact on the market.
1:58 Okay seriously, does EVERYONE have at least one of these exact screwdrivers kicking around?
Mines red AND black....
Yes.
I don't... But I know where to find one. I'm sure it's pretty ancient.
I plugged an adaptor in mine that lets the NES play the expanded audio channels from Japanese-version games with enhanced audio chips.
Any other Nerds in here recognize the "Never Ending Story" beat that played in the background music?? 🤔😎
I noticed it too. Even in a 8-Bit keyboard mode, it still sounds amazing.
The NES
Nostalgia man: breaks the plastic protector on the nes
Me: physically writhing in pain
Nintendo have been known to dabble in voodoo.
NO! DON"T DO! NO nonononononon NOOOOO!!!!!!
@@TheFearmoths Great comment. I mean even someone who buys a shitendo console or product of theirs have to be either under a voodoo spell or heavily mentally ill to don't know any better.
The Fearmoths I feel like there was a console or peripheral named voodoo that I’m unaware of and a joke I’m missing
@@energyflow7564 wow ok
1980s: “Kids gambling? That’s illegal!”
2020s: “Kids gambling? It’s free tax money!”
Developers: "Kids gambling? But those are probability-based surprise mechanics."
Looks at "Wall Street Kid" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Kid
And Casino Kid en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Kid and tell me that weren't targeting kids top gamble
It's a gamble to let my kid play fortnite with my card attatched to the ps4.
@@markstewart8171 get them an NES
Should you really be divulging such Nintendo secrets, you might find Luigi hovering over your bed one night giving you the death eye!!!
I read this comment in your voice
Buttholes poop
That only happens if you burn the Luigi board. ua-cam.com/video/15nNY7uofNw/v-deo.html
Oh shit
@@xenos_n. But hello, you!
I plugged my TV into that secret NES port, and was kidnapped by Aliens to help them fight an intergalactic space war.
7:07 i love the soundtrack from "The Neverending Story". A great movie from the 80´s. Emojis about the movie: 🎼🎹🎬⚔📖🏅🏇🐌🦇🐢⛅🐶🐉🐺🏰💓👸🎼
If we’re going to talk about classic consoles, you can’t use the word “bespoke” ... custom at best... proprietary is more like it 😉
NO ONE EVER should use bespoke. Ever. Brits over use the absolute fuck outta it.
@@Bramon83 English in general no matter which version is pretty much primitive and idiotic on it's own yet we are forced to use it worldwide. If you want to learn a simple language that should be spoken worldwide that is Serbian. But what do I know, politics know better then me so my fact is just an pointless opinion...
@@energyflow7564 interesting diatribe. Clearly something else on your mind... 🤣
"Sinful rectangular way" ooooo baby keep going. I'm half there.
Id love to see if someone could make a modem to play NES to NES, even though it would be a stupid amount of work. Each game would have to have some sort of header or front end to match up with someone else online. Is that even possible doing it peer to peer and not a central server? I know emulation has some network features but I never tried them
I still have cables for genesis and ps1 you can link up 2 of the same systems together with 2 tvs and play 2 player like that. Doom ps1 and zero tolerance for genesis. I know it's not what you were saying though
There was the Xband Modem for SNES and Genesis that allowed dial-up multiplayer for Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and a few other games.
7:05 the best part of this sequence is The Neverending Story score.
Erm nope..it's called "Rain in New-York" by RIJKO ... It sounds quite similar though haha, what a ripoff ^^
@@Z0MBUSTER nope never ending story
@@leex187 Ok then, which song title? I bet you won't find it ;p
Not exactly the same but very similar!
@@ericnear4273 Yes like I said, NOT from the movie but very close... lee is wrong !
Love the never ending story music in the background
I like the Neverending Story jingles, I had to say it, it's like one of my most fond memories that film.
I came to the comments to see if anyone else recognized that chord progression. 🏆
I’ve got one of Chykn’s ENIO expansion port boards. It works well for Famicom accessories and provides the pin connection for expansion audio. He was planning to do more with it, but not sure what happened to the project.
7:05 got to love The NeverEnding Story music.
It came from
epidemicsound
Try searching for 80s fantasy
Fa la laaaa la la laaaa la la laaa la la laaa laaaa. FALCOR!
The NES is my favorite console. I found mine in an old drawer, it was my dads form the early 80’s. Works good on my old CRT TV
I got this.The red circles are used by youtube content creators to emphasize parts of the image on screen, commonly in the image "thumbnail" they feel are important, or otherwise would like to call attention to. They can even be different colors, like blue or black, or even pink! Thanks for asking!
I've always wondered if it was used for the multicartridge display/test units in shops here in the UK.
Bruh i remember in the village where my grandma lives in Poland, the neighbours had duckhunt on NES in the 90's
That sounds about right, Christmas of 1990 I got my first Nintendo and that game came standard with the system
UnFun fact: you can't even play duck hunt (or any shooting based NES game) on newer model (flat screen) TVs Because the light gun won't register
It took him 4 and a half minutes just to say the expansion port, the “mysterious” port hidden underneath almost every consoles, is an expansion port.
Lol. Seriously, even I was starting to get annoyed at how it was taking him multiple spoken sentences to basically say one word.
@Cutting Yoko’s bra! Apparently monetized videos have to be 10 minutes long as a minimum. Just something I've heard a few weeks ago. Never checked if it's true
i see no problem with explaining it first, it's not like he says absolute meaningless fluff, like other youtubers.
@ how dare you!
@@Wheelio understand the more descriptions given in first part?..lol it slows down many questions by making severl graphics to visualize.
I think that it is actually pretty amazing that they had the foresight to put the expansion pack adapter on the bottom of the unit. It would have seemed like such a technological leap to most of us if we would have been able to use them. Kind of like playing online in the 80s
Seems more like they were trying to keep it a secret by putting it on the bottom.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly *"Seems more like they were trying to keep it a secret by putting it on the bottom."*
Unfortunately Sherlock Holmes turned it upside-down and discovered it.
I've never seen one with the plastic tab that required being broken.
I owned several.
@@electron2601It seems like I kind of remember those. The ones that I remember most just had a cover that was held in place with a couple tabs you pushed in to remove it. As kids we wondered what it was for. My memory sucks, because I have no idea what it was for, and I'm sure this video explained it. lol
Interesting, I always wondered what the intent was for the hidden area, had no idea that there was a port hidden under the breakable plastic cover.
we knew it was an expansion port, but we never needed any peripherals for it anyway.
Why is the Video so long, and why he needs brillant ?
What's he saying? I'm distracted by the NeverEnding Story ripoff!
I was going to write pretty much the same thing..
Spot on!
Just what I was thinking too.
The music around 7 minutes? My brain was doing flips trying to work it out! Came to the comments to see if anyone else had asked.....
Same here... The video became even more nostalgic by that moment.
The "Nintendo Entertainment System NES version?" What, were there other versions of the NES in Europe than... the NES? Here in the US it was just labeled "Nintendo Entertainment System."
(And why is "NES Version" in a completely different font than everything else?)
EDIT: Okay so later in the video there's a European Version. Now I'm even more confused.
Yeah, don’t know what that nonsense is, never had anything like it on my NESes and I’m in Europe
There were a few different distributors Tonka and Mattel and the machines were slightly different iirc. They both balsed the marketing right up do nintendo eventually marketed the thing themselves.
Okay so the Wikipedia article has more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Configurations
Basically there were a few different versions released in Europe and the UK, and they were apparently incompatible with each other via lockout chips, so the labeling was so people would know which games to buy. Which seems like a really bad move in retrospect, since it would just cause more confusion than anything.
My NES has "Mattel Version" on it.
Mattel thought that selling NES in chemists was a good idea, spoiler it wasn't XD
At 2:05 the captions say "[Music plods on like a feverish camel]".
11:57 Song slaps. What is its name ? Cool video. I was on Sega Master System 2 back in the days :-p . It is still functioning.
Love the 80’s soundtrack in this video.
its just old systems used to have weed stash spots like the ps2
The Atari 5200 has HUGE stash spots. :P
@@bsharpmajorscale that was for all that 80s cocaine
@bsharpmajorscale AVGN already used it to store his beer 😂😂😂
Man of culture. that hdd space can hide a lot of things
The amount of heat that was produced lead to many inspections for such.
8:07 Experience head to head without leaving your house!
2020: May I have that?
3:38 Until now I never knew what 'minus 144p' looks like.
I've learned so much from this video.
pls leave ma weed in the hidden compartment, I will be around shortly to pick it up 🤣
I remember hiding "stuff " in there - in my early years HA HA HA HA HA HA 😂
👍
dont know what youre talking about mate, the NES was massively popular in Europe, at least here in Norway. I remember as a kid I would collect 10øre coins (basically equivalent to 1cent US, slightly more), and since it was our lowest value coin and also physically very small I would always find them on the ground and like relatives would maybe give me some etc. Well eventually I had over 10,000 of the fuckers and an NES cost 1000 kroner at that time, so I bought an NES with 10,000 10øre coins (we did go via the bank first, to have them counted and exchanged :p )
That's insane.
Yeah, Nintendo owned Scandinavia.
(you felt your kromer being drained)
Is that The Mysterious Cities of Gold music partway through the video?...
The three things of my life I'm most proud of:
1) To be alive
2) To be a gamer
3) To be credited ("thanks to...") in the ending of Alex Kidd in Miracle World 2
Great video! I didn't know a lot of that. Back in the day Nintendo was slow to release a 16 bit system. They had officially stated they would make a 16 bit system when the public was ready / needed one, or something similar (it's been a long time so I forgot the exact quote). Meanwhile Genesis and TurboGrafx were raking in the dough with better looking games. I argued for Nintendo to utilize the little known expansion port of existing NES but no one would listen. Time went by and they eventually released the Super NES and so the expansion port was never to be "used" and remained mostly unknown. Finding a video about it and even more was cool! Thank you
Secret expansion ports with lots of ambition for future upgrades, that end up never being used.
The NeverEnding Story...
This is crazy because I was asking myself what that was for only 2 days ago. Never looked it up and then this shows up on my feed. Thanks for the answer! 👍🏿
CIA: You are welcome Ron..
As Adam sandler might tell you, "you can put your weed in there"
🤣
Wrong guy, it’s Rob Schneider
No, it was Adam Sandlers stoner shop worker character in The Hot Chick ( which is a Rob Schneider film ) that said "you can put your weed in there"
@@keithseratt4562 Rob Schneider did that gag on SNL in 1993.
ua-cam.com/video/CKOc6hXMDhc/v-deo.html
@@freedustin
At any rate, this was clip I was referring to ua-cam.com/video/WNUotOaqN9M/v-deo.html
Nostalgia Nerd is what happens if The Nerd from A.V.G.N. and Nostalgia Critic had a baby.
The expansion port was also under the SNES (anyone heard about a partnership with Sony for a CD reader peripheral named "Play Station"?) and under the Nintendo 64 (where it was used to connect a reader of backup copies of games on CD) ;-D
Why do I all of a sudden want to watch The Neverending Story?
Lol
Recognized the song too!
I really want to know who composes the music here, and where I can get more.
_Hop on yer luck dragons, kids!_
@@crnkmnky Giorgio Moroder composed the theme song of the movie
@@pgrobban I don't think that was the real Moroder music though. 🎶
I'd always assumed this port was also used to load from multiple carts for those Sears demo kiosks, but it turns out that was a whole bespoke console series, the M-8/M-82.
"What is this for?"...To hide your pot.
Finding the port on the bottom was like finding some sort of buried treasure.
I remember we called the Nintendo Hotline and they told us direct from Redmond Washington that it could have possibly been used for something like the Sega CD is what they compared it to.
They told us there was one on the bottom of the SNES and to keep an eye out because "who knows???" but no we never saw the SNES CD. Thanks cool hotline dude. 👍
Oh, ours definitely had that tab you had to break off. We weren't sure if we should break it. Of course, we did...
Am I the only one who noticed the "Neverending Story" music in the BG? xD (Starts at 7:06).
The question is, what is the Switch capable of, if Nintendo designed it also in foresight?
Bluetooth support.... That was there all along but they activated ,4 years later cuz nintendo
They still have yet to enable usb 3.0 support on the dock.
Never seen the top-loader NES before, it's rather pretty.
That was the NES² on it's last cycle when Super Nintendo was on the rise.
Aaaaaaaaand nowadays we've come full circle, with micro transactions and gambling in games unfortunately becoming the norm, and the law is ONCE AGAIN interceding.
They were planing on adding peripherial like the floppy disc drive and modem the Famicom. In Japan they sold discs that you could buy a game and then later bring back and pay to have the game replaced by buying another game
I remember being fascinated by that port as a kid. I had absolutely convinced myself there was a function I just hadn't figured out or heard of yet.
I'm pretty sure it was going to be used for the Famicom Disk System add-on, which Nintendo initially planned to release in North America. They would have had to redesign the FDS though, as the NES was obviously completely different then the Famicom.
I used to hide my cigarettes in there as a kid... Parents never found them
I'm sorry what
@@cheetodog6593 yeah it was just long enough to hide a couple smokes
My older brother hid his weed their. I hid my cig stash in the battery port of my cassette tape boom box.
@@jubjub8028 imagine a police dog tracking a nes
@@FairytalesFated YOU ARE JUST A SPOILED PERSON
Can you imagine online gaming on the NES in the 80s? Some guy shoots you in an Ikari Warriors death match and you hear, "Oh yeah? Your mom shot JR! "
😂😂😂
This joke is only funny to old ppl lol
@@themanfromroomfive9445 That really rustles my jimmies.
TLDW there is an expansion slot and the only peripheral was a modem that was not manufactured at a large scale in the United States of America.
edited from TLDR to TLDW
Edit 2 I have made this comment longer because the scope of the production of the nes modem was unclear
TLDW
@@infinidominion Captain Pedantic.
A Gamer Aaron very well I will edit this comment again
Interestingly, we visited our local Nintendo headquarters in the 90s (in Redmond I think?) and I specifically asked about that port. And they told me it was a diagnostic port, that when faulty devices were sent in for repair, they said they had a diagnostic harness that connected to that port. That's probably not quite accurate, but that's what they told us.
Sounds like they wanted to keep the reason top secret.
It's entirely possible the port was officially used for that purpose.
Love that you mentioned the product Chykn offered, it is amazing. You can connect a 4-player Famicom adapter and play Nekketsu Fighting Legend on your toaster NES. Proto-Smash Bros!
"easy to circumnavigate" - I think the word should have been 'circumvent'. Circumnavigation means traveling [sailing] around the world...
@@CerealKiller I see that now. Maybe this is regional usage.
Circumnavigate relates to navigation, as in geographical context. Circumvent is the word he was looking for. It was probably just a mixup, it happens to everyone.
@@lkchild I went and looked this up, evidently this might be dialectal. He's justified in his choice of language, for some reason it jumped out to me.
I've personally heard circumnavigate used in the same context. Circumvent is generally used to describe altering something to cause it to avoid something else while circumnavigate is used to describe getting around something.
ie. A thief might circumnavigate security systems by maneuvering through blind spots, or they could circumvent them by cutting power and distracting guards.
Not saying it's right, that's just how I've always heard it in popular usage. Aside from it's niche, and seemingly intended, usage in geography, this is not exactly a common word.
"to gambling being conducted on a device marketed for children"
EA is taking notes on this statement
Fascinating stuff, as ever.
In addition to the modem, there was an idea for the Floppy Disk Drive system and such to plug into that port. Basically, it would add a version of the keyboard used in Famicom as well as modem, and as well as disk drive. This would be a concept not too unlike the Commodore disk drive which allows daisy chaining over a serial bus. Commodore's serial bus based disk drive were essentially computers with one or more disks drives on a serial based networking port based on the IEEE-488 port which was a parallel networking port. Each peripheral essentially had to have a computer board. Even Commodore's printers had little CPUs, ROM, and RAM as well as an I/O chip and a microcontroller for controlling the printer... while the floppy drives had a floppy disk controller. Each such device would have an ID#. Almost akin to the later ethernet connected devices like your ethernet connected printers. Same thing could be for mass storage devices so you access them via a more fancier ID numbering system (local area network IP address). So in theory, there can be various kinds of stuff Nintendo could have came up with. Including even a hard drive. If the PET could in 1977. They could have implemented something that could be stacked or something. Even a LASERDISC based optical disk.
Wow this is crazy, I had no idea online gaming was actually thought up of and actually made possible way back in those NES days.
It's an expansion port. Saved you 12 minutes. You're welcome.
Thank you!!!
Yeah this is nothing special what a waste of time..
I can't beleive this needed a whole 12 minute video, I knew what it was from the title and thumbnail, I've known what it was since shortly after discovering it and calling the Nintendo hotline in 1990 and asking them what it was lol
Edit: not that in understood what it was back then, but I knew what it was
Thanks but no thanks. I need a little foreplay.
I'm sorry, it was pretty obvious that this was an expansion port. I thought everyone knew this by now. I figured this out when I was a kid and the Nes was a current console. If you're watching this video for any other reason than why it was created (not what it is) that's on you. Most of us growing up at the time thought it was for a planned but never released Nintendo Disk System. They did plan on releasing one until bank switching was discovered making the Famicom Disk System obsolete.
Addendum- Yes, some kids stupidly believed you could insert a Master System cart inside the expansion slot. Gaming mags of the day made endless comparisons between the three 8-bit consoles all the time. Anyone with the ability to read a magazine could tell you the system specs of the Master System dwarfed the Nes in all but sound making the idea of compatibility a foolish proposal.