Rare 8-bit computer from China review! [SB-2000]
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- UPDATE: A Discord is now available to talk about Zeal 8-bit project! Feel free to join: / discord
Hello guys!
Today, I would like to propose a special video about a rare Chinese 8-bit computer from 1998, I bought in brand new condition!
Half-famiclone, half-8-bit computer, is it any good in both?
Find info about Zeal 8-bit computer on my website: zeal8bit.com
00:00 Unboxing
00:50 SUBOR company presentation
01:44 SB-2000 in details
03:52 Boot up and disks review
06:11 F-BASIC
07:46 Famicom/NES mode
09:16 Conclusion
Links used in this video:
Floppy disks images - www.lainzy.net/post/239.html
NES technical reference - www.nesdev.org/wiki/Controlle...
Subor official video - subor.com.cn
Music:
Operatic 3 - Vibe Mountain - Наука та технологія
![How 8-bit graphics work on homebrew retro computer [Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yqj1tTqxfC4/mqdefault.jpg)
Interesting find! I guess that CPU has the exact same opcodes as the 6502. They turned a famicom into an _actual_ computer! :)
Exactly! They went even further, they made a custom ASIC which implements both the famicom CPU and PPU, while also adding printer, PS/2 keyboard, DB9 mouse support!
I really don't get why they didn't document it more to let people write proper software for it.
@@Zeal8bit I guess they were developing a "Famiclone" when the ban was announced, and decided not to waste their effort but instead, turn it into a computer to make some money from it. If they'd documented it, authorities might have realised just how compatible it was with the Famicom and they would have been in trouble. It's curious how often governments don't care about things which are clearly true but undocumented.
Arguably the famicom IS an actual computer, just one which is designed primarily to run games.
The fact that they achieved a copy of windows 98 on an 8 bit system is pretty impressive. Those graphics were really good. Although yes at the time 32 bit was the current architecture this seems to be really good and something that could be made great. Especially for someone wanting to experience 8 bit this seems like a cheat code. I would love to be apart of or see a new computer develop from this hardware.
If you dumped the ROMs and made them available, you might be able to convince someone to do a little disassembly on them to get more information about the machine.
Thanks a good idea! It's also possible to disassemble the binaries from the floppy disks images, trying to see how the softwares communicate with the kernel (syscalls?)
I had a quick try, I could disassemble the binaries which are nothing more than a header + raw code, but didn't have too much time for this unfortunately
Since the BASIC supports peak commands, maybe a small program can be written to dump contents of a cartridge
@@Zeal8bit hi, i'm very interested about this device but from where can i buy it?
@@Zeal8bit or alternatively how can i build a famiclone with floppy disk drive?
@@Zeal8bit thank you anticipately bro.
You should make some videos trying to figure out how this machine works! I agree that the Famiclone stuff must mostly be a compatibility mode, but as you showed some things are still the same.
It'd be very cool to figure out how much of the Famicom stuff could be used in conjunction with the better graphics modes shown for example.
god this is SUCH a missed opportunity; if they had marketed it as a programming learning tool for older kids and teens, shipped it with relatively extensive documentation on their flavour of BASIC and included a rudimentary SDK, this could’ve been a small revival of the 80s bedroom coder era
Yes I also think so, it's a shame they didn't do this. I mean they did implement all of that, the code is here, all they needed is an assembler and the documentation...
good video, i also have a couple of these and another branded similar to Amiga 500 that is an NES clone. I wonder if there is a technical person happy to pull them apart carefully to dump the roms. i will check in fb to see if there is a NES group that might shed some light
Have you checked helloacm ? It's a blog grouping several articles about these famiclones. For the floppy disks dump, I found them on Chinese blogs and forums, which have a lot of resources too.
You might be able to find a ROM dump there maybe?
@@Zeal8bit thanks, actually the guy who wrote the articles is one of the people I bought my computer from.
The reason that this computer was not documented was more than likely to allow the company to pass it off as an 8 bit PC rather than an actual game console. It may also have been a requirement to do so in order for the item to be sold under the Chinese restrictions. Either way, the engineers really did an amazing job with the operating system and GUI. It reminds me of the 8 bit multitasking operating system SymbOS, with its Windows like interface. Back in the day I would have gladly used this system. In the 80s I was using a VAX mainframe running Unix, an Exidy Sorcerer Mk II with CPM and much later a Sharp MSX II with MSX Dos, which was essentially MS Dos.
They did "document" the F-BASIC and the educative softwares in the user manual so that it's considered a PC more than a console, but why not documenting the low-level side? I would have liked a guide to write assembly, with some examples, the I/O addresses, etc...
Something a bit more advanced that would have also been useful for more advanced users? They totally targeted they devices toward kids for some reasons.
@@Zeal8bit You answered your own question .... "educative softwares". I'm speculating, but, I'm sure that this would have appeased the Chinese powers at the time. Providing documentation of low level features would have probably been harder to justify, given the potential for CCP eroding home brew. Anyway, I agree with you, it would have been nice to have such guides. Also, I can't get into their heads, but cheap PC clones were pouring out of China at the time. I'm sure no adult would have wanted an 8 bit computer to do serious work by this stage, so kids it was, as a cheap compromise. My Exidy Sorcerer came with a Z80 CPU and 32 kb of ram on the motherboard and an S100 expansion bus for extra ram and peripheral cards. Back in the late 70s that's what a business machine looked like. By the early 90's I was using a 386sx notebook with Windows 3 or Geoworks Ensemble and wouldn't have even thought of firing up the Sorcerer, even though it had Wordstar and I had used it for my university assignments from 1981. In fact, I can probably still write my own "Game of Thrones" (which was written on a Dos PC using Wordstar) on it because I can't type any faster or outperform an 8 bit computer anyway.
@@samshort365 Oh right, this computer came out so late, a bit before 2000. It was completely outdated compared to was on the market already. I don't think there wasn't such thing as retro communities back then either for this kind of machine.
Do you still write Z80 programs today?
@@Zeal8bit The truth is that I used to program in hexadecimal machine code by poking numbers into various memory addresses, but that was so long ago that I can't recall any of the details. In '81 I started using Pascal and Fortran on a Vax II. On the Exidy I had Micropolis Basic, Pascal MT Plus, Fortran and Cobol . While I still program for personal use I can't say I program for any particular platform and certainly not the Z80 specifically, although some code could easily be ported. Not that long ago a friend of mine still taught Z80 Assembly language in his engineering trade course because there are still a significant number of white goods using this processor. As for a retro scene, that wasn't really a thing. A retro computer in the 1980s, meaning a computer from the 50s to 70s could be the size of your house, certainly the size of your fridge and would probably cost as much as a new sports car. By the early 2000's old IBM PC's were considered junk and were just tossed into land fill because they were so common . About 15 years ago I was given an ultimatum by my other half to remove my computers. I had amassed enough Sunsparc servers to run a small country. Anyway, I tried to sell them on eBay, nothing. I tried giving them away, nothing. I left them on the nature strip with a free sign and the only person that drove by with an interest didn't pick them up for the same reason I was getting rid of them. I ended up dumping them, now collectors are paying through their teeth!
@@samshort365 what is "Game of thrones"? is it a game developed by yourself?
SB2000 is designed as a true home computer uses MS-DOS compatible FAT12 floppies, and its word processing software is compatible with the DOS version of Kingsoft WPS.
The lack of a full SDK for the SB2000 was a real problem, but Chinese enthusiasts reverse-engineered it to run some NES ROMs without the need for a programmable cassette.
Another machine similar to it, the BBK Floppy Model1, had complete BIOS and DOS call manuals, as well as the macro assembly toolset. There is a "Chinese Famiclone Home Computer" archive on the Internet Archive with a large amount of unorganised material, including the NES-SB2000 ROM conversion tool SB2000NES.exe and BBK documentation BBG.pdf.
It would be great if you open the machine and show the electronic board.
Thanks for your comment!
I didn't want the video to be too long, in fact, dedicating a whole video for disassembling it may be a better! 😄
Interesting. I wonder if it can run Family Basic cartridge and recognize keyboard on Famicom side.
I am also curious about that, unfortunately, I don't have the Family Basic cartridge. I haven't found anyone online who tried either.
@@Zeal8bit if you have the means and equpment you can download a rom of the family basic cartridge and then put on a cartridge
Wow! Thanks for the video.
i think you can try running binary executables from basic with peek and poke by modifying the call stack or sth. It should have the same instr set as the regular nes.
I love this! Where did you get it?
I found it on a Chinese application, called 闲鱼, for used things. A kind of Chinese Craigslist😄
Looks like I'm not the only fan of Dr. Mario. I still play that game almost every day. 😄
Oh finally someone who recognizes how great this game is! 😄
I also still play it, I admit my favorite version is the Gameboy one though
Nice. Review.
@6:01 is that the logo from Command & Conquer?
Could be, the text underneath says "Game" so it would be consistent
hope you guys to find a way to mod this console，its CPU should have more powerful hardware than normal famicom's cpu.and maybe a ntsc TV mode？
15 years earlier, and it would have been competitive, 20 years and it would have made every consumer computer look bad. It was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As for reverse engineering, that's made tougher by the fact that most of the chips are in epoxy blobs on the motherboard. It is unlikely to have any chips that are unique to it though, so it may be possible to identify which chips they used by comparing how they work.
Eh, 15 years earlier, it would have been obsoleted the very next year by the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. We 80s kids *really* cared about the fact that these machines were 16-bit; that was _cool! awesome! progress!_ ;) We would have been ashamed to say we had an SB-2000. Besides, with its mouse, Centronics printer port, likely RS-232 serial port, and floppy disk drive, the SB-2000 would have been as expensive as any one of these 16-bit machines, but actually more expensive given its build quality.
Did someone say DEV KIT?!
Atleast you can use the keyboard of this famiclone on a actual computer with some adapters
I would fo everything for a keyboard like that lol
Exactly, a PS/2 to USB should do the trick. There are plenty of them (keyboards) in China second-hand websites, but I don't know whether they deliver worldwide or not, depends on the sellers
¿Como consigues ese tipo de artefactos raros?.
Seeing this was a real treat im no computer expert but i heard about these a few years back and have actually been searching for one theres other versions of this out there theres one thats just a keyboard controllers mouse and famicom cartridge slot and has some weird 8 bit windows 98 clone on it
But it seems this version never made it to america
So i probably wont get one
Indeed it was only for the Chinese market. You would need to find a seller that has one (used or new old stock) and is willing to sell worldwide
小霸王 "little despot". Aww I thought you were going to make a start at reverse engineering it...
這個當時應該是10分昂貴的高端貨吧？
对的，这是为什么那时候不好卖，太贵了
其实小霸王所有的CPU都是台湾同胞的杰作哈哈哈
@@Zeal8bit 按理说几乎所有芯片都是台湾的CLONE，更不说标着UM UMC - Unicorn Microelectronics Corp. 应该联华的产品 "2019年3月15日 - 随后，联华又推出了UM6576芯片，除了能与UM6561模式完全兼容以外，UM6576还扩充了接口电路，使得机器在解决键盘、鼠标输入，打印和软驱驱动方面等很多问"
It is probably a 65816-clone.
It's a shame we don't have more info about that UM chip. As you said, maybe it's a clone of the 65816 they made after reverse-engineered the original. This machine needs a community to reverse-engineer it again (from a software side) 😄
Can you browse the web with it?
There is no network adapter in it, at that time, Internet was as spread as today.
When I saw the box opened, I felt a sort of false nostalgia. I want one! :) But I have more than enough computer things to play with.
I wonder if the mouse port is full RS-232 serial? But it seems strange to use a modem and not a mouse with this machine.
Boot "screen"? That's a boot *video!* :D I grew up with computers which could do fun things immediately at power-on. The PC's lack of sound initialization at boot makes me a little bit sad.
The lack of architecture documentation would, years ago, have made me dislike this machine. ;) Having started out with 80s 8-bits, I expected to have full knowlege of the machine and the control which came with it. But I developed this attitude because I could afford very little hardware in the 80s. Things were different in 1998, and now we live in a computing paradise.
There is a sound on boot, in fact it's enough a woman's voice! So it has good audio capabilities.
Its main drawback, as you said, it the lack of documentation, what a shame!
It is not a bad machine, even though it came out too late, it would have been cool to have an assembler directly installed or on a floppy and the hardware description with it.
Unfortunately they were targeting kids, so they thought this was out of scope
I am not even sure what I am looking at here. Basically Subor made something that isn’t a Famiclone at all, it is more similar to a Famicom Disk System (that we don’t know if it is compatible with FDS at all) with their custom BIOS. Not sure how they made the digital audio thing i assume it must be from a different sound channel but still very impressive. The operation systems are likely to be roms.
Like I don’t know. Subor’s original is to make cheap famiclones to make money. But this SB2000 it is just so cool and redundant at the same time and needless to say this isn’t cost effective at all. I am not sure if they are bluffing about 512k ram on boot screen either since if it is real it is just mind blown like since the original Famicom’s ram is inly 2k what is the point of making such big rams for it. Bottom line this whole thing seems to be full of strange business decisions but I guess this is why it is so unique. Really look forward to see decodes of it in the future.
I expect the ban on game systems would have made them lose money, so they developed a "proper computer" using their expertise instead. The point of 512KB RAM was to load video from disk, I'm sure. Also, speaking from experience, having plenty of RAM makes program development so much quicker and easier. Besides, 512K RAM was not at all difficult or expensive by 1998. It was normal by the end of 1984 in the West, so it would be nothing by 1998.
I like that it has the Command and Conquer logo on the fake Windows 98 desktop. lol
Haha yes it's the logo for games
У меня есть эта приствка ,игра Contra Force не лагает на ней
That keyboard is a direct rip-off from the design of Microsofts leading ergonomical keyboard at the time. So as long as the keys are tactile, is probably a keeper for everyday usage!
Ahhh the little tyrant king....i swear the company be bankrupt (before now) if it never put a famicom slot on every computer.
oh god please properly balance your microphone audio
In newer videos I got a new mic, it should be much better now 😄
there are lot of information about the dos, development, hardware and other stuff on helloacm
Thanks for the tip, I am going to check !
You get what you pay for, self inflicted