I love the look of the FM Towns II , if I am not mistaken it runs a normal 386 cpu in some of the earlyer ones , and it works fine with a Cyrex 486dlx overdrive processor ^.^
I agree. That colorway aged well (especially compared to the nasty faded white). The Sony VAIOs also had that color/style originally. My first PC was a 98 Sony VAIO and it was so much better looking than the American competition. It's actually a major factor in why I started getting interested in Japanese products.
you have no idea how happy i am to find this video. Love the design of these computers - cant decide if i like this one or the computer-and-screen combination better. thanks for getting so close and taking your time!
Great set up! So the FM Towns it's a uber pumped 386 PC with a uber cool design! In '89? That's awesome! Just putting a CD-ROM drive in a PC skyrocketed that machine 5 years in the future in comparision to our western early 90s PC tech...
Very interesting system indeed, the picture on the monitor was extremely clear, lovely colour depth and clarity. It looks quite advanced for the time most certainly has some features that were not on other systems. Sounds like it had a decent amount of titles that came out for it as well. The sound out of the inbuilt speakers was pretty decent as well.
aww man! this takes me back to when i first discovered your youtube channel! Can't wait to see the gameplay vids on that FM TOWNS II! Great videos as always.
Beautiful machine. It's cool even now, I can't imagine what it must have been like to have one when it came out. I remember seeing in Gamefan magazine the FM Towns Marty games in the import section.
AWESOME, After Burner even the arcade version did not sound nearly as good as the audio on the FM Towns II, it totally rocked!!! And I definitely agree its CD-ROM drive is the best design I've seen for an optical drive.
Another awesome vid Luke,I learn something just about every time I watch one of your vids! I always thought the FM computers were ahead of their time, too bad we didn't get them in the States. BTW, I was really hoping you would show After Burner, and surprise; you did! Made my day, the soundtrack to this game is just awesome! CRI used this same soundtrack for After Burner 3 on the SEGA CD, that was the first system I'd heard it on. Once I knew it originated on the Towns, I had to find out more!
Hey Luke,imagine that cd drive didn't have rubber parts and when you open the cd door,the cd came out very fast and hit you right between your eyes or crash on a wall or a window.Someone outside the window would think you were throwing stuff or in a fight with someone indoors.
Yeah Afterburner has great tunes... they did pretty much the same thing on the movie Planes(took the kiddos today to see it since i'm furloughed.) haha!
It's me or the monitor of this FM-Towns uses a Trinitron tube? Anyway, it's a very cool machine, the keyboard uses even the "Fujitsu Leaf Spring" switches if i'm right
Six of the best games for the FM-TOWNS in my eyes, are Illusion City, Xak II, Last Armageddon, Dinosaur, and Brandish, and Rayxanber. I also like the Toaplan shooters on that system as well. I also like the Psychic Detective games for it as well.
yea, the monitor was overheating and causing the dvi cord to act wonky, and irony too was the video card was overheating hahah. so both the monitor and the video card were acting like two hot supermodels
Luke I need your help! The power supply of my FMT2 needs a bunch of resistors replaced, some of them are so bad that I can't tell what they are. If you ever take your machine apart, I wonder if you would take a nice picture of it? Let me know if that is something you could do. Thank you so much!
Haha I love that intro! What does it say? I thought it was a Japanese ad. That is a great looking computer even for today, must of been state of the art when it came out. Fujitsu computers are extremely well made.
hey luke, love your vids, was curious if you knew anything more about FM TOWNS II SN model? there is not a lot of information available on the internet about the II sn, just towns II and marty.
Very interesting system. Looks fantastic. It seems to work perfectly, does this mean we don't get to see you tear it apart and work your magic on its frail old circuitry? :)
Man it would be so incredible if modern PC games would boot into a stripped OS to maximize performance instead of wastefully running the entire OS while playing the game.
great video as always luke! one question: outside of the carrying handle, way are the other 2 small hatches on the top used for? (the ones to the side and in front of the handle?
This is pretty awesome.....I remember the first time I saw an FM Towns on the internet and was very impressed with it......also, what kind of hard drive is in that casing? is it standard IDE? if so, it may be easy to replace it...(with your skills, you could replace it even if it wasn't IDE i'm sure)
What CPU is in this actual FM Towns system and how fast is it? How much RAM is in the computer? Is the printer port a standard Centronics Parallel port? It doesn't look like one to me. The GUI on TownsOS reminds me veery much of early versions of Mac OS/Windows 3.1. Are you saying an FM Towns II PC from 1989 could actually run Windows 95?
Would this model run Marty games? I know most games with the Marty stamp just mean that the game is an FM Towns PC game that is also Marty compatible, but I wondering about the handful of exclusives. I'd like to find out because as much as I love the Marty, there still isn't a good laser replacement for the thing.
+Stefan Homberger Yes, they run, but sadly these FM-Towns are rather finicky themselves, mine used to work just fine and then all of a sudden went berserk (CD Drive keeps on doing strange sounds and the normal start screen won`t appear). Both my X68000 and FM-Towns machine gava me (or are still giving me) a lot of trouble.
Hey Luke you should go directly in the hunt for a Towns Pentium and ditch all those 386/486 models, there are some games that require a faster CPU: Turbo OutRun, Galaxy Force, Mahou Daisakusen, Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury Special etc. there are more, but all of them run a lo better with a Pentium CPU.
I love the look of the FM Towns II , if I am not mistaken it runs a normal 386 cpu in some of the earlyer ones , and it works fine with a Cyrex 486dlx overdrive processor ^.^
One of the more Ａ Ｅ Ｓ Ｔ Ｈ Ｅ Ｔ Ｉ Ｃ computers ever made. I also really dig the blueish slate color of the whole thing, and it makes the green logo pop.
I agree. That colorway aged well (especially compared to the nasty faded white). The Sony VAIOs also had that color/style originally. My first PC was a 98 Sony VAIO and it was so much better looking than the American competition. It's actually a major factor in why I started getting interested in Japanese products.
Yes it's beautiful especially for the time! I want it LOL
you have no idea how happy i am to find this video. Love the design of these computers - cant decide if i like this one or the computer-and-screen combination better. thanks for getting so close and taking your time!
Great set up! So the FM Towns it's a uber pumped 386 PC with a uber cool design! In '89? That's awesome! Just putting a CD-ROM drive in a PC skyrocketed that machine 5 years in the future in comparision to our western early 90s PC tech...
That is the coolest CD-ROM drive that I've ever seen in my life! We should have computers that have CD or DVD-ROM drives like that! Awesome design!
That's one of the coolest cd drives I've seen
The Fast LED is for Fast Mode which can be enabled pressing reset and "T" on the keyboard.
Awesome find, Luke! I've always been intrigued by the FM Towns and Marty systems. Love all the Japanese PC and console goodness!
Very interesting system indeed, the picture on the monitor was extremely clear, lovely colour depth and clarity.
It looks quite advanced for the time most certainly has some features that were not on other systems. Sounds like it had a decent amount of titles that came out for it as well.
The sound out of the inbuilt speakers was pretty decent as well.
aww man! this takes me back to when i first discovered your youtube channel! Can't wait to see the gameplay vids on that FM TOWNS II! Great videos as always.
Beautiful machine. It's cool even now, I can't imagine what it must have been like to have one when it came out. I remember seeing in Gamefan magazine the FM Towns Marty games in the import section.
What an intro! :D Always count on Luke educating us about interesting hardware.
AWESOME, After Burner even the arcade version did not sound nearly as good as the audio on the FM Towns II, it totally rocked!!!
And I definitely agree its CD-ROM drive is the best design I've seen for an optical drive.
That's the best version of "Maximum Power" I've ever heard. That FM Towns is a beast!
Looks very modern for 1989 machine! Specially with CD-ROM drive and a hard drive. Very cool pickup, congrats!
Another cool history class from Luke!
Nice dude! Those old Microcomputers/ PC compatible computers are super cool!
Wow..very nice Luke,a well put together system. And way to go on describing this system
One of the most beautifully designed computers ever
Now I am super interested in the system and need to learn more! Can't wait to see what she can do and she has Megadrive sound chip in there!!!
Another awesome vid Luke,I learn something just about every time I watch one of your vids! I always thought the FM computers were ahead of their time, too bad we didn't get them in the States. BTW, I was really hoping you would show After Burner, and surprise; you did! Made my day, the soundtrack to this game is just awesome! CRI used this same soundtrack for After Burner 3 on the SEGA CD, that was the first system I'd heard it on. Once I knew it originated on the Towns, I had to find out more!
That was an Orgasm of the late 80' :) Awsome machine !
Wow! That is a beautiful system. I would like to have one of those someday.
Hey Luke,imagine that cd drive didn't have rubber parts and when you open the cd door,the cd came out very fast and hit you right between your eyes or crash on a wall or a window.Someone outside the window would think you were throwing stuff or in a fight with someone indoors.
very cool system, i really like that led equalizer at the ´bottom that looks so killer :D
it reallly sounds great aswell ^_^
Huh! FM sounds on the FM Towns!
So beautiful! Congrats Lukemorse
sound meter is seriously cool, as is the system itself
This thing was designed in the 80s and it looks better than 99% of any desktop from the 90s and early 2000s I've seen! :)
I plan to own one of these in the future. Very cool!
Cd tray is like a vertical gamecube, that's the first thing I thought of.
looks better than my actual desktop PC lol
Love the intro. Quite a surprise :D hehe
That´s an awesome system :)
Cool amazing FM-Towns system!
Yeah Afterburner has great tunes... they did pretty much the same thing on the movie Planes(took the kiddos today to see it since i'm furloughed.) haha!
Awesome system. Great review Luke.
We mentioned you on the retrounlim live show tonight mate. Seems you have a lot of fans :) me included, love this stuff.
Interesting and educational Luke thanks I enjoyed this one alot.
woah this computer was years ahead of its time in almost every aspect!
It's me or the monitor of this FM-Towns uses a Trinitron tube? Anyway, it's a very cool machine, the keyboard uses even the "Fujitsu Leaf Spring" switches if i'm right
Bootable disks! That really would have been the way to go for PCs, no troubles with config.sys and autoexec.bat
Six of the best games for the FM-TOWNS in my eyes, are Illusion City, Xak II, Last Armageddon, Dinosaur, and Brandish, and Rayxanber. I also like the Toaplan shooters on that system as well. I also like the Psychic Detective games for it as well.
Damn that thing sounds like the sega cd version of Afterburner. Very nice.
holy crap nice system!
Really cool intro!
yea, the monitor was overheating and causing the dvi cord to act wonky, and irony too was the video card was overheating hahah. so both the monitor and the video card were acting like two hot supermodels
陽気で楽しいね。何気に日本語の発音が綺麗(笑)
Luke I need your help! The power supply of my FMT2 needs a bunch of resistors replaced, some of them are so bad that I can't tell what they are. If you ever take your machine apart, I wonder if you would take a nice picture of it? Let me know if that is something you could do. Thank you so much!
It sounds freaking awesome!
Amazing System Luke! One of these days I really gotta get my lazy ass over to Japan :-)
Haha, the Intro reminds me of the Openings to the Shows in Pokemon Channel :D
Haha I love that intro! What does it say? I thought it was a Japanese ad. That is a great looking computer even for today, must of been state of the art when it came out. Fujitsu computers are extremely well made.
hey luke, love your vids, was curious if you knew anything more about FM TOWNS II SN model? there is not a lot of information available on the internet about the II sn, just towns II and marty.
Very interesting system. Looks fantastic. It seems to work perfectly, does this mean we don't get to see you tear it apart and work your magic on its frail old circuitry? :)
Man it would be so incredible if modern PC games would boot into a stripped OS to maximize performance instead of wastefully running the entire OS while playing the game.
great video as always luke! one question: outside of the carrying handle, way are the other 2 small hatches on the top used for? (the ones to the side and in front of the handle?
Whoa that thing is INSANE!! It still looks modern and quite new!! Did it need expanding to run Windaz 95? 1989 and it puts my Dell to shame!
Goodness that's a huge monitor.
that is a awesome computer!
Amazing sound indeed!
has great old lucas arts adventures. as far i know the only indie jones versions with speech on the fm towns for example.
Very cool system! :) i think this is tons way better than the Nes console lol no competition involved
Vaya Vaya Un Fujitsu FM Towns
I'm looking for one of these too :p
Quite hard to find on Yahoo Auctions and a bit expensive x)
This is pretty awesome.....I remember the first time I saw an FM Towns on the internet and was very impressed with it......also, what kind of hard drive is in that casing? is it standard IDE? if so, it may be easy to replace it...(with your skills, you could replace it even if it wasn't IDE i'm sure)
love me some fm towns
Luke you damn hoarder!
Just kidding, great new addition, wish I had more Japanese PC's than my good old Compact X68000.
It would be interesting to see how this handles sound blaster emulation for games that run under Windows 3.1 or 95.
think I have After Burner for the 32x around here somewhere
I see an Atari Jaguar in the background, is that new Luke? I didn't think you had one of those.
What CPU is in this actual FM Towns system and how fast is it? How much RAM is in the computer? Is the printer port a standard Centronics Parallel port? It doesn't look like one to me. The GUI on TownsOS reminds me veery much of early versions of Mac OS/Windows 3.1. Are you saying an FM Towns II PC from 1989 could actually run Windows 95?
Yes you can run Windows 95B OSR2 version
Is this backward compatible with the FM-7? What is the last Fujitsu system that's backward compatible with the FM-7?
Would this model run Marty games? I know most games with the Marty stamp just mean that the game is an FM Towns PC game that is also Marty compatible, but I wondering about the handful of exclusives. I'd like to find out because as much as I love the Marty, there still isn't a good laser replacement for the thing.
+Stefan Homberger Yes, they run, but sadly these FM-Towns are rather finicky themselves, mine used to work just fine and then all of a sudden went berserk (CD Drive keeps on doing strange sounds and the normal start screen won`t appear). Both my X68000 and FM-Towns machine gava me (or are still giving me) a lot of trouble.
Great Machine!!!
I keep thinking you say flower everytime you say power lol
Hey Luke you should go directly in the hunt for a Towns Pentium and ditch all those 386/486 models, there are some games that require a faster CPU: Turbo OutRun, Galaxy Force, Mahou Daisakusen, Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury Special etc. there are more, but all of them run a lo better with a Pentium CPU.
What does Minesweeper look like on this thing ? :P
I was about to say wtf am I watching when I saw that intro LOL
this is cool
This monitor is humongous O_O
I could have sworn that's redbook audio.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some games or other multimedia programs had red book CD Audio music in them.
Does anyone know of a place where I can get just the keyboard for this?
wow rare to have any part of the system let alone the hdd and monitor
turn on the tower of power ;)
Is Computer able to boot ubuntu?
how much beast like this cost?
PS4 looks better LOL JK. great video. Is nice to learn more about videogames thanks to you Luke :)
Is that intro supposed to be "Package Time"?
Oh, you wanted to say Live CD not Ubuntu :)
Is computer able to boot livecd?
Whoa very Linux like :D I approve
I want Learn Japanese with Luke
Haha what a wacky intro
Drroooolllllllllll hahaha me like :P
Im sorry i dont understand Japanese
Is it me or does towns look like such a weird word now lol