My Consoles: FM Towns Marty
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2016
- The FM Towns Marty is a very cool, uncommon system. I talk about the struggles I had to get it working 100% and show of some of the reasons you may want one.
Lots of talky bits about repairing in this one, if you only want to see it running then just jump to 13:57, but I hope you'll want to watch the whole thing.
Info for the Marty floppy pinout/Interface data used from this thread: torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewto... - Ігри
Thanks for the info about it. It's one of the more interesting systems to me.
Totally worth it for Splatterhouse, tatsujen and raiden trad! They looked awesome!
Great video Rob! 👍
Now it's all repaired I can finally spend some time playing games, instead of stabbing it with a soldering iron. Thanks for watching, and for helping with the logistics :D
I'm so proud of you doing the floppy mod by yourself. I was so pissed of by that console, using so many hours with it recapping, measuring every possible signal, disassembling and assembling the cd drive multiple times and getting my finger burned by that floppy that I needed a break from it :D Anyway, I'm quite sure that the problem with the original floppy was the spinning motor or the driver for that. As you remember, it had odd irregular speed that could only been seen using the oscilloscope and forcing the axle tiny bit to certain direction made it work. I would like to check that motor in some point just to see, if it is possible to take apart without destroying it.
Thanks for all your help on this one, phew... now let's break it by fiddling with the CPU 😂
A very cool system mate. Glad you could get it working.
to be honest, I had serious doubts that it would be fixable at times... really happy now though. thanks for watching!
very cool system, the games look amazing
Fantastic video Rob, so interesting. This really was the Japanese equivalent of what Commodore did with the CD32 over here.
Interesting to point out the cd32, which commodore claimed was the first 32bit console system, this pre dated it... but yeah, same concept.
the guy who makes the gdemu has a ode for these..
Hahaha pmsl at Lee at the end. Absolutely belting video, Rob! Loved that mate. Was fascinating to watch the whole process you went through to get it up and running. The lengths you went to were astounding, I certainly wouldn't have the patience.
Great seeing Monkey Island run on it too. I'd always been curious but never seen it on the FM Towns. It looks great actually!
RockstarRunner7 Oh, that'd be great!
RockstarRunner7 Also, I didn't know it had a 386 SX.
I wanted one of these mainly to play Splatterhouse. Then I saw Splatterhouse arcade is on a Namco collection for the Switch. Problem solved and 1,000$ and a thousand headaches saved. That being said it's a very cool system.
Ace video Rob. I have heard of this console before but don't know anything about it at all. Great to see you guys repair it. I wouldn't stand a chance at being able to do that. Looks like some of the games run really well too. I do feel educated :-D
Too video mate. More please :-D
It has some quality arcade conversions, as well as those classic adventure games, all kinds of stuff, and to top that off you can basically use it like an old PC. Cheers for watching Matt
Great job and fascinating information about the system and the challenges you had getting it working! You've seriously put me off buying one of these lol. If you cannot get a laser replacement for it I wouldn't go near one! Really nice system though!!!
So cool, but you're right, it's a dark cloud lurking in the background... I suggested to the guy who makes the gdemu, but I think he's way to busy.
Have you searched AliExpress? Did you manage to get a part number and manufacturer off the laser assembly? There must me a spare out there somewhere. They often used one laser pickup in multiple drives. It might help if you've got a photo of close ups etc, then people can search to see if the pickup is used elsewhere. For example you often find the lasers used in other home CD players and other PC-CDROM drives etc.
Since its x86 based hardware you might be able to wire up an IDE drive or something - I honestly don't know whether that's possible or whether they designed their own control interface. Typically things like this go with existing architecture but make it bespoke with their own wiring etc.
+GadgetUK164 there has been some research in to replacements, that part number I show in the video is the only compatible one anyone came across, and I couldn't find one for sale, even on aliexpress.
Glad you did an overview of this console mate as I didn't really know a whole lot about it. Ace work on getting it working again. I take it the cost of the parts to get it running still came in a lot cheaper than buying one working?
It's nice to see the overkill packaging on the games haha.. all that for a jewel case cd, does look smart as though.
glad to hear you found it interesting :) yeah, parts were absolutely cheaper... think I spent about £40 in total for repair parts (including the new floppy drive)
cool video. any chance you can post a pic of the schematic you used to make the floppy drive adapter in case anyone else needs to make one?
Also nice cameo at the end there
:D
FM TOWN MARTY ODE coming soon. Optical Drive Emulator. SO you can remove the CD unit and boot the Games off a SD card and keep the CD unit put away.
I can't find the Alone in the Dark video?
Very cool console. This console has 3.5" HD floppy drive, it's meant can play DOS games in diskette? You just brought back my some good memories in minutes 23:00 I ever watched that game :)
While the hardware is 386 based, it isn't compatible with DOS software, so you have to find Towns versions of any software you might want to use. Thanks for watching.
Good video.
Thanks :)
Raiden Trad is fuckin' ace, would love that if I had an FM Towns!
indeed it is, only £200
This video is fantastic Rob. I used to play a lot of 4D boxing on the PC. How many games came out for the system?
Cheers BDC! There's a fair few, but most are ridiculously expensive :( tons of hentai, which I'm sure is right up your street ;)
floppy drive? That reads CDs?
Ok, Done.
I don´t remember exactly but Alone in the Dark wasn´t expensive. The LucasArts ones are on a whole other level. Hard to find and expensive!
Good video, subbed!
Thanks man :)
Really liked the look of the Marty bitd - but tbh it looks like a complete ball ache if something went wrong. I thought about getting a X68000 not so long back and it was the thought of experiencing similar problems that made me choose to avoid it.
Its the same with all the consoles with DVD/ CD / Floppy drives etc. as they all feature too many moving parts that can crap out any time. Yes there is something to be said for older solid state cartridge based hardware :-)
You're not wrong there. At least with most other systems it isn't hard/expensive to replace them. That said, now it's working, I'm really liking it, it has an aura about it ;) Thanks for watching.
RockstarRunner7 No probs :-) I find it really it entertaining seeing the games old tech :D
Its good to keep the old systems up and running be it by either repairs or mods its all good to me :D
Hi, I recently purchased a Fm towns Marty model 2, I have got some Roms from the internet. I have no idea how to go about testing the floppy disc drive, could you please let me know how to see if it works?
Stephen Dalzell Okay, if you hit the options menu off the bouncing ball screen, look for the floppy format option, pop a disc in and see that that works first. After that, you could burn a game that first boots to Towns OS, like Alone in the Dark. Once in Towns OS, you can swap cd's / floppys and see what you can do.
RockstarRunner7 Thank you for getting back to me. I have not had the chance to test the floppy disc drive just yet. I'll need to get a 3.5 floppy disc first to try it. I do at some point plan to get Super Street Fighter 2 to play on the Marty, is this something you know anything about if it's at possible?
Sorry to disappoint you, but SSF2T isn't going to work on the Marty. It requires more ram than the Marty has, and the fabled ram expansion is so rare it might as well not exist.
RockstarRunner7 I think you're right but it will not stop me looking. One more thing I would like to ask is that I burnt off a copy of Twin Cobra and Flying Shark I think that's what they're called, when I play them the bgm doesn't start is there anything I could be doing wrong?
Nice FM Towns, I've had many in the past EX2, Marty 2 and most recently the Marty like yours that I sold to @griffo83x... It's a shame the prices have gone up... Makes more sense to buy the PCB in nearly all cases now (Splatterhouse being my casing point, which can be had for £200)... You did a great job with the repair though and really enjoyed the video thanks :)
Can you tell me where to find the PCB for £200? :D Wish the prices of originals were more affordable, but that's the way things are, and there's plenty of fun things to play around with on the Marty... i'm looking to upgrade the cpu, which should be an adventure ;)
I think the most recent one I've seen is on UKVAC, if you want one I can keep an eye out for you, I bought mine for less that £200 and sold it last year for the same price.
Looking forward to seeing what you do with the Marty :)
Really interesting video mate, thoroughly enjoyed that. To be honest though it has put me off owning one. They do look quality but the reliability is a massive issue for me, especially given the cost of the unit.
True, it's a cool system when it's all working, but I'd only recommend it to someone who knows their way around a soldering iron.
awesome video, hope you get more views
thanks man, appreciate it
A good interesting watch that Rob, never even heard of it. who was the good looking chap at the end?
cheers Lee! i don't know who he is, but he seems to have an addiction to old games, and a foul mouth ;)
+RockstarRunner7 lol
Great video just picked one of these up I wish I could find isos online they seem to have disappeared from the rom sites now :(
ISO's have always been a bit weird for the Marty, I guess due to the system being fairly uncommon, and people not dumping their incredibly expensive games.
RockstarRunner7 managed to get some isos but the cd drive doesnt like cdrs much its fine with originals though! Another kick in the teeth is the floppy drive keeps spinning when you pop a disk in lots of repairs to come :(
Yeah, that's what you get when you start getting in to obscure Japanese stuff. Keep your eye on the Doc Brown ODE project.
Nothing wrong with Alone in the Dark obsession - it's a fantastic game!!!
I was hooked from the first time I played AitD 1 on my Amstrad Mega PC back in the day.
What I love about that game is the dark theme to the back story as it unfolds. It's also quite surprising when you uncover secret rooms and areas from solving puzzles etc. There should be more games like this on modern hardware, kind of like the old RE games but with more supernatural back story. It was one of the first games I had to play through to completion and I worked out all the puzzles on my own, except I got stuck killing the tree at the end of the game - I ended up calling the hints and tips line from the manual (my only ever phone call to one of those old hints and tips lines), and the woman told me what to use to finish that last part =D
+GadgetUK164 ha, I have a feeling we could chat about this game for ages, I get so nostalgic for it.
Hehe, yeah - lots of memorable bits! My favourite parts were discovering the underground section, and that transparent demon or whatever it is sat in the arm chair - better not wake that fella up! Secret room in the library was cool too!
Just discovered your channel! I remember reading in EGM about the Marty back in the day when it came out in Japan. It seemed like a super machine, advanced for the time, like the Neo-Geo and X68000. Good memories. Subscribed! :)
Wish I was better at them though :) I still haven't beaten the first stage of the original Truxton on the arcade board. One day, though.
RockstarRunner7 Truxton was my second game for Sega Genesis, right after it released with Altered Beast back in the late 80s . I was like 10 at the time and used to play that game all day! Until yesterday, I had no idea that there was a sequel!!! Wondering now if the emulator is worth giving a shot, since looking at the rig you have would set back $1000+ from eBay .
BTW, every time you beat Truxton it's starts over with harder enemies and a new ending to be seen! I reached the 4th ending back in the day by leaving my Sega on for a couple days, paused overnight until it eventually froze lol..
If you want to play Truxton 2, then i'd definitely recommend using an emulator, the arcade roms are easy to find. And i'm quite surprised to hear Truxton has more than one level :D I should play the Sega version, see how it compares difficulty wise to the arcade board.
RockstarRunner7 Yes, its relentless from what I remember. As soon as you beat the game and the cinematic ending is over the game restarts. You'll notice on the second run that when you shoot the enemy ships they explode and Now send flak particles towards your ship, enemy ships also increase in speed! Different cinematic ending each time, not sure how many endings though since my console froze . No saves back then.
Edit: Just Google'd and read that Truxton has 5 endings.
Thanks for emulator advice!
The only thing I must disagree is MI 2. The music is horrible. But that´s maybe only me. After years I played it again but now that ScummVm can emulate the music the right way I don´t enjoy it as much as I did in the beginning. The least best of the LA adventure games that were ported to the FM-Towns. It has nice additional sound effects but the music... I prefer Midi, Soundblaster and Adlib. Also with Indy 4 I prefer the pc cd version. Not like the other ported versions. For example the best MI 1 theme music is the FM-Towns version!
That Splatterhouse has some nice sounds!
You should give credits to me, I'm sure you followed my instructions on how to use a Samsung SDF-321B on a Marty console.Here's my post dated April 2016 :
torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1932
Ah yeah, I did use that information as a base, though the wiring ended up a bit different because of the adapter I used. Did you ever have success getting the Floppy Emulator working?
Yes, I had success with Floppy Emulator but this time I will not release my info otherwise some other people will plagiarize me...:)
Congrats. To be clear, I never claimed or tried to pass any of the tech stuff off as my own, only showed that I had made it. And seeing as you are claiming plagarism I feel I should point out the information was arrived at in the order shown in this video, a friend of mine who works with X68000's a lot suggested using a 3 mode drive, I googled and found that samsung in some threads, not the one you linked, bought it off ebay, then I searched ebay for a ribbon adapter and bought that too. When I received the adapter I noticed the pitch was different and then googled for Marty pinouts which led me to your thread, where I used the pinout/interface diagram you had there. I'll give you a credit for that to be sure, i'm not trying to be an asshole...
I actually managed to find the post about the Samsung, in case anyone is interested:
nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3810.msg25721#msg25721
It's not a secret that Samsung SFD-321B can be modified to 3-MODE by jumpers.It's stated also in its datasheet :) Anyway, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's !
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