Big thanks to Mark Fixes Stuff: ua-cam.com/users/markfixesstuff and TheGebs24: ua-cam.com/users/thegebs24 for taking part in this episode, if you're not already subscribed why not pay them a visit now and check out their videos. Neil
Could it be possible to use a disk emulator? Like the ones that emulate a floppy drive, but are usually SD card based? Also, there is a PCMCIA/floppy drive combo system available. I applaud your work in keeping these rare systems. But sometimes we have to find modern solutions to keep these amazing devices to work.
@@thejackofeverything7961 You are correct. The x86 series with an "SX" designation is lacking the coprocessor, the "DX" has it built in. An SX can be made to run akin to a DX with the math coprocessor. But generally the "integrated DX" processor tended to run better.
in the us we had "conversion vans" it was not uncommon to see smaller full size CRTs in them. in the 2000s i saw one with an n64 in it. (might have been built in the late 90s)
5:23 🔸 _When transporting the unit, make sure that there is no CD inside the unit to protect the internals, and attach the transport protection screws._ _After removing the screws, store them in the position shown in the figure below._
So, not unlike some record players that had a screw and sometimes an extra plastic piece to restrain the tone arm. I have only seen a transport screw used once before for a CD player before in a bookshelf stereo system, but it does makes sense for something that's meant to be portable like this - perhaps even more so with the Car Marty and other devices at the time that weren't using a caddy for the disk.
The uk has invented loads of cool stuff that was very cool and very important to the future of technology , the first sub 100.00 home computer the zx80/81, the first hand held pc that fitted in your pocket, the psion , the arm architecture for processing that is still used today , acorn computers. Nintendo were still making playing cards when the zx80 computer was released
@@valley_robot He didn’t say the UK didn’t make anything cool. He said Japan had the coolest. As for Nintendo, they were converting bowling alleys into electromechanical light gun arcades and making “Color TV Game” home game consoles before the ZX80.
@@valley_robot I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to imply anyone else's hardware was bad. I still think everyone had cool stuff. I feel UK hardware was cooler than the US hardware, for example.
14:42 About 18 years ago I worked in a small Computer store fixing PC's for a living. One day we received a PC that was probably 12-15 years old running on an old 386 CPU. It had been used to control heavy equipment in a machine shop for rebuilding car engines, etc. I still remember cracking open the case and the entire inside was coated with that stuff so high, you couldn't see what was underneath all the filth. It looked like black soot. Only the power supply in it was bad, so we grabbed a new AT power supply. In the rush I forgot the rule of AT power supplies when plugging them into the motherboard (Black to Black, Back to Back) and turned it on. The Power supply was just sitting in the case and not screwed in and it literally kicked into the air about an inch like it was a bucking bronco followed by a puff of smoke. Needless to say, that customer got a free 486 DX2 motherboard and new power supply that day.
Very good video overall. A few notes. -The Fuse can be replaced with similar fuse as the Super Famicom. Ive used a pickle fuse before as I've popped it over 5 times getting pin out wrong on some HW projects for Car Marty. -the cable for video out is unobtanium. Ive developed and created a card to stick in the back to get composite, audio left and right, mono audio and s-video from the car Marty. If you need one Neil let me know and I'll send you a mail. -I'm still working on an external FDD cable / dongle to stick in the back. I have a working prototype as I identified a modern connector to use but I need to revisit it. The external FDD for Car Marty is extremely unobtanium and hard to find. I've only seen one for sale on Yahoo. On the prototype I was able to successfully boot Columns and then Cameltry from a flash floppy gotek. So works but needs refinement.
Fascinating to see how far Japan was ahead of the rest of the world at that time. They had CD-based consoles in 1993... when we'd first see the PlayStation here in Europe in 1995. Same thing with say, the Super Nintendo: 1990 introduction in Japan, we got it in 1992. That'd be pretty unthinkable these days.
This computer is insane, thank you for presenting it for us. 13:53 The most beautiful board I've ever seen. No joke. Who designed this were proud of their job.
I've always been fond of Lucasfilm Games' adventures. It wasn't until ScummVM that I found out about the FM Towns exclusives where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has a CD audio soundtrack and Zak McKracken is 256 colours.
ScummVM is such a great emulator isn't it. I was able to run some old Humongous Entertainment games on my smartphone when I ran them on PC/Mac way back in the day. Technology only gets better.
Those handbrake detection is the first thing bypassed, even today. Last time I had a fancy DVD car stereo installed they did it automatically without even asking...
I know what you mean about slot loading seeming futuristic. In '94, any console I'd seen with a CD-ROM would've had either a lid for top loading or a caddy front loader. My own CD-ROM was essentially a portable CD player with an extra attachment to add SCSI sockets to allow it to plug into my A1200 via a Squirrel branded PCMCIA to SCSI adapter. A slot loader probably would've looked like something out of Star Trek to me.
My grandparents had a Conversion Van that had a built in tv/vcr player. It also had a standard US electric outlet. You could put a console in there for vacations. We used to do that all the time.
What an interesting system, and a real flex for owners at the time, I’m sure - having the money to have that in your car, especially given the surely very limited time anyone was ever likely to spend actually playing on it. What would be great to see (though perhaps beyond your space constraints) is an exhibit built around it: a mock-up of a car with this installed, with an era-appropriate screen. A limited one, of course: get a dashboard, centre console, steering column and seat from a scrappy, but it’d be really fun and give a good sense of the experience 😊 Impractical, I know, but fun, I think.
I'd really like to know how an FM Towns Car Marty would be set up in... well, a car. Can't find any images from my Google search. Trying to picture it, would an external monitor have been sold to display whatever? How or where would the monitor be mounted? I just want to see it set up in the environment it was originally intended for.
Interestingly the manufacturer, Fujitsu Ten, was taken over by Denso in 2017, where they're known as Denso Ten. They currently make a number of car infotainment systems, including for Subaru and GM, a lot of which are Intel Atom/Android based. So this is where it's all descended from.
When I was a kid in the early/mid 90s my grandpa bought a hi top van that came with a TV in the back and one of the cubby holes had hookups for an snes so I'd bring mine along on road trips. I loved it
I had no idea it was that dirty inside the CD mech! I only ever checked the battery and caps for leakage and all seemed good. I'm glad it's got a full service and been cleaned inside and out, it's a fun albeit weird bit of video game history.
Dear Sir. Being inspired by your visual feast I decided to surprise my wife by hooking a Vectrex up to the engine of my Cortina. However during a heavy breaking manoeuvre wires came loose and gave my wife a buttock rippling shock. This was hardly the "world of entertainment " we were promised. I feel that a free day pass to the Cave (and the arcade) will make up for my distress, and my wife's twitching, haunted face. Yours Sincerely Sir Curtis Tenderloin Milton Keynes
Another cracking video Neil. For what it's worth , I have am FM Towns, and have never been able to track down an image of Marble Mardness where the music plays (sadly), so it's certainly not your Car Marty having an issue, it's the image.
It's impressive for 1994. Fully working PC in such small car format. It's a shame (but small) that they didn't deicide to use 386DX/40. BTW very interesting time for PC. What happend to computers in next 4 years in incredible.
Fun colaboration, been watching Debs for a few years. FM Town systems are so interesting. Not the best versions of the games mostly, but the music tracks sound amazing apparently.
I love the design of those Fujitsu products:) It looks like what someone in the late 80's would visualize future technology as looking like. I think they definitely have that cyberpunk aesthetic.
as a sort-of retro collector myself i knew there were a few models of Fm Towns, but i never heard of this one. Thanks for this video and i hope to see more interesting ones.
In answer to your question, I have a nice Hitachi HiSaturn, which was a Hitachi licensed version of the Sega console which came with the FMV unit included. However the 'holy grail' of Saturns is the HiSaturn Navi, which is a version of that same Hitachi machine but with a smaller form factor, additional extras such as karaoke ports, a GPS antenna and an LCD screen, all of which would indeed allow you to use it in your car. Add a couple of multitaps, squeeze ten people in your Nissan Micra and let's play Saturn Bomberman on the road!
Fascinating video! I don't remember ever seeing one of these before. It's fun to learn new things. I've studied electronics ever since the late 1970's, but I've not seen these Marty systems. It's simply amazing what they'd done with this FM Towns Car Marty! Window cleaner is great stuff! Even better than rubbing alcohol in some cases since it's not as harsh, yet still evaporates quickly. There's also 'contact cleaner' but it usually isn't necessary.
I remember visiting the Minnesota State Fair and seeing a Saturn station wagon concept car fitted with a Nintendo and CRT in the back. I wanted that car so badly as a kid. I've never been able to find anything about it online.
I can imagine police cars and taxis having this back then. I totally picture Miyuki's Honda Today patrol car having this set up in the anime You're Under Arrest.
My first jobs was for cartunes sound and cellular. lots of crazy custom work I remember a dodge viper being modified with a custom n64 molded into the glove box. The screen was in the stereo, It would pop out like a cd deck and flip up. Not to mention the stereo being able to shake the bolts loose on the car.
If it has the full FM Towns compatibility, then if you get a keyboard and mouse for it, you could probably run Windows 3.x and maybe even 95 on this. It would be fun to see, even if probably pretty useless :D
FINALLY! someone is talking about this, ive always wanted one and whenever i told people about it they gave me weird looks, nice to finally see a vid on it
I'd love to see you do a video on the Hitachi HiSaturn Navi. I thought it might be a bit too rare and pricy for RMC, but then I remembered you were able to get your hands on a Pioneer LaserActive, so it could be achievable.
I'd love to see this installed in a period correct Japanese car with the screen and the one handed controller to see how it would have been used in a car.
Growing up American, I can assure you that conversion vans already had standard consoles and CRT TV's in them. Eventually these carried on to SUV's and minivans, but it was there for anyone with the money. It was really nice for long roadtrips.
You know, I think perhaps a good open-source project that could benefit the retrocomputing hobby might be to make an open-source CD-ROM drive. Or at least the control board, given that every failed drive I've had has failed electronically rather than mechanically. You could take a modular approach to designing it. From what little I do know about how such a drive works, you could have the following modules: 1. Eject mechanism handling. 2. Spinning the disc, moving the laser, and focussing the laser. 3. Laser power control and return signal strength monitoring. 4. Signal modulation and demodulation. 5. Bitstream encoding and decoding. 6. Error correction coding and decoding. 7. Bus interface (IDE/SCSI/SATA/weird proprietary things on old sound cards). 8. Analogue audio output. 9. Front panel controls not related to the eject mechanism, if any. There might be a need to add an on-drive processing step if you're going to support formats like DVD and BD, which charge the drive with DRM duties, but I don't think CD-ROMs required that, though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I remember Splatterhouse when it first appeared in my local arcade as a teen. It was slightly shocking at the time and very difficult, albeit I pumped quite a few 10ps into it and never got very far. I moved on to other games as it just sucked up coins at my skill level for better value. Xybots was my other more fun coin eater for me. Great to see it here and these quite obscure machines as well. Thanks once again Neil. The best as always.
While you said the system is rare (I am assuming that means outside of Japan and surrounding Asian markets), I wonder if there is an active homebrew community. Also, do you participate in local/regional electronics and toy shows? I think people would love to see this and other rare electronics in action. (You don't have to open them to public play, you can just do demonstrations or have the consoles only accessible to you with a generic controller available to the public). Also, I would love to know more about the Towns OS, and why they went with a proprietary OS when so many games were available to a general IBM OS and it is much cheaper than porting a game. I am only assuming that the OS is not an IBM compatible because you said the games you were playing were Towns versions. Lastly, I understand your feelings about a slot fed CD Rom. So many systems came with a tray, or in the case of consoles, had a lid where you had to physically push the CD onto the spindle. Seeing a disk get pulled into a slot and then the CD Rom automatically did the rest of the work seemed magical.
When I drove a truck, back in the late 80s, I had a 12" RCA color TV, and Super NES. It got me through many long nights, and layovers, out on the road.
11.46 If you are having trouble with CD-Rs, try Verbatim Super Azo. Even my oldest CD player which refuses most newer CD-Rs and PS1 which is fussy will read Super Azo. Different speeds can help, try fastest first.
That Yamaha chip is the same as the Megadrive’s 2612 FM chip, except this is a CMOS version of it (that’s why the part number is different). The Megadrive 2 has the 3438 core integrated into it’s main ASIC chip. What’s funny is that the 3438 has an improved DAC compared to the 2612, but Sega muntzed the amplifier circuit in the Megadrive 2 making it sound noisier then the Megadrive 1.
When Gemma was talking, I thought she would make a brilliant Gamesmaster!😃 I like this British videogame retro style of presentation, something that is very rarely seen nowadays & a similar feeling of nostalgia when I watch you're content 😊
10:30 Yes, handbrake feedback is exactly for that. Almost all ie. DVD video capable units have that function to prevent driver watching movies on the road. Apparently it's tested on annual car MOT on many countries.
Back in 2008,... I had a touch screen video audio receiver, in my car, with it hooked up to a 2000 watt subwoofer, and a Playstaion 2 slim, installed in the glove box,... I'd sit parked, and play GTA Vice City with the audio cranked,.... and when something, in game, would explode, the whole car would shake and rock around on it's suspension. It was pretty dope.
I bought a Kia Sorrento in 2015 which came with two HD headrest screens with HDMI inputs. For long trips to Lake District and France I used to hook up the Xbox 360 to a car inverter and the kids would just death match and play games the whole journey. Being stuck in traffic jams was no problem and people in other cars would look twice when they saw Halo on those screens. It should come as an option on most family cars I reckon.
I spotted a boxed Car Marty today in a retro game shop in Seoul Korea. I tried to buy it but it wasn’t for sale. There was a lot of other rare goodies there too but the really good stuff wasn’t for sale. I can’t say I blame him. Very nice guy!
Back in 1992 my parents got a new Van, one that had the fancy lighting and captain's chairs. It had a 13" color tv with a VCR. This would have been amazing. I used to bring my NES and Genisis on long road trips we used to take over the summer.
When I was a kid my dad wired a small CRT tv and a NES in our yugo it was the coolest thing ever as a kid. Plus my grandparents had one of those campers style vans that had a tv and vcr in it.
Tip if your translation app is Google Translate: Tap "scan" once you're in the camera mode. Instant translation is done locally on your phone's relatively slow CPU, and is lower quality. Scan mode sends the picture to Google's fast cloud servers to OCR and translate better. I pointed my phone at the computer screen and got this: ・When transporting, make sure there are no CDs inside the main unit to protect the internals, and attach the transport protection screws. ・After removing the screw, store it in the position shown in the figure below.
When soldering a through-hole connection: to remove the iron at finish of joint soldering - SLIDE the iron up the component lead. This helps prevent a ball sitting on the board blob look, aids in leaving only the PROPER amount of solder on the joint.
Well it was nice of them to provide an upgrade path out of towns into pc while having a machine for the changeover period to use your existing sw while you find new sw.
A forward thinking piece of technology IMO, even the implementation looks like something that would have been cutting edge for the time even if the software library wasn't, and quite cool to see in the cave amongst the other gems you have Neil, thanks for showing it to us!
You're correct that mineral oils and greases can damage plastics, but did you know that using silicone oils and greases in metal-to-metal situations can also be bad? Using silicones in metal-to-metal situations, particularly steel-to-steel can cause "galling" which accelerates wear massively.
I'm honestly fascinated that they badged it as "Fujitsu Ten." It would almost be like badging a Playstation for car use as Xplod. Ford Australia sold a Nintendo 64 in a package with an optional rear seat screen and VCR. It certainly wasn't in as neat of a package as the Car Marty. From the documentation I've seen, they just bolt it to the transmission tunnel. Yes, it was in the same era as the infamous "Mobile Office Pack"
13:20 That's first time I've ever seen JIS crosshead ("Philips" look'a'like) screws used in electronics. I thought they were common only on Japanese motorcycles 😀 Also astounding to hear machine from that era to be capable of GPS navigation 😯
for years I honestly had no idea where Fujitsu got 'TOWNS' from, thanks for clearing that up! always been curious about this particular system seems like it had some pretty good arcade ports! ... I did have to laugh at that muscle bomber glitch, that's a new one haha!
Ooh, imagine the ultimate 90s big baller turbo nerd car kit: the FM Towns Car Marty + Modem PCMCIA card + Carphone for on-road multiplayer. I imagine this in one of those tricks'd up "1000SEL" aftermarket Mercedes-Benz creations with the leather-surrounded CRTs in the center console & dash.
so when i was younger it was '99 or '00 my parents had a Pontiac Transport that had a flip down dvd player for the passenger area that had composite hookups and an external power jack, I was able to get my N64 to play over it lol definitely helped with car trips haha closest i ever had to having a game console in the car lol
I have to agree with her, Splatterhouse was THE arcade experience back in the day!!!! nothing even came nearly close.....the Genesis version had to be tonerd down for the US market.... definetely on my FAV list!!!!
I think the first part of those instructions means the system can only be plugged into a Japanese western style 60hz NTSC TV, remember they have two different TV systems in Japan depending on which part of the country you live in.
The TV system is the same. They have a different mains frequency in different parts of the country, 50 vs. 60 Hz, but TV has always been 60 Hz (or 59.94 Hz because NTSC is weird) all over Japan. I can't see any kanji for "Japan" or "west" in that red text shown on 5:23, and my Google Translate outputs semi-legible instructions for the transport lock screw when pointed at the screen. So it must have been just a hilarious case of kanji misrecognition.
Are you sure about this or are you getting TV refresh rates confused with electricity? I know they have different Hz for electricity but I'd never heard of different TV refresh rates. All Japanese consoles are fixed at 60Hz.
@@googleboughtmee Yeah, I may have been a little mixed up, I thought they had both NTSC and Pal there but now it looks like it is just NTSC. Still I am not sure what else that sentence could be trying to say.
Viewpoint is such a great choice! I have the Neo Geo CD version but sadly my NGCD is in storage back home :( - Hence why I've started looking for a CDZ :P
In about 1990 dad had a Ford Aerostar xl. We used tondrive up to nova Scotia and Newfoundland from Florida every summer. He found a 10" ac/DC crt t.v w a built in vhs. I got a Nintendo one year w a dc adapter a couple ratchet straps and bobs ur auntie. That van saw 300k MILES! B4 it was rolled in a 12 car pileup on. I95. He bought a 96 Aerostar reinstalled the TV Nintendo combo and we drove it another 250k miles. Best kit for kids on a 3 day road trip.
The satnav is interesting. I had a garmin way back then and one quirk was the us government purposely degraded the signal making it kinda spotty for navigation use
The chip based memory was always the better direction, but for a short period optical and magnetic storage out performed it. People mostly never clicked to that thought in the time. 100GB USB stick is not unusual now, nor expensive.
I had one with a mounting tray in an import Toyota a few years ago. The navigation I couldn't work for obvious location reasons and I had no games! Yes the signal from the parking brake is a legal requirement and only allows audio and navigation while moving.
pcmcia in desktop units is based. Being able to swap serious I/O cards, on the native bus without conversions and the resulting speed losses, would be soooo fucking cool, even these these days, even if you have to turn off the computer to do so. turning it off and on again is worlds easier than opening the damn thing up.
Big thanks to Mark Fixes Stuff: ua-cam.com/users/markfixesstuff and TheGebs24: ua-cam.com/users/thegebs24 for taking part in this episode, if you're not already subscribed why not pay them a visit now and check out their videos.
Neil
Seems like this would have been a good candidate for an ultra sonic cleaning.
Could it be possible to use a disk emulator? Like the ones that emulate a floppy drive, but are usually SD card based? Also, there is a PCMCIA/floppy drive combo system available. I applaud your work in keeping these rare systems. But sometimes we have to find modern solutions to keep these amazing devices to work.
I thought the 386DX had an integrated fpu, and the SX did not.
@@thejackofeverything7961 You are correct. The x86 series with an "SX" designation is lacking the coprocessor, the "DX" has it built in. An SX can be made to run akin to a DX with the math coprocessor. But generally the "integrated DX" processor tended to run better.
in the us we had "conversion vans" it was not uncommon to see smaller full size CRTs in them. in the 2000s i saw one with an n64 in it. (might have been built in the late 90s)
5:23
🔸 _When transporting the unit, make sure that there is no CD inside the unit to protect the internals, and attach the transport protection screws._
_After removing the screws, store them in the position shown in the figure below._
Close. But well done.
Does that basically mean you have to screw in the transport protection screw before you drive anywhere and then take it out for stationary gaming?
I think the intention is to use it if shipping it overseas.
So, not unlike some record players that had a screw and sometimes an extra plastic piece to restrain the tone arm. I have only seen a transport screw used once before for a CD player before in a bookshelf stereo system, but it does makes sense for something that's meant to be portable like this - perhaps even more so with the Car Marty and other devices at the time that weren't using a caddy for the disk.
Word for Word from Google Translate (Image) 😆 I was going to post it till I seen it :)
Japan had the coolest retro hardware. We lived in a sea of beige.
Most only wanted them.
Plenty of beige there too, like the original Famicom. There is a beige FM Towns, the PC Engine, and PC Engine CD-ROM². Heck, the Duo R and Duo RX too.
The uk has invented loads of cool stuff that was very cool and very important to the future of technology , the first sub 100.00 home computer the zx80/81, the first hand held pc that fitted in your pocket, the psion , the arm architecture for processing that is still used today , acorn computers. Nintendo were still making playing cards when the zx80 computer was released
@@valley_robot He didn’t say the UK didn’t make anything cool. He said Japan had the coolest.
As for Nintendo, they were converting bowling alleys into electromechanical light gun arcades and making “Color TV Game” home game consoles before the ZX80.
@@valley_robot I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to imply anyone else's hardware was bad. I still think everyone had cool stuff. I feel UK hardware was cooler than the US hardware, for example.
14:42 About 18 years ago I worked in a small Computer store fixing PC's for a living. One day we received a PC that was probably 12-15 years old running on an old 386 CPU. It had been used to control heavy equipment in a machine shop for rebuilding car engines, etc. I still remember cracking open the case and the entire inside was coated with that stuff so high, you couldn't see what was underneath all the filth. It looked like black soot.
Only the power supply in it was bad, so we grabbed a new AT power supply. In the rush I forgot the rule of AT power supplies when plugging them into the motherboard (Black to Black, Back to Back) and turned it on. The Power supply was just sitting in the case and not screwed in and it literally kicked into the air about an inch like it was a bucking bronco followed by a puff of smoke. Needless to say, that customer got a free 486 DX2 motherboard and new power supply that day.
Yikes
😢
RIP
Very good video overall.
A few notes.
-The Fuse can be replaced with similar fuse as the Super Famicom. Ive used a pickle fuse before as I've popped it over 5 times getting pin out wrong on some HW projects for Car Marty.
-the cable for video out is unobtanium. Ive developed and created a card to stick in the back to get composite, audio left and right, mono audio and s-video from the car Marty. If you need one Neil let me know and I'll send you a mail.
-I'm still working on an external FDD cable / dongle to stick in the back. I have a working prototype as I identified a modern connector to use but I need to revisit it. The external FDD for Car Marty is extremely unobtanium and hard to find. I've only seen one for sale on Yahoo. On the prototype I was able to successfully boot Columns and then Cameltry from a flash floppy gotek. So works but needs refinement.
I keep wanting to call this console the FM Towns Marty McFly
Fascinating to see how far Japan was ahead of the rest of the world at that time. They had CD-based consoles in 1993... when we'd first see the PlayStation here in Europe in 1995. Same thing with say, the Super Nintendo: 1990 introduction in Japan, we got it in 1992. That'd be pretty unthinkable these days.
The ultimate optional extra for every 90's Tokyo Yakuza Bosses Limo...
This computer is insane, thank you for presenting it for us.
13:53 The most beautiful board I've ever seen. No joke. Who designed this were proud of their job.
I've always been fond of Lucasfilm Games' adventures. It wasn't until ScummVM that I found out about the FM Towns exclusives where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has a CD audio soundtrack and Zak McKracken is 256 colours.
Most of the Lucas adventures had good FM Towns releases. I was a little disappointed none of them made an appearance.
ScummVM is such a great emulator isn't it. I was able to run some old Humongous Entertainment games on my smartphone when I ran them on PC/Mac way back in the day. Technology only gets better.
Those handbrake detection is the first thing bypassed, even today. Last time I had a fancy DVD car stereo installed they did it automatically without even asking...
It's harder now. You can't just ground it to the frame, it actually looks for a low voltage pulse that the parking brake normally puts out.
So Mark dragged Datsun AND Mazda upstairs? Real dedication...
I know what you mean about slot loading seeming futuristic. In '94, any console I'd seen with a CD-ROM would've had either a lid for top loading or a caddy front loader. My own CD-ROM was essentially a portable CD player with an extra attachment to add SCSI sockets to allow it to plug into my A1200 via a Squirrel branded PCMCIA to SCSI adapter.
A slot loader probably would've looked like something out of Star Trek to me.
My grandparents had a Conversion Van that had a built in tv/vcr player. It also had a standard US electric outlet. You could put a console in there for vacations. We used to do that all the time.
What an interesting system, and a real flex for owners at the time, I’m sure - having the money to have that in your car, especially given the surely very limited time anyone was ever likely to spend actually playing on it.
What would be great to see (though perhaps beyond your space constraints) is an exhibit built around it: a mock-up of a car with this installed, with an era-appropriate screen. A limited one, of course: get a dashboard, centre console, steering column and seat from a scrappy, but it’d be really fun and give a good sense of the experience 😊 Impractical, I know, but fun, I think.
I'd really like to know how an FM Towns Car Marty would be set up in... well, a car. Can't find any images from my Google search. Trying to picture it, would an external monitor have been sold to display whatever? How or where would the monitor be mounted? I just want to see it set up in the environment it was originally intended for.
Interestingly the manufacturer, Fujitsu Ten, was taken over by Denso in 2017, where they're known as Denso Ten. They currently make a number of car infotainment systems, including for Subaru and GM, a lot of which are Intel Atom/Android based. So this is where it's all descended from.
I like depth knowledge you know your stuff
When I was a kid in the early/mid 90s my grandpa bought a hi top van that came with a TV in the back and one of the cubby holes had hookups for an snes so I'd bring mine along on road trips. I loved it
I had no idea it was that dirty inside the CD mech! I only ever checked the battery and caps for leakage and all seemed good. I'm glad it's got a full service and been cleaned inside and out, it's a fun albeit weird bit of video game history.
Dear Sir.
Being inspired by your visual feast I decided to surprise my wife by hooking a Vectrex up to the engine of my Cortina. However during a heavy breaking manoeuvre wires came loose and gave my wife a buttock rippling shock. This was hardly the "world of entertainment " we were promised. I feel that a free day pass to the Cave (and the arcade) will make up for my distress, and my wife's twitching, haunted face.
Yours Sincerely
Sir Curtis Tenderloin
Milton Keynes
It happened in Knight Rider 1983 I believe where Michael plays an Atari 2600 whilst KITT is driving.
Another time he played pac-man.
Is that the get-out? "It's okay officer, my Car is Self-Driving""
@@davidjames579 I believe it is indeed that scene yeah!!!
Another cracking video Neil. For what it's worth , I have am FM Towns, and have never been able to track down an image of Marble Mardness where the music plays (sadly), so it's certainly not your Car Marty having an issue, it's the image.
Tremendous episode Neil. Thank you for having me on. I look forward to visiting the cave and having a coffee with you 🎉
It's impressive for 1994. Fully working PC in such small car format. It's a shame (but small) that they didn't deicide to use 386DX/40. BTW very interesting time for PC. What happend to computers in next 4 years in incredible.
Fun colaboration, been watching Debs for a few years. FM Town systems are so interesting. Not the best versions of the games mostly, but the music tracks sound amazing apparently.
Upvote for Debs as well.
I love the design of those Fujitsu products:) It looks like what someone in the late 80's would visualize future technology as looking like. I think they definitely have that cyberpunk aesthetic.
I know a number of minivans had CRT and LCD monitor packages for this kind of thing but very cool and unique outside of the third row road trip niche
That FM Towns Desktop case look AMAZING!
as a sort-of retro collector myself i knew there were a few models of Fm Towns, but i never heard of this one.
Thanks for this video and i hope to see more interesting ones.
In answer to your question, I have a nice Hitachi HiSaturn, which was a Hitachi licensed version of the Sega console which came with the FMV unit included. However the 'holy grail' of Saturns is the HiSaturn Navi, which is a version of that same Hitachi machine but with a smaller form factor, additional extras such as karaoke ports, a GPS antenna and an LCD screen, all of which would indeed allow you to use it in your car. Add a couple of multitaps, squeeze ten people in your Nissan Micra and let's play Saturn Bomberman on the road!
Fascinating video! I don't remember ever seeing one of these before. It's fun to learn new things. I've studied electronics ever since the late 1970's, but I've not seen these Marty systems. It's simply amazing what they'd done with this FM Towns Car Marty! Window cleaner is great stuff! Even better than rubbing alcohol in some cases since it's not as harsh, yet still evaporates quickly. There's also 'contact cleaner' but it usually isn't necessary.
I remember visiting the Minnesota State Fair and seeing a Saturn station wagon concept car fitted with a Nintendo and CRT in the back. I wanted that car so badly as a kid. I've never been able to find anything about it online.
Not containing a Sega Saturn. That was a missed opportunity.
I can imagine police cars and taxis having this back then. I totally picture Miyuki's Honda Today patrol car having this set up in the anime You're Under Arrest.
Nice to discover the Marty a little better, and to see an appearance of Gemma!
Such a cool console! I really enjoy learning about these little known devices.
My first jobs was for cartunes sound and cellular. lots of crazy custom work I remember a dodge viper being modified with a custom n64 molded into the glove box. The screen was in the stereo, It would pop out like a cd deck and flip up.
Not to mention the stereo being able to shake the bolts loose on the car.
If it has the full FM Towns compatibility, then if you get a keyboard and mouse for it, you could probably run Windows 3.x and maybe even 95 on this. It would be fun to see, even if probably pretty useless :D
FINALLY! someone is talking about this, ive always wanted one and whenever i told people about it they gave me weird looks, nice to finally see a vid on it
I'd love to see you do a video on the Hitachi HiSaturn Navi. I thought it might be a bit too rare and pricy for RMC, but then I remembered you were able to get your hands on a Pioneer LaserActive, so it could be achievable.
I'd love to see this installed in a period correct Japanese car with the screen and the one handed controller to see how it would have been used in a car.
Growing up American, I can assure you that conversion vans already had standard consoles and CRT TV's in them. Eventually these carried on to SUV's and minivans, but it was there for anyone with the money. It was really nice for long roadtrips.
You know, I think perhaps a good open-source project that could benefit the retrocomputing hobby might be to make an open-source CD-ROM drive. Or at least the control board, given that every failed drive I've had has failed electronically rather than mechanically.
You could take a modular approach to designing it. From what little I do know about how such a drive works, you could have the following modules:
1. Eject mechanism handling.
2. Spinning the disc, moving the laser, and focussing the laser.
3. Laser power control and return signal strength monitoring.
4. Signal modulation and demodulation.
5. Bitstream encoding and decoding.
6. Error correction coding and decoding.
7. Bus interface (IDE/SCSI/SATA/weird proprietary things on old sound cards).
8. Analogue audio output.
9. Front panel controls not related to the eject mechanism, if any.
There might be a need to add an on-drive processing step if you're going to support formats like DVD and BD, which charge the drive with DRM duties, but I don't think CD-ROMs required that, though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I remember Splatterhouse when it first appeared in my local arcade as a teen. It was slightly shocking at the time and very difficult, albeit I pumped quite a few 10ps into it and never got very far. I moved on to other games as it just sucked up coins at my skill level for better value. Xybots was my other more fun coin eater for me. Great to see it here and these quite obscure machines as well. Thanks once again Neil. The best as always.
While you said the system is rare (I am assuming that means outside of Japan and surrounding Asian markets), I wonder if there is an active homebrew community.
Also, do you participate in local/regional electronics and toy shows? I think people would love to see this and other rare electronics in action. (You don't have to open them to public play, you can just do demonstrations or have the consoles only accessible to you with a generic controller available to the public).
Also, I would love to know more about the Towns OS, and why they went with a proprietary OS when so many games were available to a general IBM OS and it is much cheaper than porting a game. I am only assuming that the OS is not an IBM compatible because you said the games you were playing were Towns versions.
Lastly, I understand your feelings about a slot fed CD Rom. So many systems came with a tray, or in the case of consoles, had a lid where you had to physically push the CD onto the spindle. Seeing a disk get pulled into a slot and then the CD Rom automatically did the rest of the work seemed magical.
Dude that FM Towns PC is badass
When I drove a truck, back in the late 80s, I had a 12" RCA color TV, and Super NES.
It got me through many long nights, and layovers, out on the road.
I love retro electronics, and it was really fun learning about this piece of history!
11.46 If you are having trouble with CD-Rs, try Verbatim Super Azo. Even my oldest CD player which refuses most newer CD-Rs and PS1 which is fussy will read Super Azo. Different speeds can help, try fastest first.
CRTs come in sizes as small as 5” in 1994. I’d imagine that this would be used with a 5” color CRT portable or car TV?
I love how the plastics have perfectly the exact same grey as the interior of our 1997 Honda Accord.
That Yamaha chip is the same as the Megadrive’s 2612 FM chip, except this is a CMOS version of it (that’s why the part number is different). The Megadrive 2 has the 3438 core integrated into it’s main ASIC chip. What’s funny is that the 3438 has an improved DAC compared to the 2612, but Sega muntzed the amplifier circuit in the Megadrive 2 making it sound noisier then the Megadrive 1.
You are correct about the parking brake on the pin out is exactly correct. Anything with a monitor typically has one.
When Gemma was talking, I thought she would make a brilliant Gamesmaster!😃
I like this British videogame retro style of presentation, something that is very rarely seen nowadays & a similar feeling of nostalgia when I watch you're content 😊
Thats what I was missing ! Beeing able to play games whilst on the auto bahn
10:30 Yes, handbrake feedback is exactly for that. Almost all ie. DVD video capable units have that function to prevent driver watching movies on the road. Apparently it's tested on annual car MOT on many countries.
I would have thought it's use would only be in the back. Up-front seem redundant.
@@davidjames579 Oh there's plenty of units that have ie. out ejecting display. But I get your point fully.
Great video! The FM-Towns was an awsome series! There were also some models with built in Monitors like the Classic Macintosh.
I love the design of this machine.
It screams 90's computing.
Back in 2008,... I had a touch screen video audio receiver, in my car, with it hooked up to a 2000 watt subwoofer, and a Playstaion 2 slim, installed in the glove box,... I'd sit parked, and play GTA Vice City with the audio cranked,.... and when something, in game, would explode, the whole car would shake and rock around on it's suspension. It was pretty dope.
I bought a Kia Sorrento in 2015 which came with two HD headrest screens with HDMI inputs. For long trips to Lake District and France I used to hook up the Xbox 360 to a car inverter and the kids would just death match and play games the whole journey. Being stuck in traffic jams was no problem and people in other cars would look twice when they saw Halo on those screens. It should come as an option on most family cars I reckon.
I spotted a boxed Car Marty today in a retro game shop in Seoul Korea. I tried to buy it but it wasn’t for sale. There was a lot of other rare goodies there too but the really good stuff wasn’t for sale. I can’t say I blame him. Very nice guy!
That was so cool! I didn't know this thing even existed. Nice seeing TheGebs24 on here as well.
Back in 1992 my parents got a new Van, one that had the fancy lighting and captain's chairs. It had a 13" color tv with a VCR. This would have been amazing. I used to bring my NES and Genisis on long road trips we used to take over the summer.
When I was a kid my dad wired a small CRT tv and a NES in our yugo it was the coolest thing ever as a kid. Plus my grandparents had one of those campers style vans that had a tv and vcr in it.
Great video! Oddly for me the most enjoyable part was the strip / clean / assemble section. Awesome soldering skills 😎👊
Nice and I look forward to the follow up edisode where Neil plays marble madness in a car driving off road! That would be UA-cam gold! :)
Very high quality components; I see Sony, Toshiba (back when they were good), AMD, Yamaha and Fujitsu ICs in there.
Tip if your translation app is Google Translate: Tap "scan" once you're in the camera mode. Instant translation is done locally on your phone's relatively slow CPU, and is lower quality. Scan mode sends the picture to Google's fast cloud servers to OCR and translate better. I pointed my phone at the computer screen and got this:
・When transporting, make sure there are no CDs inside the main unit to protect the internals, and attach the transport protection screws.
・After removing the screw, store it in the position shown in the figure below.
They were putting MSX Computers in Tokyo Taxis in 1984. The game they were playing was Yie Ar Kung Fu
When soldering a through-hole connection: to remove the iron at finish of joint soldering - SLIDE the iron up the component lead. This helps prevent a ball sitting on the board blob look, aids in leaving only the PROPER amount of solder on the joint.
Well it was nice of them to provide an upgrade path out of towns into pc while having a machine for the changeover period to use your existing sw while you find new sw.
I heard the reason for that thing was, in Japan, they don't listen to radio much and rather have a TV in their cars. What a weird concept.
Maybe it's like the American Culture of having TV's on everywhere that no one ever watches.
Yes some had TVs in the 90s and 80s you could also listen (just listen) to TV stations in cars!
A forward thinking piece of technology IMO, even the implementation looks like something that would have been cutting edge for the time even if the software library wasn't, and quite cool to see in the cave amongst the other gems you have Neil, thanks for showing it to us!
FM Towns Marty has always been the objectively funniest console name. Nothing else comes close.
You're correct that mineral oils and greases can damage plastics, but did you know that using silicone oils and greases in metal-to-metal situations can also be bad? Using silicones in metal-to-metal situations, particularly steel-to-steel can cause "galling" which accelerates wear massively.
My first car in 2010 i think it was was my great grandmothers Datsun B210!! I so wish I could afford to fix the axle on it.
I'm honestly fascinated that they badged it as "Fujitsu Ten." It would almost be like badging a Playstation for car use as Xplod.
Ford Australia sold a Nintendo 64 in a package with an optional rear seat screen and VCR. It certainly wasn't in as neat of a package as the Car Marty. From the documentation I've seen, they just bolt it to the transmission tunnel. Yes, it was in the same era as the infamous "Mobile Office Pack"
13:20 That's first time I've ever seen JIS crosshead ("Philips" look'a'like) screws used in electronics. I thought they were common only on Japanese motorcycles 😀
Also astounding to hear machine from that era to be capable of GPS navigation 😯
well, it IS the Japanese Industrial Standard isn't it ;)
@@nickiebanchou I´d say so. That is at least what I know what JIS is.
And yes GPS was available since 1990!
for years I honestly had no idea where Fujitsu got 'TOWNS' from, thanks for clearing that up! always been curious about this particular system seems like it had some pretty good arcade ports! ... I did have to laugh at that muscle bomber glitch, that's a new one haha!
Great Video Neil as always :)
Ooh, imagine the ultimate 90s big baller turbo nerd car kit: the FM Towns Car Marty + Modem PCMCIA card + Carphone for on-road multiplayer. I imagine this in one of those tricks'd up "1000SEL" aftermarket Mercedes-Benz creations with the leather-surrounded CRTs in the center console & dash.
so when i was younger it was '99 or '00 my parents had a Pontiac Transport that had a flip down dvd player for the passenger area that had composite hookups and an external power jack, I was able to get my N64 to play over it lol definitely helped with car trips haha closest i ever had to having a game console in the car lol
I have to agree with her, Splatterhouse was THE arcade experience back in the day!!!! nothing even came nearly close.....the Genesis version had to be tonerd down for the US market.... definetely on my FAV list!!!!
Very impressive, I was amazed on the amount of chips on that thing.
I had a ps2, Xbox, GameCube, and vcr in my 2002 Honda Civic as a teen. Miss those days.
I think the first part of those instructions means the system can only be plugged into a Japanese western style 60hz NTSC TV, remember they have two different TV systems in Japan depending on which part of the country you live in.
Mmmmh, they are not that different tho. Both NTSC.
The TV system is the same. They have a different mains frequency in different parts of the country, 50 vs. 60 Hz, but TV has always been 60 Hz (or 59.94 Hz because NTSC is weird) all over Japan.
I can't see any kanji for "Japan" or "west" in that red text shown on 5:23, and my Google Translate outputs semi-legible instructions for the transport lock screw when pointed at the screen. So it must have been just a hilarious case of kanji misrecognition.
Are you sure about this or are you getting TV refresh rates confused with electricity? I know they have different Hz for electricity but I'd never heard of different TV refresh rates. All Japanese consoles are fixed at 60Hz.
@@googleboughtmee Yeah, I may have been a little mixed up, I thought they had both NTSC and Pal there but now it looks like it is just NTSC.
Still I am not sure what else that sentence could be trying to say.
I was too busy watching movies whilst driving 😂 I only found out about the console whilst on bail for vehicular manslaughter 😂
@9:50 "gaming at the front, business at the back" the Anti-Mullet :o
Viewpoint is such a great choice! I have the Neo Geo CD version but sadly my NGCD is in storage back home :( - Hence why I've started looking for a CDZ :P
I love Viewpoint, the main reason I got into NeoGeo emu. Was surprised to find an (unreleased?) version of it as a Sega Megadrive ROM.
Definitely an interesting piece of kit.
As for your FM Towns II, you should definitely fix it. That would make a great episode.
In about 1990 dad had a Ford Aerostar xl. We used tondrive up to nova Scotia and Newfoundland from Florida every summer. He found a 10" ac/DC crt t.v w a built in vhs. I got a Nintendo one year w a dc adapter a couple ratchet straps and bobs ur auntie. That van saw 300k MILES! B4 it was rolled in a 12 car pileup on. I95. He bought a 96 Aerostar reinstalled the TV Nintendo combo and we drove it another 250k miles. Best kit for kids on a 3 day road trip.
That was also on the Philips/MARANTZ system had the notice that said Please remove Transit Screws before use as well as
19:48 seconds - Neil breaks out the dusters. It's the Final Wipedown (na na na naaaa, na na na na naa, na na naaaa, na na na na naa etc)
The satnav is interesting. I had a garmin way back then and one quirk was the us government purposely degraded the signal making it kinda spotty for navigation use
I think GPS was a bit degraded until 1997 or 99...
The chip based memory was always the better direction, but for a short period optical and magnetic storage out performed it. People mostly never clicked to that thought in the time. 100GB USB stick is not unusual now, nor expensive.
Really puts a new meaning to a center car console
I had one with a mounting tray in an import Toyota a few years ago. The navigation I couldn't work for obvious location reasons and I had no games! Yes the signal from the parking brake is a legal requirement and only allows audio and navigation while moving.
I always wanted a console on the car as a kid
Those 12 hour family trips as a kid were torture
pcmcia in desktop units is based. Being able to swap serious I/O cards, on the native bus without conversions and the resulting speed losses, would be soooo fucking cool, even these these days, even if you have to turn off the computer to do so. turning it off and on again is worlds easier than opening the damn thing up.
This makes me wish I still had my Nissan Leopard, would have been the ultimate accessory for that old beast! Love this!
Did the EU logo come from playing Marble Madness?