Nintendo's Advanced Video System - Gaming Historian
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ม.ค. 2010
- Gaming Historian takes a look at the Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS), the first attempt at bringing the Famicom to the United States. It featured wireless controllers, a cassette player, and a keyboard! Needless to say, it didn't survive.
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Saying 'WHAT!?' to a cassette deck? Man, every home computer around then had a tape drive. Not for music, but for data. Cheaper than floppies because they were being mass produced for music. But read/write times were slow as hell.
***** I saw someone playing with MP3s of data tapes. I think he rigged up some kind of controller for a Commodore that controlled an MP3 player. Makes perfect sense. Digitize your tapes like you would a music audio cassette.
+BenAgain452 I'm as surprised as Norm because I don't see how it would work considering the game code would have to be loaded entirely into the system's RAM. The NES didn't have enough on-board RAM to contain all the game code since it resided in the cart's ROM and the system only needed to keep runtime states.
Perhaps it would be used in conjunction with a clean cart that only served as RAM expansion or perhaps the system was just significantly more different from the Famicom than the NES ended up being.
+Cecilia Terrile Good thing these were in the mid-80s, then, and not today!
+Commie Thor64 ...some of the Linux gurus *do* prefer CLI..
+BenAgain452 The original Famicom had a cassette-player, too...
=D
A few thing from pictures I've seen that the controllers actually slid into the side of the keyboard and the zapper actually files from being straight like it is displayed in the NWS to a more traditional pistol shape. The entire system had this modular storing set up that the keyboard would be the base and the tape deck and control deck would lay flush on top of the keyboard. also the control deck looked like a much thinner version of toaster NES and was a top loader. The entire system's peripherals were wireless including the keyboard and even the tape deck. while it would of been a very impressive system for the time it's very unlikely it would of been able to compete in the home microcomputer market like this design was clearly trying to appeal to.
*folds, god damn mobile autocorrect
would have*
Would love to have a tape deck that looks like a NES.
it it just me or casset and tape deck is a different thing
I always wondered what the first attempt of a US Famicom looked like! Glad it turned out to be the NES we all know and love. Too bad we didn't get wireless controllers.
The cassette tape "player" was a common accessory back then as tape storage was cheap in comparison to floppy disk storage. You would see tape storage drives commonly on PCs of that era such as the Commodore 64, Atari 400 and Atari 800, and Apple IIe. As floppy disks got cheaper, you saw them less and less in the consumer market and more in the I.T. field for storing GBs of data to a medium that served more as cheap linear drive backup than random access storage itself. It's where we get the TAR file format from (I think). If the AVS failed as a PC because people thought it was an "evil no good" video game console, then it's more because of the gaming accessories than the tape drive and keyboard, the games didn't help. They probably should have gone with a mouse and keyboard and educational and office software more than games and let the games come from third parties as a consequence. Much like Apple did with their Apple II.
@Dodger The rotten GameBoy was actually fire damaged and still functional. I think it's from an Iraq war veteran and there's a combat story attached to it, but I'm not sure.
I went to Rockefeller just to see that AVS, though the only thing there was the infamous bombed Game Boy playing Tetris. I was disappointed
That should be the name for Nintendo's next generation console after the Wii U.
It would be awesome!
no, fuck pc
I mean, there's always next time...
There were other 6502-based computers during that time, perhaps most famously the Commodore 64. The AVS is _neat_ just because it's weird, but it is unlikely to have been competitive in that form. On the other hand, marketing it as a computer instead of a console actually makes sense because of the sour taste of video games at the time. Kind of an interesting "what if" scenario.
If it's not clear (including to our video host who seemed strangely surprised about an early 80s computer having this), the "cassette player" would undoubtedly have been for storing the actual game software, and perhaps offering an alternative solution for game saves. An interesting and potentially somewhat slow / clunky alternative to the Famicom Disk System that would come out later. In any case, ubiquitous for the time period.
+Captain Southbird Actually...Apple was 6502, C64 was the very closely related 6510. I forget what the differences were. What's always amused me is that the 1541 disk drive *also* has a CPU...and 64k of RAM.
Also, just to increase the head-shaking at the surprise over the casette storage, the Atari 2600 had a casette-based add-on previously. There weren't many games on it, but Vinter's famous Mutant Camels was one of them if I recall.
VulpisFoxfire A quick look suggests the 6510 replaced some of the stock 6502 I/O stuff for memory mapping. I haven't delved into it too deeply, but programming-wise should still pretty much be the same as any 6502 system at least. Similar to how the NES didn't technically use a 6502, but so long as you didn't use "decimal mode", it was more or less 6502 programming.
Captain Southbird
Yup, like I said, the 6510 was a close cousin to the 6502, and you're right that it was pretty much identical on the programming end. I remember the school library having a book on 6502 machine language back in the day, and I tired using it to learn ML on my Commie. :-) Main difference there was the memory map...loooot easier doing sound and graphics on the C64 due to the ROMs.
VulpisFoxfire I wound up doing extensive reverse engineering on NES games in the last few years, so I actually have a pretty solid understanding and use of 6502 assembler presently.
Captain Southbird
Cool! And I thought old-school assembler (either 8-bit or 16-bit) was a dying art.
Wow, that's something. I'd kill to visit the Nintendo World store one of these days, stuff like that is so interesting.
Nintendo should have made the NES the same as the famicom but in better colors, specifically a vertical cartridge slot . removable controllers, stereo/mono sound, Super video out , and SCART RGB out. in addition they should have offered a Sharp branded SCART TV for playing video games on.
The video game crash happened so they made it look like a VCR sorta and marketed it as a toy.
and Big carts, bigger than the famicom carts and even Atari carts.
+Mark Plott The Famicom controllers were in the back of the console and were hardwired. We definitely got the better of the two!!
they actually did make a sharp tv with a built in nes
SCART RGB was a PAL only format. Nobody in the US would be able to connect it to their TVs
This channel needs more subscribers
duh harr
+mlg quick scoper It's tough now that he has Did You Know Gaming? as such strong competition.
in a way, yes it did.............
some games like Excitebike and Wrecking Crew used the Datasette for saving user-made stages but no games ever came on the cassette.....
the Famicom BASIC also used the Datasette to store and record user-made programs.
(which is why the NAVS has the keyboard in the first place)
Actually, back in the 80s with the commodore computers and such tapes were commonly used to store data.
SillyDouglas
Tapes were uses for music too, in homes and as portable playback deceive, royalty records too.
I wonder if you'll ever do one on motion controllers and pointing devices. I'm curious if there is something earlier than PC accelerometers and Nintendo's power glove. I have a PC book on how accelerometers work and remembered reading up on them in a magazine way back.
ty for uploading ! great information !
Great video! Keep up the good work
What is funny is that after the AVS was replaced by the NES, the NES would still get wireless controllers, first from a third-party manufacturer, and then from Nintendo itself under the name NES Satellite. The musical keyboard would also grace the NES, but would again come from a third-party (The Software Toolworks' Miracle Piano Teaching System).
i love this industrial design, that they kept the NES' look alive with other products like this - it's now a relic of our past, unappreciated - without it's huge following like art deco and BRAUN. someday Nintendo U.S. 80s design language will be dredged up once again by an adoring future society.
Well actually, it wasn’t designedly to resemble a toaster, it was actually designed to look like a VCR in order for it to appeal to western audiences
Not sure if he's keen to remake any of these older episodes, but this is one I'd like to hear a lot more about.
Actually, I read somewhere that the designers wanted the NES to resemble a "VCR" because VCR's were popular back then. Makes sense to me. It's similar to the VCR top loader concept. Insert a VHS cassette into the slot and press it down, Just like the NES.
The Cassette player was because the UK computers at the time like the Commodore 64 and the Spectrum had their own cassette players so people can program their own games using magnetic tapes. It is for this reason why the UK gaming industry took off well with the early computers even though the console market continued to be dominated by Japanese companies.
Also remember in Japan, they had their OWN way of allowing users to make their own Famicom games using BASIC programming software
Well I didn't know they had a museum exhibit at that store!! Absolutely going there this week!!
Toaster? I thought it was a VCR.
No, the WaveBird uses 2.4 ghz wireless... That's a frequency commonly used by cordless phones. (not mobiles, but cordless phones that connect to a landline.). But that aside it's a massive improvement over infrared devices that were used for wireless controllers in the 80's and early 90's.
The design was actually a different color scheme from Famicom Red and White to the NES colors the only thing new is the zapper, joystick and wireless controllers. The Famicom actually had the keyboard, and cassette player search "Family Basic Nintendo Famicom Commercial" to see what I mean
Man those avs controllers are stylish af.
wow that system is beautiful an home computer just like the original famicom.
PS: the cassette player/recorder was used a lot for home computers in the usa and europe, not only to load programs but also to save data, ust like the commodore 64 and the zxspectrum.
It wasn't unheard of having a cassette players at the time. I remember I had one for the Tandy TRS-80. I'm guessing the Gaming Historian host wasn't alive back in the 1980s.
***** Me too! It was the only way I could play Poo-Yan!
***** I remember getting my first Cassette recorder/player for my 8th birthday in 1984. I just thought it was the most amazing thing I had seen. But then Nintendo came along and brought a whole new meaning to amazing. lol
***** Indeed. This proves that Nintendo at one point did think about a PC system.
***** For a game console, it was unheard of. The TRS-80 was a computer, not a game system. All of my TRS-80 games were text or text as graphics type games. (Text characters used to create images or maps.) I had the Model III with cassette, and I know my Apple //e could use cassette. I know their were other computers that used it. However, a Nintendo computer system would probably have limited their market. Most of the computers from the 80s have faded away except for collectors.
I think Nintendo was wise to go for the Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Magnavox audience instead of the PC market. Most computers ended up on a desk with mostly one player games. Although many of the early computers like the Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, or the Tandy Color Computer used a TV, it was never really a social experience in the family room in the same way an Atari 2600 or ColecoVision was. Even if it was in the kid's room, friends shared a console game while a computer game often involved watching someone play.
...and sorry, I just realized I went on a tangent that you didn't mention. Train of thought took me there.
***** so true,i had a vic 20 with a cassette player :)
The controllers looked awesome, it would have been too weak for a micro, and the tape deck was interesting. The zapper is perhaps the feature that would have turned Americans off the most. It's far too displaced as a gun and would likely prove unwieldy. There's a reason handguns are not designed in that fashion...how the Hell would you aim the damn thing?!
OMG :D u using the earthbound music at the end made my day
Looking in retrospect about Nintendo's ability to surpass the technological output of the 1980s(in conjunction to what would later take by the 1990s/2000s/2010s), this would have been a "futuristic" style of gaming that seemingly has a few Commodore-64-like overtones(namely, the ability to play video games on cassette) with the outlay of IR transmittion(which would only have been found in GameBoy Color, PSP-1000, & most of the other consoles made after the release of the PS2, XBOX360, or Wii).
Making a video on how Nintendo was able to market the NES in America would be cool, so I guess this is a good start as a footnote that you could use as a future video.
awwww...a famicom!!!here in argentina most of us met de NES with tha console!!!the beloved Famicom(or family game for us) it still selling it!!!damn it I sould buy one when it was cheap!!!!!
I got NES wireless controllers for christmas one year. We returned them very quickly. The controller quit working whenever someone would walk between me and the tv, and at best it worked like a tv remote with low batteries
... Did the guy in charge of the redesign help design the Commadore 64?
Nintendo was pretty ballsy releasing a home video game system when they did. Everybody was warning them not to, telling them home gaming was over. Just imagine how much different life would be today if they had listened.
Oh I've that before...but that's not a good enough reason for me. A VCR you stick a VHS tape in and it goes down, original NES you stick a game in and it goes down in the same way. The NES was styled like a VCR so that it looks like it belonged in your entertainment center and less like a toy like the Famicom. Yet people compare it to a toaster.
Nintendo should've called it the "Advanced Home Computer System".
I was at the Nintendo world store! I saw that thing and had no idea what it was!
I went to the Nintendo World Store last summer it’s so cool I would definitely recommend.
that tape drive was the US version of the famicom data recorder
A cassette player?!?
Good god, like the Commodore 64 was not enough, I am glad that they scrapped this project and did not release this one worldwide.
Man, Nintendo really have done, and keep doing every single possible way to play their games.
Great work on this video, really interesting concept. Imagine, wireless... what foresight! Too bad they didn't use wireless since the very beginning.
Have you ever used a vintage wireless controller before?
@@marcellachine5718 no I don't think I have. the first wireless controller I remember using is the Gamecube Wavebird
@@PrinceDavid ok then. Up until about the game cube. All wireless controllers were the line of sight kind. Just like your tvs remote control. And had boat loads of lag amongst other issues.
@@marcellachine5718 Ah I see that does sound really laggy.
I know wireless was probably innovative for the time, but I would question how well a wireless controller setup would work back in 1984/85. I'm glad they stayed with wired controllers.
..then again, I have a certain bias against wireless controllers, mice, and keyboards. Unless it's a TV remote, I want it connected. Screw batteries. :)
Keyboard is Famicom Basic
Japanes version of Exite Bike used Datasette :D
Yes, I agree. They were common, but I just meant he should at least have heard of the cassette player for C64 as that system is very well-known. "Press play on tape" anyone?
nice little topic:)
The only historical piece I saw at Rockefeller New York was that Game Boy that survived a bomb in the Gulf War.
This video and subsequent comments have aged well.
These old videos are very brief
good video. short and sweet
@TFiPW
if you ever tried to play a game with an inferred remote you'll know how much it sucks.
Modern consoles use technology that's closer to Bluetooth, meaning you don't line of sight for it too work.
But as mentioned in the video, the main reason was cost.
yeah! i know. i live a mile away from manhattan, and i have been to nintendo world many times.
I live in NYC, and I go to Nintendo world often, but have not seen this for a while. I think they redesigned the store and now it's not there anymore.
I know I figured it out in a few minutes but what is that music playing in the background? what game is it from?
Mario 2
What was the ending music? Oh and did anyone even purchase that new system?
hornestly the nintendo advanced video system console not only looked weird but also looked very very dignified!!!!
EARTHBOUND !!!!
THATS AWESOME!!!
I have some wireless Atari 2600 controllers from 1983 and they're just as good as modern wireless controllers in terms of reception. I love them.
@VoidKeeper
Back then (and it fact even today) tapes stored a great amount of data for cheap.
The problem is that reading is VERY slow.
They are good for back ups though.
wait did you just showed a pic of a burnt up Gameboy, I remember reading about that Gameboy in a mag, it was in a house fire I think but the Gameboy still works even tho its burnt up.
really no more to say about it? :/
Yeah...this was a little bare-bones.
Except that the Commodore 64 would probably have outsold it if it had been released in this form.
At 1:55, I thought it was a fake ending and he'd tell us all about the Advanced Video System. Fooled.
This thing was literally a nes that looked like a tapedeck. There isn't a lot to say.
@hanspeterpitsch
I think there's was based on radio waves though,
I could be wrong.
WOW! If Nintendo sticks with the home computer design, history would have gone completely different! Would it have been able to combat with the Commodore 64 in its homeland? How would have Nintendo compete with Jack Tramiel's price war? The C64's main sellers were the incredibly low price (for a 64k system at the time) that competitors couldn't keep up with, and the massive software/game library that racked up quickly due to that. Would Nintendo still have released game cartridges for it? Would it still have invented game licensing and quality check? These would have actually hurt the sales of the system as a computer, I think. Nah, Nintendo would not have stood a chance against Commodore in the US with computers after 1982!
Westwurtzli Nintendo pracctily saved video games
Looks cool.
Wow, that's a Legendary device O-o !!!
So is that GameBoy as well...now that's a well designed machine ! ^_^
The NES was actually designed more like a VCR and not a toaster? to distance itself heavily from other gaming systems, due to the crash of ‘83.
And 28 years later... We have a Nintendo console with infrared controllers.
Wrong, it was RF technology that Wavebird used. Wii controllers were the first wireless ones to use Bluetooth.
yeah, no they didnt usee bluetooth for the wavebird, they used bluetooth for the wiimotes. i think they used radio signals for the wavebird hence multiple channels and no need to pair devices
Hi nice video dude
I don't know the story, but seeing the Gulf War Gameboy breaks my heart....
And here I thought that Sega had the wireless controller first...
The Atari 2600 was the first with a wireless controller
That deep, huh?
+seekertosecrets There actually was a wireless NES controller released. Well, it was a third party controller, but it was still licensed by Nintendo
+J.London I remember those. Double thick bases and a huge radio antenna. :-)
VulpisFoxfire yeap indeed! those antennas seemed like you'd be broadcasting to aliens haha
@TheToadRacer
I don't believe any models were made of the system besides that one, and it was never commercially sold.
@princedavid0
count yourself lucky. Inferred does work for a video game controller.
How is the Nintendo store in NYC? I need to visit it.
If I'm ever in NYC again, I must go to the Nintendo Store.
@sasukegir66
No, atari had a wireless controller too
Been to nintendo world, realy cool.
Ohai ConnortheWaffle's intro music!
It doesn't, but having to insert cartridges into the machine, is much like having to insert bread slices into the toaster.
While the AVS looks interesting I see several things that work better with the current NES. I don't see the keyboard as necessary for this generation and I see the dpad as being better than the square pad that the AVS controller was using (I glad that used the Famicom pad). Also, it may be due to a bad angle but this zapper looks more like a strange fishing rod. Finally, inferred wireless is really not that good in general.
Well, the Wavebird didn't use bluetooth technology, although I'm certain it was a very similar frequency band that was used.
Radio signals
@@edgary2388 you gotta be more specific than that, because radio is broad.
Zeldagigafan the GameCube comes with a radio number on it and you have match that number on the dial on the controller
Zeldagigafan also after 6 years quite surprising to get a response😂
can u still buy one of those?
proboly not... but i want one (collector)
No, silly. There was only one ever made.
How seens pretty neat even today.
Damn, a Nintendo home computer? I might have actually been interested and got into Nintendo as a kid if they had launched that as well as the Famicom/NES.
fuck pc
+Tuberuser187 Nintendo had Basic computer programing on the Famcom, it never made it to America.
+13Gangland Baby.
you can get virtual basic for the DS now.
the core unit and the music keyboard are missing
wasn't it cameoed in the movie family vacation?
it's curious for me that the "computer.-like" design wasn't chosen, people was afraid of consoles, nintendo tried to sell the nes as a different thing from atari 2600 because of that, so, why not the computer looking thing??, they could have played the "it's not a console" card, "hey, this is not one of those ataris, this is a computer!".
it's more believable than the robot scheme. ok, the robot plan worked, but the "it's a computer" way could have worked too.
Commodore's price war killed off its competitors in the home computer market after the C64 was released (probably hurt console sales too). Nintendo would not have stood a chance.
maybe but at the end it worked so well that I think they choose the best way.
Would this have come pre-packaged with Family BASIC or something?
Probably. Though it could have been intended as a "deluxe package", with a simpler version not having the keyboard and tape drive.
it would have been so cool a perfect working office and game computer by nintendo
@babybuussj4 It wouldn't of worked for North America they didn't want it to look like a toy for the AVS and they also wanted to change the colors.
For the NES Nintendo of Japan actually sent Howard Phillips that NES case and all Nintendo of America had to do was change the colors.
I will say this for it, it looks very sleek and sexy
It also resembles the Master System pretty closely when you think about it
Remember: Nintendo Entertainment System later changed this to cartridges, so cassette player on NES... Think about it...
@babybuussj4
They needed to look like a VCR, which was "cutting edge" in the 80's.
Because of the failure of Atari, Nintendo wanted to "spin" the NES as not a video game console.
And the top loading Japanese version (while a better design) looked too much like every other video game console.
Ohh you forgot that Nintendo was in the market with Game & Wacth
I want to go to there
The Advanced Video System reminds me if a Commodore 64.
God damn, this is ancient.