The Famicom Disk System was a success. Then came the pirates.

[@RetroRockGamer]

Back when Nintendo was fun and didn't spend all their time suing everyone.

[@politicalchannel66]

If you know Nintendo history they where always in court in 1980-90s also

[@eraerror5054]

They were just as bad, if not worse back then.

[@tombarber8929]

Those aren’t actual kiosks on eBay. They’re disk storage containers shaped like the kiosk

[@retrobitstv]

Ahh, that explains the price then! I should have looked more closely :P

[@davidsmall6322]

Oh Man?!?!

[@NerdlyPleasures]

If it were a real kiosk, I'd expect an extra digit in the current price at least. A kiosk has never turned up in the wild, only in a Nintendo storage facility.

[@HometownUnicorn]

Lol I would have laughed so much if you'd bought that and then you got the thing that is 25.5 x 10.5 x 10 cm approx.

[@retrobitstv]

@@HometownUnicorn Haha that would have made a very different video from the one I imagined in my head!

[@piratestation69]

I own 2 of these bad boys... a rev-5 model and a rev 0 (no copy protection). I use a FDS stick to copy my floppies and a PC using a special usb adapter. The FDS stick only has 256 MB of memory but can get most of the library on there. The famicom was light years ahead of what Atari was doing at the time. Amazing what a 1.79mhz CPU, extra memory, good talented programmers can do. The 3d Logo printing was a very very cool idea. Trying to find real disks are getting expensive.

[@MegaManNeo]

I was always curious on seeing how copying those diskettes for the FDS works.
Thank you!

[@SumeaBizarro]

The blue disks are not "later releases" but special releases mainly meant for competitions and uploading your scores to kiosks for chance to win prizes.
Yellow disks were very much the standard and were not replaced by blue disks, they just coexisted for special versions

[@striderskorpion]

The "Game Doctor" units (not all were technically Game Doctors) also allowed the playback of modified cartridge games put on to floppies. Some of them got quite advanced for the time, but they can't hold a candle to modern FPGA based ROM carts. The FDS made unlicensed game development even easier. Hence, the Super Pig/Hacker International adult games.

[@JB-mm5ff]

Hmmm... were there hacks floating around back then? If so, are there any examples which are not lost?

[@striderskorpion]

@JB-mm5ff I think many (most?) cartridge to FDS conversions are in NES format. I'm not sure if there's any in the TOSEC sets, but the GoodNES set has some. I don't know if there's any other format for these disk games since they don't conform to the typical FDS layout. The NESDev wiki has some information on Famicom "Game Doctor" style copiers and the mappers used.

[@cyrixinstead4592]

YES to Disk Writer! Long term FDS owner here!

[@erwindewit4073]

Very nice. I would need to do quite a lot to get this stuff working here in Europe, so it's great to see it in action here! Cool!

[@skins4thewin]

The FDS Badge Holder is so damned cool!

[@elone3997]

Awesome video - a great follow up to your previous one. Those vending machines to re-write the discs were genius - economical for the consumer whilst still bringing in the money for Nintendo. I didn't know too much about the disc system at all and didn't realise it was packed with all the extra upgrades. You made a solid choice on picking your unit up 👍😉 (ps great job on mcGuvyering that typewriter disc!)

[@octonoozle]

I always wonder how things would have been different if we had the disks in the US market.

[@dennisp.2147]

We would have pirated the shit out of everything...

[@maxxdahl6062]

Wouldn't have been. Would have failed here too due to piracy.

[@curiousottman]

I had no idea! Very cool tech and wonderful presentation by this channel.

[@commodorechronicles]

The fact that Retro-Bits doesn't have 500k followers by now is a shame. Great work as always, Matt!

[@paulmacknight]

Awesome video as always Matt

[@TastyBusiness]

I've got a Twin Famicom all so I could play Metroid as it was originally designed. It's a fun machine, but I could stand to diversify my library of disks.

[@seanys]

You left Japan without checking the contents of the box? That’s a level of trust that’s way beyond what I’d be capable of.

[@RetroRockGamer]

It shows his dedication to the unboxing video.

[@skins4thewin]

Uh... Who opens brand new Sealed stuff just to check it? That would sort of defeat the purpose of it still being sealed 😅

[@tombarber8929]

@@skins4thewin It's not new in box(in Japanese used game stores they wrap everything in plastic)

[@skins4thewin]

@tombarber8929 Ah I see, that's my badd then. It did look absolutely mint! He got very lucky on that one I think. Price was right too

[@retrobitstv]

I confirmed with the shop owner that it was in good working order but yea, I never put eyes on it until the unboxing on-camera. Definitely a gamble as it would be pretty hard to return/exchange from home!

[@SumeaBizarro]

The adult titles were not officially licensed by nintendo. They are much more related to disk system piracy as unlicensed games and dumps and other info on the games identify them as such.

[@75slaine]

Nice, thanks Matt. I remember these being a thing but never knew much about them. Nice overview 👍

[@bradnelson3595]

Thanks for the presentation and overview. I had never heard of this Disk System. Quite an interesting add-on.

[@UltraHumongousSword]

The Famicom Disk System was probably the reason why Nintendo was so adamant to not put a CD-ROM on the Nintendo 64. They kept saying that "ROM chips have faster loading times" as an excuse, but then you could cache data on DRAM with a CD-ROM, it's a good compromise if they really wanted to have "faster loading times".

[@relo999]

Then you get to cost issues, as memory was rather expensive back then. 16MB would set you back 500+ USD as the release of the N64, that would hold roughly 50% of the N64 library.
And every time on boot you'd still need to load that data into memory to begin with, and every time you need to switch the data in memory.
Saturn and the PS1 did go the cache route, and they had massive loading times because memory was so expensive and to make the consumer price reasonable only a small size was use.

[@UltraHumongousSword]

@@relo999 Yeah it was so expensive at the time. The one that's built-in for N64 was the fastest among the consoles, maybe faster than PC memory, but it costs a lot. Now we have gigabytes of memory, but back in 1995, 8 MB of RAM was plenty already, and expensive as well. Nintendo did implement discs on the Gamecube, but it's still apparent they were reluctant to do it because they used a propriety disc format. If I were to design a game disc system, it will be like a floppy disk like design, but with a DVD-ROM inside, and there's also a chip built-in in this "enclosed DVD" design for copy protection.

[@rednight2476]

would love to see a video on the disk writer kiosk

[@more.power.]

Excellent video thank you

[@justjake5389]

great video. thank you.

[@InfiniteLoop]

those carts for the disc writer, look suspiciously like NES carts.

[@retrobitstv]

They sure do, don't they?

[@MrLurchsThings]

I’ve got one of these (and the Family Basic add on). It’s a shame those two devices don’t work with each other. But it’s a great addition to the Famicom. A lot of people think it was a failure, but selling 4M (?) in Japan alone is certainly not a failure.
I didn’t know about the extra sound channel tho. Very cool. It’s no Sega FM, but certainly makes a difference if you know what to listen for.

[@retrobitstv]

I had my eye out for a Family Basic add-on but they're too expensive now :( That would have been cool for sure to allow disk system use from Basic!

[@sauce777]

You have to buy that disk writer that has got to be a unique item and the value will only increase. I'm surprised it is that cheap.

[@retrobitstv]

Apparently I didn't look at the auction closely because it was for a storage container not an actual disk writer kiosk :( Oh well...

[@npaladin2000]

I would have just removed the front plate of the disk drive where the "Nintendo" bits are instead of 3d printing replacement end pieces. But I guess there's more than one way to pirate Nintendo.

[@meneerjansen00]

I'd love to see a video on the Disk Writer Kiosk! 😀

[@retrobitstv]

Alas it turns out the ones on eBay are only storage units and not actual writers :( Oops!

[@meneerjansen00]

@@retrobitstv Ha ha. That price seemed too good to be true. Oh well, win some loze some. At least I enjoyed your video on this rarely seen disk system. 🙂

[@Pai3000]

Super interesting

[@ecu4321]

It's sad that the _FAMILY COMPUTER_ keeps being relegated as the sharp's twin famicom. It's clear as day as what its actual name/brand is.

[@retrobitstv]

The Japanese do love a good portmanteau

[@freddyvidz]

If only it had come to America

[@gilbert1975nf]

Don't copy that floppy 😅
Pretty hilarious

[@revinat]

I have 3 questions for you:
1 - The plastic wrap in which were packed your unit was original o was repacked?
2 - You modified original hardware (the unit and the disk) for creating this video? That would be such a crime. (Even less orignal units from the 80's still alive).
3 - I have a Unit i bought some years ago from Japan and it looks brand new, but how could i know if it is a first edition or have implemented the later copyright protection? (without opening it).

[@tiemanowo]

3:14 Wait.. What? Every time something was requested from a disk an entire surface was scanned? emm.. why? Disk electronics was simpler / cheaper?

[@retrobitstv]

I can only guess that it has something to do with the original intent of the Mitsumi drive. Perhaps that implementation means that the disk controller part of the typewriter/MIDI device can be very simple.

[@davidsmall6322]

Please please make a video on the game-copier system.

[@MrAlan1828]

Nintendo has all their kiosks in their warehouse and not one has been leaked outside anywhere, well I think one has and someone did dump that bom but no one has got it working on real hardware

[@retrobitstv]

I thought it looked too good to be true! Ah well :(

[@andrewdupuis1151]

I always wanted one

[@TransCanadaPhil]

i’m curious, is it possible to get the Famicom Disk System working with a North American NES using some combination of cartridge adapters for the RAM expansion?

[@retrobitstv]

There are adapters you can buy for the cartridge slot (easier with a top-loader than a front-loader) but IIRC you have to do some custom work to bring the FDC's audio channel in since that pin isn't present on the NES.

[@darkalligator]

We need sharp's classic mini edition 😊

[@infinitecanadian]

The 'Disk Card' symbol looks like a bread tag.

[@mercster]

Heh, neat seeing you defeat it.

[@mercster]

Excitebike sure sounds better with that extra channel.

[@OtterlyInsane]

What's behind the sliding door on the memory unit? From inside it looked like a connector for something

[@retrobitstv]

Good eye! I believe that port was intended for future expansion but never actually used by Nintendo for any consumer product. Apparently there is one hacking/copying device that uses the port to interface with the FDS though.

[@Jolly-Green-Steve]

8:03 Super Pig..... ahhahahaha!!..... Their direct competitor on the Famicom Disk System... Smut Mutt.... put out some quality material as well.

[@rager1969]

Would it make sense to print a new faceplate for the FDS that doesn't have the "Nintendo" embossed so that blanks don't need that added to them?

[@retrobitstv]

I should have showed this but you can unscrew the embossed "Nintendo" from the faceplate. I think you would still need to extend the length of the generic quick disks, embossing or not, so they seat properly in the unit though. I did not try to see what happened with a non-lengthened disk as I was afraid it might damage something!

[@KJW648]

Didn't the master have 3d glasses aswell?

[@retrobitstv]

It did! Japanese Master Systems had a port for 3D glasses right on the front but the rest of us would need an add-on that inserts into the card slot to use them.

[@KJW648]

@@retrobitstvIn the UK you could buy a starter kit containing, console, the glasses and gun or buy as a add-on. The card cartridge came with it.

[@lloydhendric1281]

So with the disk nintendo embossing, if you remove the front of the drive, does that remover the security lock out on the disks?

[@retrobitstv]

It is possible to unscrew the Nintendo embossing from the inside of the faceplate but I think it plays a role in aligning the disk in the drive and I didn't test to see what would happen with it removed. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try with the power disconnected...

[@Retroman8000]

Dremel out Nintendo into a rectangle....bingo

[@spyczech]

Your title makes it sound like piracy is bad or something