ToToTEK.COM

[madman]

Has anyone seen one of these before? I've got one on the way, is it similar to the other Famicom "copiers?"

[kyuusaku]

If you have a FNMC-256 it's more or less a 2M Game Converter clone (ie no trained games); one with a 4M sticker will be a downscaled Bung Game Doctor 4M (trained games but no IRQ counter). If you got a Magic Card clone from Hong Kong, it will probably be only 2M but with the MC4M logic. The only novel thing about Magic Cards is that they have $6000-7FFF mapped to internal SRAM instead of using the FDS adapter's DRAM; that coupled with a battery lets you play MMC1 RPGs hacked to UOROM such as the first two games of a popular franchise by a certain Square company.

BTW, I have every revision of all FC units except for a 4M Magic Card so feel free to ask :)

[madman]

What did those Venus Game Converters actually do if they didn't allow trained/hacked games? I believe the one I'm getting is an FNMC-256.

[kyuusaku]

Before the trained games, the units would "only" playback NROM, CNROM, UNROM and GNROM type games; that was all but a handful of games out there when the first Game Doctor (and clones) were released in 1987.

Units which follow this model are: GD1M, GD2M, Game Converter, official FFE Magic Card.

In 1988, most popular new games were ASIC-based so a new generation of the units was released with an additional bankswitch mode which wasn't compatible with any retail games. It's purpose was to provide versatile PRG bankswitching for hacked games.

Units: GD2M 2nd revision PCB + "small add-on board", 2M Magic Card clones

In 1989, the GD4M expanded this mode to address 4M of PRG RAM and added an IRQ counter. Hacks which used the IRQ counter were (still are) very rare so FFE didn't include the extra logic in their 4M Magic Card.

[madman]

Gotcha, thanks. There's little to no information available on the web about these things and even most copier information for 16bit units seems to be disappearing. At least on sites easily found by westerners.

[rbudrick]

[kyuusaku]

I'm afraid you're right Rob, there never were websites which had any real information about FC units and absolutely no mention of them on non-Western sites. Fortunately though, sufficient info can be gleaned empiracally since they are relatively straight forward.

[madman]

Got it today, it is indeed the fnmc-256, the red FFE model.

This thing is either broken or doesn't work in the AV famicom. It doesn't have a power jack like the Bung units. I'll try it on my legacy Famicom a bit later.

[kyuusaku]

AVFC would have a better chance since it draws slightly less current without the RF modulator, but of course it should work on both. All FFE's products really strain their console

[madman]

I got it going after cleaning the contacts, they were very dirty. It matches the Famicom and FDS better than the Bung units at least

[kyuusaku]

Another advantage is that it has a built in copy tool, just push a button instead of inserting a disk at the prompt.

Does your unit have a battery thing on the back or toggle switch(es) on the front? Modifications to Magic Cards are very common, usually they have a Bung/FFE BIOS selector since often the disks from either unit aren't compatible, a battery pack on the back to retain save data, and a switch to disconnect the battery when it's not needed.

[madman]

There's no switches or buttons on mine, inside is just the FFE BIOS chip.