CatPix

The Videopac+ released in 1983 received the C7420 BASIC module. Much like the Intellivision expansion module, it come with extra beef (basically being a computer in itself that use the Videopac+ as a display and keyboard input. Like the Intellivision and (second version) Bally BASIC, it allow to save and load programs on an external tape player. I'm no sure when it was released in 1983 compared to the Famicom, but that may make it the last console with a computer/BASIC add-on, or the second-to-last.

We can't exclude workers doing it in spite or for laughs, but more likely, as those games were going cheaper and harder to sell (but not quite enough to just cut the supply, mind you) Atari most certainly pressed their factories to work faster : more game churned per hour/day for the same cost = profit. So obviously quality decreased; most of the time the job was done by hand as human labor in Taiwan was cheaper than robots, so people being people, they did more and more mistakes, just from work pressure; and also, obviously, one of the first thing that goes out of the window when cutting costs is QA. After all, if about 20% of all games were "wrong" the only people that would complain would be the people receiving the wrong game or an empty box. Who back then would complain about a crooked or upside/down label? And even if they did, most likely the seller would just refuse to exchange the game. Not from Atari, but I noticed for European games, that many games got "made in Germany" (notably games made bu Salu) uses Activision cheaper shells and their cheap white labels. And it's not just that they look alike : I do have a Salu-made game with the Activision moulded logo that they probably forgot to file... (as the game is from Ubi Soft)

Not sure where this belongs but I figured this may interest you. I was browsing scans of the French magazine "Tilt" to find computer prices and randomly came across this page : Here's a close-up : The hardware is real cheap here. For comparison, a ZX spectrum 48K sold for 990F too, and a basic Amstrad CPC (with black-and-white display) sold for 2 500FF. But damn, look at the price of ANY expansion module, or even the price of the "game tapes" (I assume they are game carts given the price, but they use "cassette" which could, back then, meant both cartridge and tape) I went to look for "Vectron" but that name is too generic. With the adress, it brought me a second,different advert for the Aquarius. "Enter easily in the world of informatique thanks to the Aquarius, his Microsoft BASIC, his home organizer programs, his game programs and his numerous expansion capabilites. In addition, his CP/M compatibility allow you to access the largest library of programs" Mini Expander, expansion that includes 2 controllers, one additional sound animation and allow to connect one memory-cart and one game cassette" (so, cassettes are carts.) Those cartridges 4K and 16K allow to directly expand the RAM and plugs directly in the Aquarius or in the Mini Expander"

I also don't see why someone would forge GG games and sell them as legit... without selling them at "legit games market prices." The GG isn't famous in Japan and even outside, it's probably most well know in Europe and while prices here, especially for CIB games, have risen hard lately, we're still not at the level of Game Boy prices. European Sega fans are aware that with a few exceptions, Europe got the best of what the GG and SMS had to offer, so unlike what we see for the NES/Famicom and SNES, much less people are interested in buying from Japan, except in the case of game being cheaper when bought from Japan. Of course there is always the possibility of a few people entering the market of fake games precisely because there are basically none on the market, but it's just safer to assume that the game you got looks brand new because it's on a platform that receive much less attention.

I got a few games from Japan that looked like (and might have been) they were pulled out of a warehouse for unsold games just to get shipped to me. For really ridiculous prices, (however none were pricey games either in Japan nor Europe) I'm not sure how successful the Game Gear was in Japan, but neither the SMS and Megadrive were so I suspect it sold moderately, making the possibility of brand new games, not just CIB ones but also NOS ones a very likely possibility. Most games at the time weren't shrinkwrapped. Sega has several manufacturers working for them (and some companies got the right to make their own carts as well) so it's maybe not a surprise that they have slight differences between them.

Interesting product. For the SCC adapter, if you own a Konami cart with the SCC chip in it, you can mod the cart (I know, sacrilegeous) to disable the cart ROM and leave the expansion sound chip active (this can be done with a switch to reactivate your game). To work, this requires a MSX wih two cart slots. And for floppy games, you can replace your drive with a HxC drive. MSX uses Microsoft's FAT12 floppy format making image creation on a standard computer very easy. Or you can write images on 720k floppies with any DOS/Windows PC (due to slight changes, the reverse isn't true : floppies formatted on a MSX generally won't be recognized on a standard PC) If you do'nt have a floppy drive on your MSX2 there are carts that add it. Slight off-topic, sorry

Most probably Soundic, which made about 99% of all Pong clones and made most of the "Euroclones" of US consoles, with the exception of the Channel F. Unfortunately it doesn't mean alot. Radofin made Pong using the same shell than the 1292 console.

I forgot a word and can't edit it, it should read "no eject required". Also as already mentioned, this design exist on absolutely no other Super NES PAL/Super Famicom cart I ever saw, and on no other cart I can find. For exemple, one of the very last game for the SNES : Still use the original cart design that prevent removal. So far, only the GB player, in both SuFAmi and PAL SNES versions, can be removed without switching the console off.

So, there is at least ONE cart for the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom that feature the "no-eject-button" design, for some reason. The Super Game Boy Player (and the SGBP2) Absolutely no idea why. Perhaps because ripping off the adapter from the SNES would cause less damages that removing the GB cart fro mthe GB player, which would be more likely to happen if the GB player was locked in place?

Early model with the additionnal sound board thing, apparently? Interesting. That explain better the more "solid" feel. Obviously with a shorter "lever" the piece of plastic has less flex. And the size and position of the US eject button makes it so that you want to press on the furthest point, which is deeper and will have more "flex" since you have more lenght.

As someone else said, I was the opposite, I sometime would slam the Eject button and see how high it could fly. My best was about 20 cm. After a while, I also developed the habit of trying to make it fly as high as possible BUT have the cart fall back on the system and stay upright. It's REALLY hard, and some carts being heavier make it basically impossible.

While I eventually acquired both, I choose the PS3 over the Xbox 360 to play the Silent Hill games that would release on it (although with Konami it was rather random what would release where). Same thing from the previous generation, I chose the PS2 to play GTA 3 and Silent Hill 2. In both case tho I ended up acquiring dozens of games for the platforms; I haven't bough a console so far to play only one or a few games.

Astrocade and Channel F indeed, with the caveat that for those systems, the cart slot physically move (not unlike the NES ZIF connector) so you couldn't remove the eject button without redesigning the whole system. The Famicom and derivates have eject buttons too, but without a cart locking system. The Super A'can have an eject button, tho I don't know how it operates. In a different category, while the GB and GBC doesn't have an eject button, those systems feature a locking mechanism preventing cart removal when the system is powered. The PC-Engine feature that system too.

Pick up PAL controllers then, they come with long cords (I guess, US-lenght cords) but SFC design. Interesting fact : when you open a Super controller, on the shell, you read both SFC and US SNES colours. I wonder if very early SuFAmi controller also have those or not...

Tastes and colours, but they didn't changed the style for PAL, they changed it for the US. The PAL design is the Japanese design. Apparently, Nintendo wanted to use the US design for Europe but (thankfully, IMO) since it required a different shell and thus a different assembly line, they couldn't churn out enough consoles for the US and European market, so they shared the load with the Super Famicom production line. This is also reflected on the console hardware design since like for Sega consoles, the SNES is the only Nintendo console that can be hardware switched between PAL and NTSC modes (NES can't, the N64 can't either. And from the N64 era, it's "digitally" switched). (early picture in a 1990 magazine) And for this design, apparently they were fine with the early, "always locked" design. I think the SUFami original design make it also easier to use that feature. When using an US SNES I found the eject button to be much narrower, and weaker than the SuFami/SNin design, which in turn make is harder to eject carts. The weakness probably due to the fact that the US design is on a pivot, when the SuFami design is a "press vertically down" one, which gives a much more "solid" feedback. That may be a reason why they changed the design on US models but not the others, rather than "user dumbness" (or perhaps in addition to it... I can't believe that Euro kids would be that smarter than their US counterparts )

Efficiency is good yes, but 50°C was, not even 10 years ago for desktop machines, a regular temperature for an idle CPU. Now, we can get the same temperature for a CPU under load? That is basically excellent. High-performance laptops still hit 80°C or more under load. Sure, it is better for the longevity of your hardware, but those persons are the same that replace their CPU or whole computer every 2 years or so. Bickering about CPU temp under load is the equivalent of the 90's race to squeeze 10 more Mhtz out of a Pentium III. I have seen people who's goal is to have their CPU temp being basically at room temperature. It's just basically what most people have left on their PC to do since the Mhtz race is dead or easy to achieve. And you're right, usually those people are all about watercooling.

Today from what I can notice, the race is more about having a full blinkenlight, and the lowest temperatures. Of course having low temp is always good for the hardware, but I seen peopel that consider that your computer is wholly unoptimized if your CPU temp goes over 50°C at full load... Overclocking is still a thing, but not as much since many motherboards includes it, and well, winning 200 htz over a speed of 3Ghtz is more symbolic than anything else.

If your setup is unlikely to change, you may thing about making your own power strip, with a lenght of cable trunking. Protection could be provided with a 10 Ma RCD built in the trunking or on the cable (But I do believe you have RDC-protected outlets?) This would allow you to space the outlets as desired, and also put several switches to command a group of devices so you can power up only your TV, or TV and a group of devices.

PC-Engine is indeed the smallest "classic" home system that exists. And yes, as you said, it's pretty much the size of 3 jewel cases stacked up. Unless you throw in the CD part, then PSOne wins the cake.

Ouya?

The only other example I can think of is cassette, which was a generic term for a small box (usage may vary by country) and at least by the 90's mostly/only referred to Philips' Compact Cassette.

I haven't repacked any old PC per se. Once I kept an old case for my new computer rig, but since it was all off the shelves parts I hardly call it repacking. I got a Soviet PC case on eBay some time ago, I'm not sure if I wanna do a sleeper machine with it or an emulation machine. Either way since it's non-standard It will need a bit of physical hacking.

I was trying to find the Soviet/Russian Spectrum clones I heard of, and... one is the Pentagon, which was an amateur-designed PCB, so can it count as production? It's unclear if it was produced by a factory or by people producing perhaps a dozen for reselling them. Amazingly, another that may not be simple to know where and when it started and stopped is the ATM. Now, it appears that ATM is (was?) a legit manufacturer, and they made the ATM from 1991 to 1994 (with an update in 1992. Perhaps as they could source Western components?) However it seems that someone restarted making ATM-Turbo in 2004. https://nedopc-com.translate.goog/news.php?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_sch=http It is unclear but it feels more like a sort of club, not a full-fledged company. https://www-invertor-ru.translate.goog/news_comp_30.html?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp "At the end of 1994, due to the massive appearance of Dendy game set-top boxes in Russia, as well as in connection with the appearance of IBM-compatible computers on the 386 and 486 processor, the demand for any Sinclair-compatible computers fell sharply, commercial support had to be stopped, and all firmware, developments and software, it was decided to give to free use. However, a group of enthusiasts (creative group NedoPC group) not only preserved the heritage of ATM-turbo, but also improved the project. Today, the production of the classic PC ATM-turbo versions of v7.xx boards continues in small batches, as well as an experimental batch of the PC ATM-turbo 3 with a new form factor of the ATX case and with an architecture expansion up to 4Mb (backward compatible with 2+) and a palette up to 16x4096, as well as a model based on modern elemental logic and a flashable configuration - ZX-Evolution with support for 4MB, turbocharging up to 14MHz, modern peripherals, SD cards, etc.). Today, this model is the most popular, at least in Russia, and has been produced in small batches continuously since 2010." I guess this isn't really commercial... But cool. Also I guess those could be among the earliest "rebuilt/reprodution" of older computers 😛

OFC in less exotic things, we can look at a few machines that had odd graphic output. We won't mention sound : There were never any sound chip copied in the USSR. Aftermarket AY chips and Covox were the most common add-ons/mods for many computers. One exception (that I know of) is the Vector 06C which used an Intel timer clone (VI-53) as a sound chip. I'm sure you're familiar with the PC-Speaker? Well now imagine it, but with 3 output, and you get a really decent sound chip for 8 bits machines. The Original Eletronika BK uses 3 colours : Red, Blue, and Green. In fact, the BK is internally using 4 shades of grey, and the "colour" output in RGB is really just the 3 shades of gray outputting on the Red, Blue and Green channel. However several programmers made clever use of dithering to bring a few more colours to their games : Do you really see yellow and purple? Or is that just all Red, Green and Blue all along? People familair with Spectrum or CPC computers will certainly appreciate this port of Exolon : The Vector 06C, as I mentionned before, while having it's own graphical chip organized in some odd way that I don't understand, is able to receive MSX ports : MSX original : (Vector 06C port) To appreciate the music and sound, have a demo : And this homebrew in progress :

AFAIK no "divergent design" was produced in a "small computer" format in the USSR. Different architectures were experimented with mainframes (and quite alot over the years), from the beginning, but for "mass production" in the 70's and 80's, the Soviet decided on copying Western designs (which was mostly decided on who was the most influent and which solution saved ressources rather than something carefully studied, as you can expect from such a bureautratic dictatorship). The chosen design was the PDP-11, from 1970, produced as mainframe, mini-computers, then desktop machines and even down to programmable pocket calculators. Thus while the design is similar, they developed their own solution hardware-wise, and their own BASIC (Vilnius-BASIC, based on the MSX Basic). http://oldpc.su/pc/sm/sm1420/sm1420-1.jpg (the very machine that was the creation of Tetris) DVK computer : Wanna carry a PDP-11 in your pocket? Well, you can : OFC due to different uses, manufacture dates and price, not all of those machines can run the same program, either because of them running different systems or lacking ressources (there is less RAM in an Elektronika BK than in the DVK for example, CPU speed is slower in the Elektronika MK-90 and there is even less RAM obviously). Different system could be clones of the original PDP/11 OS, but also clone of FOCAL (BASIC-like language for PDP-11, used in early Elektronika BK) Vilnius-Basic (later models) and even Unix clones like DEMOS. For different architectures, you had the Setun "computer" (mainframe?) developed in the 1960's and updated up to the fall of the Soviet Union, which used Ternary logic instead of binary logic (-1, 0, 1 instead of 0 and 1). Another architecture developed in the Soviet Union and that continued until now (you may have even heard of it due to the recent events) is the Elbrus architecture that use Very Long Instruction Words Elbrus is still updated and worked on, but mostly for the Russian Government. Russia had announced sales to the public... in 2020. Bad timing. If you heard the news that Taiwan now stopped exporting processors to Russia, it wasn't (only?) about regular x86 and ARM CPU but also specifically TSMC stopping the manufacture and delivery of Elbrus processors. In the "oddities" a few computers were made to be multi-systems, but they all used Western-designed CPU, like the Istra 4816 : Containing a 8080 and a 8086 CPU. Or the Iskra Triglav : Which could be equipped with up to 3 CPU at the same time : PDP/11 compatible CPU, a 80286 and a Motorola 68000. However from what I could read, it couldn't use all the CPU at the same time, just run OS using the specific CPU architecture. (note : you'll find lot of "brands" in Iskra/Istra for Eastern products, as it simply mean "spark" but if they aren't made in the same country, they are unrelated products and factories)