Because they make game covers like this:
Ah — nothing like a Japanese Famicom Disk System classic. Is anybody out there willing to attempt an interpretation of this game’s synopsis from this picture alone? You’re up for a serious challenge.
Heck, I’ve played it and I still don’t know what it’s about.
It’s 1987. Your ravenous love for Nintendo’s new console leads you to rent every new game released for the system, craving the joy of each new experience. One day, a stranger walks up to you on the street and offers you a device that lets you play nearly all the NES games ever released (or ever will be released) around the world on a single magic cartridge. What do you say?
Twenty years ago, such a contraption would have seemed laughably impossible. But that same mind-blowing scenario (minus the mysterious stranger) has become a reality in 2007 with RetroZone‘s PowerPak NES flash cartridge. Brian Parker, the man behind RetroZone and the PowerPak, put forth a monumental effort to bring this technically challenging dream product to market.
The PowerPak retains the familiar form factor of classic licensed NES cartridges, albeit rendered in a translucent orange plastic. Cut from top edge of each PowerPak is a notch through which a standard compact flash (CF) card may be conveniently inserted or removed. Turn on a NES with the PowerPak cart inside, and you’ll see an on-screen menu that lists all the games on the CF card. Pick one from the list, you’ll be playing the game as if you had the game’s original cartridge in the console.
With a flash “multicart” like the PowerPak, NES users no longer need to switch cartridges between games, except for the few games that the PowerPak doesn’t support (see below). Legal vagaries be damned: as an owner of over 250 NES cartridges, I find the convenience of this feature worth the price of the PowerPak alone.
[ Continue reading [ VC&G Review ] PowerPak NES Flash Cartridge » ]
It happens to the best of us.
How many of these puppies do you have sitting around? A fellow on eBay is selling a lot of 36. I’ll have to admit: I have a box of a few dozen myself.
The object in question, of course, is the once-essential manual RF switch, commonly known as a “TV/GAME” switch. Such switches were used to alternate between RF video/audio input from a video game system or home computer and a broadcast (or cable) TV antenna signal. They went the way of the dodo in the mid-1980s — first in Japan with the introduction of Nintendo’s innovative automatic RF switch box (it came packaged with every Famicom produced from 1983-1993), and then in the US around 1985 with the introduction of the NES (which included an automatic switch box with every unit sold). Later, RF switches in general became endangered once nearly all consumer TV sets started shipping with separate A/V jacks for composite video and stereo audio. The choice was natural, as video quality through an RF antenna input is inferior to a composite video connection.
Even among collectors, manual TV/GAME switches are mostly useless these days because most of us try to make at least composite (or better) video connections to our TVs, either via special cables or modifications to the systems themselves. Still, if you want to play classic machines like the Atari VCS without video hacks, you’ll probably need to use one.
Does anybody out there collect these things? We’d love to hear from you.
Yep. Some things never change.
Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of my heretofore mostly forgotten digital archives comes this rare look into my collecting past. I shot this with a video camera and a Snappy Video Snapshot, which was an early still-frame video capture device that attached to a PC’s parallel port. Behold the floor of my computer room circa November 1996, as it lay covered with a diverse mixture of vintage computer and video game equipment.
Pop quiz! Study the picture. How many items and accessories can you name by manufaturer or model? Bonus points to anyone who manages to name the early XT clone on the left.
While strolling through my local World Market store last year, a familiar-looking candy tin caught my eye. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was shaped like a NES control pad. Trying to avoid another impulse purchase, I passed up the opportunity.
Fast forward to yesterday, when my wife comes home from shopping and announces that she has a present for me.
“Close your eyes, and put out your hand.”
I reluctantly comply.
“Now spin around three times.”
As I slow down, she places a cold, rattling metal box on my palm. I open my eyes. To my astonishment, I find a brand new tin of Nintendo Power mints floating in thin air — just above the floor, as I collapse.
It was particularly good gift, since I had co-incidentally been thinking about them recently because of my last “Game Boy Bubble Gum” Retro Scan. Some gifts are worth a bruise or two.
For $1.49 (US), you get about 84 white, pill-shaped mints in a stylish metal package. Unfortunately, I found the mints’ flavor to be somewhat lacking: unlike Altoids, these are “curiously weak” mints with a slightly unpleasant chalky consistency. But the tin alone is probably worth the price. Therein lies all the novelty, of course, and the real reason anyone would buy this product.
The tin’s two-part design of smooth, rounded aluminum closes firmly and is well-constructed. It’s about the same size as a real NES controller, which is particularly cool. The printed control-pad effect is significantly enhanced by the slightly embossed buttons and D-pad on the lid of the tin. And after you finish all your mints, you can store your Nintendo DS games and extra styluses in it. Or dead bugs — it’s your choice.
Why the manufacturer branded these mints with “Nintendo Power” (the official magazine of all things Nintendo) is unknown to me. It would have been much cooler if they referenced the Nintendo Entertainment System (in words) somewhere on the package. Barring that, they could have at least called it the “Mintendo Entertainment System.”
Now you’re eating with power. Minty power.
| The Skinny: Nintendo Power Mints | |
| Good Features: | Awesome NES control pad-shaped tin. Inexpensive. Very few calories. Useful for Nintendo DS game storage. |
| Bad Features: | Mints have an authentic left-over-from-the-1980s chalky taste. They’re called “Nintendo Power” mints for some reason. |
| VC Rating: (10 Being Best) |
[ 7 out of 10 ] Shiny Marbles – Very Good |
For a Nintendo Entertainment System fan, it’s a once-impossible dream finally come true: a thousand games at your fingertips in a real NES console. RetroZone has done it first with the PowerPak, a new NES flash cartridge. With the PowerPak, you can fit every NES game ever made, around the world, onto one cartridge. Dumped ROM images of the games are copied to a compact flash card, which slides into the PowerPak unit itself. Turn on the NES with the PowerPak cart inserted, and you’ll see an on-screen menu that lists all the games on the cart. Pick one from the list, you’ll be playing the game as if you had the game’s original cartridge in the console. With a flash multicart like the PowerPak, NES users no longer need to switch cartridges between games. As an owner of over 250 NES games, I personally have been looking for a product like this for a long time.
Perhaps even more exciting is the PowerPak’s potential to jumpstart homebrew development in the NES community. Unlike the Atari 2600, Nintendo’s most famous console is woefully lacking amateur home-programmed software. RetroZone is out to change that with their new PowerPak products, which significantly lower the barriers to entry in developing games for play on a real NES unit.
Brian Parker, a resident of Redwood City, CA, has run RetroZone full time for three years. His company is well known in the retrogaming community for its sales of original console controllers — like NES, SNES, and Genesis control pads — modified to work with the USB ports found on modern computers. In 2005, I reviewed one of his USB NES controller products and found it to be excellent (I still use it regularly, in fact). But it was with the new PowerPak NES flash cartridge in mind that I interviewed Brian via email last month.
Also an avid cyclist, Brian gave me a picture of him competitively riding a racing bicycle, the only known picture of him in existence. Ok, I’m kidding — but it is him.
Thanks for the interview, Brian.
[ Update (11/02/2007): Click Here to read our review of the RetroZone PowerPak flash cart. ]
[ Continue reading [ VC&G Interview ] Brian Parker on RetroZone and the PowerPak NES Flash Cart » ]
[ “Ask RedWolf” is a regular column where Benj Edwards (aka RedWolf) answers readers’ questions about computers and video games. ]
Late last year, I started fielding questions for a new series called “Ask RedWolf”(“RedWolf” being my long-time online alias that I used to go by on this blog). Many months later, I’m finally getting around to releasing the first one.
This time around, I discuss a technical question on the Sharp Twin Famicom and give my best educated guesses on two requests for game identification, which our readers might be able to help with. And of course, you can always ask me questions yourself for the next column. On with the show.
[ Continue reading Ask RedWolf: On Famicom, Winds, and Pyramids » ]
Sure, the heroes get all the attention, but what about the loyal fans cheering in the background? This week’s theme and hint is “NES Crowds.” Think of background crowds in games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. That should help you narrow it down a bit. The first block is to the right, the other two are below. As always, post your guesses in the comments section of this entry, and don’t be bashful. Good luck!
The answers to the last challenge are after the break.
[ Continue reading Name Those Pixels: And the Crowd Goes Wild » ]
Eventually, I convinced my mom to call Baton (being a about 11 or 12 years old then) to see if she could order one, but by that time either the phone number was already disconnected, or she didn’t get an answer. Or maybe she did talk to somebody — my memory’s fuzzy on that point. I was hugely disappointed. Crushed. The Teleplay modems never showed up in stores and I never heard anything about them again.
I did get excited when Xband modems came out some years later (for the SNES and Genesis), but I found the experience with their service somewhat lacking. I wanted a direct player-to-player connection with no game broker or middle man.
For more on the story behind the Baton Teleplay modem, check out Frank Cifaldi’s investigative piece at Lost Levels Online. I’m really glad he took the time to research the company so that their story isn’t completely lost to history.
Unfortunately, I forgot to document the issue number this ad appeared in when I scanned it some time ago.
If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.
