“Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project • Hacker News Board

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#11

Post by wk_end » Fri, May 22, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

A fun fact about the FM Towns - several American games, originally for DOS, had unique and arguably superior FM Towns ports.

Big ones off the top of my head include LOOM (CD music, 256 colours, uncut dialogue), Wing Commander (fully reprogrammed as a 32-bit protected mode game that actually runs at a consistent speed) and Ultima VI (with Ultima VII-style keywords and a highly questionable voice track).

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#12

Post by whywhywhywhy » Fri, May 22, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

Really love the industrial design and UI design of this era of Japanese PCs like the Towns and the X68000. Often try to imagine what computing today would be if these had become the dominant platforms.

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#13

Post by Answerawake » Fri, May 22, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

app4soft wrote: post #6

major505 wrote: post #5

Its nice to see the FM Towns getting some love .

Yeah, Soji Yamaka is not only just one of limited number of persons who try keep FM Towns alive, but also is active FM artist on demoscene.[0] [0] http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html

I was lucky enough to meet him at last years Demosplash 2019 Demoscene party that was held at CMU. He is a brilliant and very nice guy. The work that he is doing on FM Towns reminds me of the amazing things hackers accomplished back in the day. Hope to see him again at a future Demosplash.

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#14

Post by lower » Fri, May 22, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

wk_end wrote: post #11

A fun fact about the FM Towns - several American games, originally for DOS, had unique and arguably superior FM Towns ports. Big ones off the top of my head include LOOM (CD music, 256 colours, uncut dialogue), Wing Commander (fully reprogrammed as a 32-bit protected mode game that actually runs at a consistent speed) and Ultima VI (with Ultima VII-style keywords and a highly questionable voice track).

Zak McKracken: The FM Towns version is the only one with 256 colours.

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#15

Post by slater » Fri, May 22, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #12

Really love the industrial design and UI design of this era of Japanese PCs like the Towns and the X68000. Often try to imagine what computing today would be if these had become the dominant platforms.

I remember being in my early teens, ca. 1991, seeing photos of FM Towns and X68000 cases, and those systems' graphics capabilities, and thinking "holy moly THIS is surely gonna be the future!" :D

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#16

Post by JNRowe » Fri, May 22, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

convFixb wrote: post #9

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #3

Out of the loop: what exactly is "FM Towns"?

Kinda-sorta like a mashup of a DOS PC and a Japanese game console of the SNES / Genesis era. It's cute and retro-cool but also very Japanese, and thus almost entirely unknown in the west.

Which instantly reminds me of another weird mash up, the Amstrad Mega PC¹. A literal Japanese game console stuffed in to a DOS PC.

I've never seen one in real life, but I find the idea intriguing. Another chunk of Friday afternoon has gone now ;)

Edit: Add also the Sega TeraDrive² which I hadn't seen before.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC 2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_TeraDrive

Re: “Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project

#17

Post by narrandum » Fri, May 22, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #2

When the FM Towns came out, I always dreamt of having one (not the Marty, but the tower one). Only around 2 years ago I managed to pick one up and it did not disappoint. Very top notch when it came out, but only in the Japan. They had picture in, I think TGM [0] (quick check; seems I have all of these in paper still) we could drool over, but not buy or play with it. [0] https://retrocdn.net/Category:The_Games_Machine…

Whoa, I used to love this magazine when I was a kid. It was just fascinating, full of stuff that seemed so alien that I was never even sure if it was real.

Huge nostalgia trip coming up for me. Thanks for posting this.