DF Direct Retro! Nintendo's Famicom Disk System - 'Mass Storage' Gaming in 1986? 

The FDS copy protection is pretty interesting. First, you have that engraved logo that a matching plastic key in the drive fits into. The idea there is that it prevents ordinary Mitsumi Quick Disks from being inserted. Only Nintendo official cards. And since the logo is legally protected, third parties could not create their own disks because they would have to use the Nintendo name to match the key. However, clever clones used variations that were physically compatible but different enough not to infringe. Like "NINTFNDO", or in some cases, just a big empty rectangle. Although, the protection could be defeated trivially by the end user -- the key in the drive is actually a separate piece of plastic that comes right out! Then, Nintendo had to deal with the fact that saving meant write capability, and if you could write to the disk, you could potentially copy them. Early versions did not prevent this, but later ones did - by limiting the amount of time the write head could be engaged. Disks are read and written linearly, like a tape. The motor turns a spiral cog that pulls the head toward the center of the disk as it turns. When the head reaches the end of travel, it returns back to the outside of the disk, ready for the next request. There is no file system, but the data can be broken into records separated by a suitable gap. To read any record, you start the disk and wait for it to stream all the prior records until the one you want comes up. You can also start writing to replace records - like save games. Since the positioning of the head is so sloppy, it would be difficult to preserve data after a newly written record - you wouldn't know if you had written over the preamble of the next, or still had residual data from the one you were replacing. So, typically, saves would be at the end of the disk. Then you just mark it as the last record, and any residual data after that is ignored. The point is, the amount of data you would be writing is fairly small - so the drive can assume if you're writing more than a few tens of KB, you're up to some shenanigans. Later drives will kill the write enable signal to thwart whole-disk copies. But, it can be fairly easily modded on most revisions to disconnect the write-kill, and then you can go back to writing your "home brew" disks again. :-) Since copies were so easy to make, and the physical protection was a joke, pirates were rampant. This, combined with the falling cost of mask ROM meant that the planned US / EU release was abandoned before it saw the light of day, and many FDS exclusive titles ended up being re-released on carts even in Japan. Hence the unused expansion port on the NES - although I suspect the FDS was only one such potential accessory. What else would there be? Who knows. It was pretty standard practice to just throw some address and data lines on there, along with input lines for as-yet unimagined controllers, and just see what manufacturers came up with. In the case of the NES - not much.

That Asterix tshirt is badass

I love this show. Even this "75%" take is so in-depth, well worded, and everyone working on these videos seems so well informed/educated on these subjects.

Let us know which other topics you'd like to see in the DF Retro Direct format! This won't replace regular DFR episodes, of course, but it's a fun way to talk about other things that may not have been covered otherwise! If you want more obscure things covered, this is probably a good way to do it!

Y’all should do a video on the N64 disk system

Next to the Satellaview, this is my favorite piece of Nintendo tech I never had as a kid. I have a feeling the kid version of me would have lost his mind if the FDS had come stateside.

It's weird that in my dream this morning my old PS3 had a floppy disk drive above the blu-ray drive then I come to youtube & see this lol

You don’t need to apologize for the informal nature - you guys still put together an informative, entertaining piece of retro love. If this is your lower quality stuff, you guys are doing amazing!

Videos of this format are absolutely welcomed. Your channel produces such fantastic content. Thank you for sharing such cool info on the FDS. The Twin looks really awesome. I wouldn't mind picking one up eventually. Haha

You do a great job with your music comparisons. The graphics are thoughtful.

I learned so much about how games work and the history of consoles and their technology from this channel. Keep it up guys❤️ all the love from Iraq.

I love these vids. Keep them coming!

Great episode guys, I loved it. I've recently been wanting to know more about the Famicom and it's disk system so this has really scratched that itch

One of the neat features of the Everdrive N8 flash cart is that it will also emulate the disk system. Kinda neat to play these games on an American NES although it will be lacking the extra sound channels.

Thanks for the video. Enjoyed it quite much. And I think this format is perfect for curious things like the FDS. In dem Sinn: Gute Arbeit und so. 👍

ANother great video! This is something I've always wanted to know more about since seeing it as a kid, but I never had the cash to spare to get into collecting. Thanks, guys!

I really enjoy these types of topics. Thanks for sharing your knowledge guys.

Love the format - keep em coming!

Awesome vid. The FDS game that interests me the most is "The Mysterious Murasame Castle". It looks like a great fast-paced, furious action romp.

Those extra sound channels are awesome. I definitely need to get myself set up with one of those FDS Sticks.

The video i didnt know i was waiting for... when i found out about the fds i became so interested in it. Ive looked up videos of the games and differences. What a cool piece of gaming history and tech!

Vs. Excitebike absolutely destroys the original cart version. 1. Background music 2, 2 Player mode 3, Can actually save your custom tracks.

Gentleman on your right is your friend. John on left is the gentleman's friend. Together, we all benefit. TLDR: Continue this format. Bounce insight, intelligence and respect off each other. You both make it work, we are lucky to enjoy. Thank you. 1337

cool! i want more sega saturn df retro love!

Awesome video, awesome system. Dream duo: the Famicom-red Analogue Nt + FDS.

13:04 Haha! John stops Audi from pocketing the disk

My favorite combo now is the AVS + Nintendo Disk System RAM cart + FDS Stick. Plays like the real thing, but with much faster loading and no disk errors to deal with.

John seems even more chill than usual here. Looking forward to the full fat look at that 3DO POS "Way of the Warrior."

These are great, keep them coming.

The FDS A of Link theme song may be more full bodied, but for me, the NES A of Link intro is so special. They did so much with what they had. So much emotion even!

Great video chaps!

Great idea! Nice format

This was great! Cool Easter egg-type info for Nintendo fans.

Wait did I click on Digital Foundry or GamingHistorian? XD Awesome video, I love this stuff

Ah, the Excite-series...I’d love it if DF Retro would cover Excitetruck some day, as imho it’s one of the greatest arcade racers ever and a technical marvel on the Wii with a rock-solid 60 fps, great drawing distances, a tremendous sense of speed and probably the best motion controlled game of that era. I’ve S-ranked the shit out of it back in the day and me and a mate still play it regularly. You hear me, John and Rich? Give it a go some day😊

I'm not sure if this was covered already in DF Retro but I'd love to see a segment on the old Amiga series of computers. I owned a A500 back in the early 90s and that was THE gaming machine to have long before PC gaming was the juggernaut it is today. Also, the Amiga series also had great sound hardware and graphics applications. A lot of game developers swore by EA's DeluxePaint back in the day as one of the best tools to create sprite based work. I owned that too and used it for years. Also used it to work on a Doom styled game for the Amiga during my college years that unfortunately never saw the light of day. We can't talk about Retro gaming in the 80's and 90's without talking about the Amiga. Get this, they're still available to purchase today. Not the Motorola 68000 series powered machines of the past but updated versions using a variety of architectures.

Love these retro eps,more please

For more technical details and lot's of samples, give a listen to the Retro Game Audio podcast on Soundcloud. They did a lot of episodes on different Sound Hardware, Companies and Composers.

Nice job dude!

John, have you had any trouble getting audio to work correctly with the FDS passed through the NT Mini? I have the ramp adapter plugged in with an FDS stick, and the FDS audio seems incredibly faint.

The expansion port on the NES has all the same pins/signals as the cart slot. So its essentially a 2nd cart slot just with a different connector.

I'm down for any and all DF Retro content.

Awesome episode.

More Retro in any form is always good! More Audi too.

How many TV shows on amazon have released weekly? curious. Thanks.

Love retro vids !

The FDS core on MiSTer is amazing. No loading and auto disk switching.

I'm a man of simple tastes. I see John Linneman I instantly give a thumbs up.

Didn't know about that FDS Stick. I have a Twin Famicom. Is it compatible with the FDS Stick?

Gradius Gaiden music makes everything cheerful.

My favorite diskette drive for a Nintendo console was the Super Wild Card DX. :) I bought it in 1993 and it's still working great.

23:13 I see Square's idol game which saw a collaboration between Final Fantasy and Metroid game designers. That's worth a like on it's own. Good video too, but that was a surprise to see, I know about it from researching Uematsu's early video game music. Edit So you went on to cover it immediately after! I should have waited.

Hold hold hold up.....where's thevDF Retro logo!? I was waiting for that and for the sound effect.

This was a really informative video. When talking about the FDS, people usually omits the extra audio hardware so that info was new for me. I can understand the low viewer count though, the FDS is oddly specific and obscure, so very few people may have found it interesting, please don't use it to gauge interest on the format! It would be like if Konami used a Castlevania Legends re-release to gauge if there's still interest in the Castlevania series.

Damn! My favorite computer music composer's music on a platform I didn't know?!? Paint me surprised! I know what I will be checking out! 😉 Hubbard on Nes! Thanks for this info!

I find surreal to listen to the main theme of Monty on the Run with the FDS soundchip.

The FDS metroid theme brings a tear to my eye and i'm not even sure why.

i imported one of these last year and i love it! the disk-flipping and loading times might be a little tedious, but it's my preferred way to play the original Zelda and Metroid. mine came with a little manga about how to use the disk-rewriting kiosks.

16:48 apparently the "RAM" cart also included a controller that is able to write into VRAM in real time, or so I've gathered. It's either that or that cart also served as a VRAM expansion, and it could be rewritten without bothering the main system?

Just an idea but do you think you could do a DF Retro on Mega Drive/Genesis games that mimicked in SNES hardware features like scaling and rotation? It's amazing what some programmers made that Motorola 68000 do. I'd love to know how!

I had that baby game when i was young, it came in a cartrige that looked like you could split it. it was dubbed as baby mario

I did like this episode with the retro Nintendo Famicom Disk System.

I can't wait to get one of these. It has a lot of cool games on it and it's just cool as hell.

What kind of tv is that in the background?

I want to know why that opened Game Boy case on the shelf is open and which game is in it.

I always desuscribe from DF before watching a DF Retro video, so I can like and suscribe at the end.

This was great!

The music from the Castlevania save load screen was later remixed and used for the same screen in Harmony of Dissonance on GBA.

Nintendo Famicom Disk System, huh? It is an interesting add-on combination with the Famicom Consoles. I am familiar with the extra Sound Channel it has compared to the Standard Famicom Consoles, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic! I also have a thing for Dirty Pair. ☺

Love DF Retro !

25:00 That rabbit hole goes a bit deeper than a TV program block (hard to explain, theme park but not quite). Look up コミュニケーションカーニバル 夢工場'87. RU-vid channel 'Gaijillionaire' went into detail on this in the video 'The Story Of Yume Kojo'.

I am impressed. John actually managed to fix this? I’ve heard about the problem is the rubber belt part that often is the culprit for hardware failure. Interesting to say the least. Nintendo should really port over exclusive games from this to the Switch.

This thing was *way* ahead of its time.

I thought Doki Doki Panic was created for a TV station by Nintendo for some upcoming festival involving masks in Japan. And it was created to correspond with it as a celebration of it.

I always pic famicom disk versions, special features some interesting in this disks, music, or the save feature always makes me pic this version over the others...

I loved how they basically had a rental service you took your disks to.

Yea my uncle had one, didn't realize It was that special at the time especially since he had the other less legit "game doctors" as well, which were of course superior, they loaded the entire game into memory.

Whats the background song at 2:50 ?

Imagine if Nintendo had put the FDS sound chip in the NES. Similarly SEGA did it when it launched the Mark III again in Japan under the name of Master System, They added the FM Sound chip

I remember reading somewhere that Bokutte Upa was planned for the US under the title of Babyland, but Nintendo rejected the game. I wonder if the cartridge port of the game was repurposed from that canceled localization, much like the Famicom cartridge versions of Dracula and Moero TwinBee.

Who is behind the music choices on your videos? Gradius Gaiden in the background had me reeling back.

You guys have an early disk system model, it doesn't have the warning text above the light that most of them have!

I find this early copy-protection fascinating. This and the Gameboy were basically like: "Yeah, you can't put the Nintendo logo on there, because of copyright, but it won't boot without it!"

I watched spawnwave do a video on this console the other day but he just took it apart and although I enjoyed the video I didn’t find it that interesting overall because I really wanted to see the system working or have it explained a bit more about what it was and what it did etc. Then you guys come along like less than a week later with this video. Please tell me it’s not a coincidence lol.

Loved Mario Paint, had it as a kid

If the disk drive fails or gets a error message it's because you've crushed or trapped the orange wire at some point check the video at 9.15

Weird question, does anyone know if the two big headed Charlie Brown looking guys that appear around 11:36 into the video have names? The ones by the sentient Disk Writer.

Came for the FDS, stayed for the Gradius Gaiden music.

Thanks for the video..... What's this? Doom 1-3 landed on Nintendo Switch? I think you know what to do.

digging the asterix t-shirt

25:11 - Did I mishear or did you call Shigeru Miyamoto "Shiggy"? lol

check out the fancy new title bumper! cool ass shit

Something quite curious i noticed this video that there's no information whatsoever on the internet is about those cartridges on the disk writer. They look like yellow NES cartridges, but absolutely nothing is said about what's in em or even a picture of one of those pulled out of the disk writer.

I absolutely love my twin sharp famicom. Really wish the nes would have only been the disk system. Probably my favorite nintendo system.

Nice tuning on dat audi.

Castlevania 3 had awesome music on the FDS!

0:03 Kickass 8-bit rendition from Area 88 (Stage 2)

When you put this video in perspective, it seems only natural and somewhat surprising that Labo is the only weird peripherals for the Switch. I only hope that the quirkiness of Nintendo lives on through the 2nd generation of management and isn't solely driven on greed. (i'm lookin at you "Creators Program")

From which game is the music that starts around 21:40?

By the time the NES was released, they could put mapper chips on the roms, which allowed them to make larger games which meant deluxe games like Metroid and Zelda could be brought to the US... On the other hand manufacturing cartridges was way more expensive compared to just copying to magnetic media so on the FDS risks of having an unsellable inventory of lousy games were way lower ... it’s kinda like digital only indie games of today- sell a thousand, sell a million, it‘s all the same. The PC-88 and Apple II an even lower barrier to entry outside of the expensive hardware. Aaaah! I wish I lived in bubble era japan!