Sharp SF1: A Super Famicom TV 

Hello everyone. I'm currently in the middle of producing another long-form documentary. But I didn't want to leave you hanging for too long. So I hope you enjoy this look at the Sharp SF1. See you on the next video!

I bought a SF1 (21 inch) a few years ago, the seller shipped it from Japan with no protection and the TV was in bad shape when it got to me. The casing was badly damaged and controller ports where inside the TV. I was so mad. The seller refunded me and told me to keep the TV. I couldn't trash this rare TV so I found a local video game store as asked if he could repair it. He was afraid to try but he wanted to save it too. So he was able to patch the outer case and put the controller ports back and git it working, but the Tube had color issues. He couldn't repair that. So he found me a TV repair man and I called him, When I told him I wanted to repair a CRT TV tube he acted like I was nuts. But explained it was a Rare Collectors item then he wanted to see it. I bought the TV to him and he saw why I wanted it fixed and helped me. He fixed the color issue and now I have an SF1 in my game room and use it for all my SNES and Super Famicom needs. I love this TV.

This was a very nostalgic product review. I was a small Japanese kid at the time, but a friend of mine had one and I was always envious when I went to his house to play. I think he was the only one in my town who had one. I was always fascinated by the big game stores that had displays in their stores that showed demo videos like the SF1 and the BIG GAME BOY BGB-001. You could think of it as simply being built into the TV, but it still seems like a special product due to the memories.

What an interesting product. To be fair, in 1990, a 21" TV was pretty big.

So, true story. I used to work tech support for Sharp about a decade ago. While in my tenure there, I only ever got one call on the hardware, a collector who found one. We were nominally trained on it and it was cool that someone called in for it. Outside of a collector's novelty, there wasn't really much to it.

That TV looks really cool, although the mono sound is a real bummer. The image quality looks so good I actually thought that was RGB. My mind was also blown by the bike accessory for the SNES, never heard of that. Very interesting video!

Pretty cool - you just don't see this kind of integration of a gaming console and larger display anymore. Would love to play Famicom games on it!

I've been watching this channel for years. I just love it so much. Relaxing, peaceful, enjoyable, and it's very entertaining because of the knowledge we gain. A true gem.

I remember the time when it was a trend to have something like a VHS player built in a TV. How nostalgic 🙂

The Sharp SF1 that you're showing looks like one of those TVs that have a built in VCR or DVD player.

4:32 You can hear the pain and frustration in his breath.

You're RU-vid channel is brilliant man. You clearly have the big passion for gaming like me and follow everything about it. Respect from Edinburgh

It is amazing how Nintendo always tried to make peripherals that get people to exercise. Power pad, exercise bike, balance board, the ring for ring fit.

Out of all the crazy accessories Nintendo released over the years, I had no idea they had released an exercise bike as well! That’s crazy! Love the videos man! Always enjoyable!

I was 7th grade in 1991 in Japan. Some of class mates got this. One day, their dad came home with TV & SuperFamicon. How awesome is that!

I just wanted to say, I've been watching for over 5 years and I've seen all your videos at least once, many of them multiple times, and I'm really glad you're still at it after all this time. You're one of the best out there and the stuff you produce is inspiring. Thanks for everything, and keep it up!

Man, you did it. You really did it. You made me nostalgic. I am pure Gen X, I dont get nostalgic for movies or TV or fashion or music or much else, but the SNES was a great system. Now you got me thinking about it, I need to go find a way I can play super mario world and a link to the past and faceball 2000 and about a hundred others. Damn. I do not have time for all that!

Awesome! A CRT video. Thanks Gaming Historian. I enjoyed this a lot.

Really interesting video! I actually feel like I've seen it before in some pictures like you showed at the end, although I wouldn't remember what they were pictures of. It's a shame they weren't sold in America, and that they were so expensive.

I have an original NES sharp tv in mint condition and it works like new. Bought it off a buddy for 400 bucks who installs tvs for a living. Some old lady paid him to remove it from her house because it was just sitting in her basement for 20 some years. Neither of us had ever heard of or seen one of them before so we had no idea what we stumbled across.

In the early to mid 90s, I remember seeing a refurbished 14-inch Sharp SF1 from a Japanese electronics surplus store and video game rental/arcade shops here in the Philippines. Although the 21-inch model is quite rare, if you ask the shop owner in advance, they may also be able to get it from their Japanese suppliers. Until recently, many stores in the Philippines sold surplus Japanese products; toys in particular are very popular here.

I remember when the history channel used to be formatted like this. I come to RU-vid now for it all.

I’ve been rewatching all of your past videos…thank you so much for all your hard work and for spreading so much knowledge and amazing stories on gaming history…

This is honestly the only channel that i've rung the bell and consistently watch every video the moment i see them, the quality is that good.

Great and original content as always!

I live in Japan and bought a 14 inch SF1 earlier this year. The SF1 controllers are kinda rare and the remote is super hard to come by. I love this TV and use it for all my retro games.

Man this is soooo cool. I just learned about these and went down the rabbit hole to learn that sony made a Playstation 2 and 3 tv as well. My buddy and i used to always talk about how cool it would be if tv manufacturers put a console in their CRT's instead of a vhs or dvd player so i flipped out when i learned about this and had to send a screenshot of it to him haha.

These videos just bring a huge smile to my face... thanks, Gaming Historian

I took a year off of college and worked on Speed Racer for the Lifefitness Exertainment bikes in 94-95 at Radical Entertainment in Vancouver. We only ever tested them out with SNES systems and never Super Famicoms. I believe the Life Fitness module was designed by the late Martin Sykes who also reverse engineered the SNES and built us "home-brew" development systems (instead of us buying them directly from Nintendo) which fit into the cartridge port on the SNES and then connected to the parallel port on a PC. The bikes would plug into the LF module which had some battery backed up memory for you to hold information like cumulative calories that you have burned. Martin also created a small board which simulated pedaling on the bike, but we would often "neglect" to mention this to the play testers when they first joined the team and tell them to get up on the bike.

This reminds me of something I saw in Japan and something I would love to see a video on as I’ve never seen anyone cover it. I was on a plane going from Tokyo to Nagoya and the plane had old-custom famicom controllers built into the back of the seats. I’ve been SO curious as to what the story was behind these things. They were no longer in use, but this was an older plane with a lot of old and unused tech on it.

I was just thinking we were due for a new video. Always a joy to watch!

So now, technically, a standalone tv can run doom.

I'm really curious about the prospect of hooking a Satellaview base up to this. Not only would you need the custom cable for the EXT port, but you'd likely also need additional custom cables to compensate for not being able to use the Satellaview's L-brick adapter for transferring power over from the Super Famicom to the Satellaview base.

great stuff! love Gaming Historian, top notch quality! you always find some obscure things like this or fascinating in-depth videos on the major video games and the companies, always learn something new watching these. Thank you for all your hard work, I cant even begin to fathom the time it takes researching all this!

This was an awesome vid, I knew about the Sharp NES TV but never heard of this one!

The quality of you work has always been high, but it’s undeniable how much its improved. Excited for this new project youve mentioned

Living in Japan atm and thought about buying one of these, but I found that buying a PVM was cheaper lol. Thanks for the upload, love to learn more about this kind of stuff.

"It cost... around $1,000". Or in today's terms, how much it cost to ship the thing from Japan!

In the world of RU-vid, if I were to be totally honest, I don’t think there is a content creator that I get more excited about.

I dreamed of one of these after seeing a grainy picture in C+VG or mean machines.... I've tried to get one since but hard to find one under $1000 and I don't think I've ever seen one with the front plastic door intact or with the remote control. It also seems madness that they connected internally via S-Video and not RGB....

Watching the opening of Super Mario World repeatedly during this video makes me realize how it was a genius way to demonstrate how to play with Yoshi.

Phenomenal presentation as always. Nostalgiagasm!

It was nice to meet you, love the videos!

Nice TV hybrid device. Haven't heard anything of it before. The design of the top-based console deck looks creative and "futuristic" (we loved this word so much back in the 90s). Great piece of video game history. Thanks a lot ☺️

In the 80s and 90s the Japanese were really cutting edge with electronic especially with TVs, VCRs, and laser discs. It's so sad they couldn't be as competitive today with smartphones and computers.

a new episode means it's a happy Friday

I played with this tv when i was i child. Only one computer shop have this for rental. I remember that few kids did play with this tv due to region locked games. But i find it cool back then.

I have a distinct memory of sitting in a doctor's office in maybe 1991 and picking up a US magazine that showed the SF1. I remember being amazed at the colored buttons and really only knew I was looking at a Nintendo thing because of the large bullet bill that initially drew my attention. Since it was the pre-Internet world, for the next 20 years I didn't have validation that my kid brain had seen a real thing and also somehow remembered it. I have no idea what magazine it was - maybe Popular Science or something but I bet someone here knows.

Sony also did this in around 2010 with the 3D PS2/3 Bravia TV. Built in console in HDTVs.

Always a good day when a Gaming Historian video drops :)

I remember seeing this tv at Kmart. I was big into gaming, read all the magazines, etc. and had never heard of it before. I just happened to notice a cartridge slot on it.

No joke, Digital Press in Springfield NJ just had this traded in a few days ago. Kinda wild to see this video come out a few days after seeing their post. XD lol

1000.00 for mono sound would have pissed me off but this is still fascinating

Gaming Historian and (allegedly) a summoning salt video the same week? It's a good week.

Love that Norm not only appreciates video games, but also CRTs!! Great Video!

8:16 - those shots are GORGEOUS. Man I'm jealous of CRTs with magnificent quality like that.

The madlad went and got one. Great stuff Norman!

This is one of those holy grail electronics. Super cool that you did a video on it. Cheers and rock on!

I have seen this before when a Japanese national stayed near our school and played some games after our classes. He even showed us another coloured tv with a built-in VHS player, I can't remember the brand but we watched The Naked Gun trilogy from the said unit.

I didnt know it existed. Thanks Gaming historian for another excelent video. The best retro gaming channel.

Always glad to see ya, good sir. Thank you.

Good to see another doc from ya !

Woo another gaming historian video ☺️ I binge watched a lot yesterday ☺️

It’s a good day when gaming historian uploads

This was super cool. I've always been a big fan of console/tv hybrids.

I haven’t watched you in years and still making amazing content

The best is the composite port. With it, you can play Magadrive on this TV!

Being in the UK/Europe, basically third priority behind Japan and the US, we hardly ever saw any of these products come to our shores, so this is the first time I've seen or heard of a TV with a SNES built in AND the exercise bike peripheral.

I have spent years looking for a 21G. I am so incredibly envious. That is an amazing find.

Honestly I like the idea of video games being built into the tv. Growing up in the 90s I never had one of those, but one thing that I had that I thought was pretty cool at the time was a TV that had a built-in vcr. And I had it to myself in my own bedroom because I mean the main living room would have the big ass TV that would have a VCR plugged into it. But even though VHS yeah it sucks, I have fond memories of that old TV I had because I didn't need to plug anything in to watch a movie. I just had to put the VHS in the VCR. And of course it still had output so I can plug in my Super Nintendo to play anyway. Of course nowadays we have it much easier with streaming sites that actually have not just modern movies but even a lot of movies I grew up with or ones that were from before I was even born

I came so close to buying a broken sf-1 years ago and kicking myself now for not pulling the trigger. This item is so damn cool

What an awesome TV and back then that was a big TV for a kid.

I still have a 27' Floor TV. Haven't turned it on in years, use it as my desk and it proudly displays a Lego Simpsons house and some Transformers stuff.

Glad you’re back 👍

When me and my wife visited Japan we went to an Onsen and there was one of these televisions in the Hotel room. I couldn't believe it.

I'd love to see a full GH video on the Satellaview. When I found out there was a SNES version of Excite Bike with Mario characters I had never played my head a splode.

I've actually seen one of these in the wild. There was a shop in Seoul that had one. It was a pretty cool device.

It’s really cool to see that Japan has created a TV based console system where the cartridge slot is on top of the TV. This is way before the PlayStation TV.

Best retro gaming content creator on YT, hands down. Thanks again!

I can't believe you couldn't get a picture of the remote that came with the TV.

Came from Stuttering Craig! Awesome video!

That was really cool. I'm an owner of the Sharp NES TV, and I wish that one had some of these features.

I like this style of gaming review not bias not too extreme like most on RU-vid. Just plain old information in an entertaining way.

Great episode!! Something I've never had the opportunity to use or even see one . This was very interesting and and great watch

I remember going to funcoland with my dad and getting my SNES and donkey Kong. That was a great day, me and dad stayed up tell like 3am playing donkey Kong country.

This should've definitely been every 90's kid dream Christmas gift

Thank you! Great watch as always.

Wait wasn’t Sharp Corporation the company that created the Sharp X1, Sharp X68000 and Sharp Mz Series Computer that would Rival the Nec Pc-8801, Nec Pc-6001/Pc-6601, Nec Pc-8001, and Fujitsu Micro-7 in the Early 1980s all the way to the Late 1990s because if it is then I like to say they are one of my most favorite companies ever to see

Can't believe that thing still works!

"Almost like a little hat" I died.

Great video as always. Greetings from El Salvador.

Never knew that TV existed! Thanks for sharing.

Another piece of Nintendo history I never knew until now! That's pretty cool.🙂

Great video! I was always impressed with the picture quality on my Samsung GXTV. It was too small though.

I remember seeing a picture of this as a kid. I really wanted one!

I used to think "combo consoles" were the future, like the Panasonic Q and "inflight SNES" back in the old days of air travel

8 hours late, but so ready for some more Gaming Historian content. Excited for this one!

Ugh I would love to see a teardown of this! Excellent video as always

Groovy tunes at the end!

Wow I am so lit and stumbled on this and now my mind blowed. Love the PBS style funding outro.