Neo_Kobe_Fujitsu_FM_Towns_2016-02-25 software softwarecapsules <div>=== Overview ===<br /></div><div>The Fujitsu FM Towns was a series of personal computers, most notable for its inclusion of a CD-ROM drive as a standard component across all models. The FM Towns was aggressively marketed as a high-end but easy-to-use "hyper media PC" for general users.</div><div><br /></div><div>The FM Towns was cleverly designed: a minimal DOS and CD-ROM drivers were baked into a ROM chip and set as a hidden C:\ partition. This allowed the computer to "boot" CD-ROMs directly, like a video game console. Fujitsu also developed TownsOS, a graphical, mouse-driven shell similar to early Windows.</div><div><br /></div><div>The FM Towns was a powerful gaming machine, originally featuring an Intel 386 processor, with color-rich graphics, digitized PCM sound, and hardware-based sprite support that was sorely lacking in the 8-bit Japanese computers. When combined with the guaranteed CD-ROM drive, the FM Towns provided a powerful and versatile game platform. On the other hand, the FM Towns was also victim to the "multimedia" fad of the early 1990s, and a lot of fluff software and edutainment titles were also released.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because of its high price point, and Fujitsu's ongoing failure to claim much business PC market share against rival NEC, the FM Towns remained a niche machine throughout its lifetime. Later models gradually transformed into ordinary IBM PC-compatible computers with a partially-emulated "Towns mode", and the last model to support the Towns platform was released in the summer of 1997.</div><div><br /></div><div>=== FM Towns Marty ===</div><div>The FM Towns Marty was Fujitsu's attempt to convert the FM Towns computer platform into a video game console in 1993. The result was the worst of both worlds: too limited and underpowered as a computer, and too overpriced as a console.</div><div><br /></div><div>Compatibility was a problem, usually because of the Marty's limited and non-upgradeable RAM.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Marty was a complete diaster for Fujitsu. The Marty failed to reach even 5% of expected sales, and despite a lower-priced relaunch as the Marty Model 2, was quickly forgotten in the wake of the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later, Fujitsu tried to recoup its losses and use the Marty design to break into the car navigation system market, leading to the GPS-equipped Car Marty. So if you want to watch your kids play games on a 5-inch TV in your car while you drive, that's... nice?</div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, Fujitsu sold about 10 FM Towns computers for every Marty sold (despite the computer being much more expensive). Furthermore, there were never any Marty exclusives, only Marty-compatible releases of existing FM Towns games.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Marty has gained a kind of cult status among retro videogame collectors, but talking about "Marty games" is as silly as talking about "TurboExpress games".</div><div><br /></div><div>=== Running software ===</div><div>Most software comes on CD. Simply insert and power on.</div><div><br /></div><div>To save the game, a floppy disk is typically used. Most games will write to any formatted disk, so you can reuse the same floppy for multiple games. (You can use the [OS] MS-DOS formatted blank disk included in this set.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Other games have a special user disk formatting procedure, and some games come packaged with a required system disk or boot disk.</div><div><br /></div><div>A small number of games need to be installed or launched from the Towns System Software (TownsOS). You can use one of the included [OS] Towns System Software v2.1 L51 hard disk images in this case.</div><div><br /></div><div>TownsOS is pretty intuitive. The default view only shows preregistered icons, but you can switch to a files view by clicking the upper-left screen corner in TownsOS v1.1, or from the drop-down menu at the upper-right window corner in TownsOS v2.1.</div><div><br /></div><div>[cmos.dat]</div><div>The FM Towns stores boot order information in battery-backed memory (aka CMOS memory). This information is needed to mount hard drive images, and is imaged as a cmos.dat file. To mount a hard drive image in an emulator, copy the included cmos.dat to the emulator directory, boot up, and then reset while holding down "H" and "0" (zero) simultaneously.</div><div><br /></div><div>=== Input ===</div><div>In the standard setup, a gamepad is plugged into port 1, and a mouse into port 2. If the controls don't work, try switching the ports or disabling the gamepad and/or mouse.</div> jpn Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3 Japanese computers FM Towns 2016-02-26 23:17:20 inbox11001001@gmail.com 2016-02-26 23:17:20 [curator]validator@archive.org[/curator][date]20160226232321[/date][comment]checked for malware[/comment] ia906100_35