8 bit computer now available for all your homebrewing needs
By Laura June 
posted Mar 30th 2009 2:56PM
posted Mar 30th 2009 2:56PM
The above 8 bit computer -- which is intended as an educational tool in emerging markets, and has been available in China and India for a while now -- is finally for sale here in the good old US of A. This hackable little package boasts a 1Mhz 6502 chip, and comes with a keyboard, mouse, two game controllers, an OS cartridge, RCA cables and nine volt power supply. You'll be jamming to your own, handheld version of "Personal Jesus" in no time at all. These bad boys are available now for the shockingly affordable price of $49.99.
Can I somehow connect 8 of them together and have a 64 bit 8 MHz system? That'd be out of this world.
Yes that's exactly how the system works.
Have a billion doubloons.
Sure... but how about what's really important... does it blend?
I think the NES is 3.98Mhz so you can just get that
THAT IS how systems work?
wait.. so if i wanna go x86-32 to x86-64...
i just take my laptop and my dad's laptop...
and mash them together?
mynk, don't mash. Meld
That IS how they made the Wii.
sells fr less $10 in India.(Rs. 300 = $6)
"a while"? this has been (or should I say "was") around in China since early 90s, and now are probably sold as antiques...
oh well, probably the economy has set US back to "emerging markets"...
looks alright but ...... can it run crys...
ah, nevermind
No.
if you make a homebrew 8 bit crys
then sure, it can run crys
Can't even run a CGA 2D version of it I bet.
you know what? fuck crysis. when 8 bit ruled the world, kids could write their own games. THAT was fun.
Laura June is of teh pwn.
I have one of these from china. Yay for famiclones.
Not as good as the 10 bit unit i got from a chinese market
wtf 10 bit?
i did wonder whether that joke would fall into obscurity...
chinese knock off markets?
binary.
Being a developer, I find this amazing.
Still funner to making a game for the Palm Pre though.
why not make a spelling/grammar program instead?
Oh the irony!
@Oli D, I'm sure someone has already started making a spelling and grammar application.
Cor, technology these days!
Indeed, the correct term is "funnerer". And yes, this thing has all kinds of retro-rad to accompany its educatifizing.
@Loonie
Where have you been? "More funneh" is the accepted primary term in the newest revision.
"why not make a spelling/grammar program instead?"
...
"@Oli D, I'm sure someone has already started making a spelling and grammar application."
LOL... nnnneeeeaawww!
If you're not getting it http://www.metacafe.com/watch/705351/jeff_dunham_w_peanut/
Templarian - nice work on detecting when someone nails you.
so would this be any good for chiptunes then?
118 24/7.
Its directory heaven!
TREX, thank you for the most bizarre product plug in history.
It's a Famiclone internally.
So, anything an NES can run, it can run.
ahahahahahahahahahaha
....$50 ......
Atari 400 look out!
A whole megahertz? I don't know, it seems like too much power for me to handle.
That's what she said.
will it play crysis?
your comment was about 20 minutes late .... this has already been asked and posted .....
I came later to say just that :oP But this is a very common famiclone in Brazil, look for "Dynacon magic computer" in Brazil and you'll find it. There is an even more advanced version, with a small tower cabinet. Go figure.
I heard that John Titor is coming back to 2009 for one of these, because all of the games in the past will be based on it in the future.
50 bucks and you don't even get blast processing.
I remember the 6502......I thought they quit making those once they quit manufacturing the APPLE ][
WOW!!! Call -151
6502 still in use? apparently so: http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
With a minimalist instruction set its possible to implement the 6502 core in a gate array:
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/apple2fpga/
A9 FF 20 ED FD 60 (or, directly 4C instead...)
why couldn't they have used a 6809? from a programmer's point of view the machine code was beautiful, and much richer than a 6502, and so easy to learn!
Alas, the 6809 isn't made anymore. It's a terrible shame; it was the most elegant 8 bit processor around. I loved my SWTPC 6809 box.
Yeah where's smoke Signal Broadcasting when you need them. OS9 Ruled!
Atari 800 lives!
Looks like Engadget [still] has a problem with Depeche Mode... Do you guys REALLY want to upset a good chunk of your readers?
I'm a DM fan and I found that humorous.
I don't like depeche mode much, I prefer deapplepieala mode.
The 6502 is an elegant little processor. And they made more Commodore 64s that Apple IIs.
Can they stick a pico projector in this thing?
Funny, I thought of Manson and Elvis before DM...
I saw these all over the place in Thailand 4 years ago, $10 US (they were PAL, or I would have bought one, hard to say no at that price.)
The one thing I'd like to see added is a USB port with support.
Looks like a great starter set!
A little behind the game:
http://www.xgamestation.com/
"..."
"But it plays NES games!"
"..."
"With an additional adapter... that is."
Yeah.
It does not needs an adaptor, it uses the chinese carts directly. If you want to use american nintendo carts, you use a pinout (60 to 72 pin or inverse, I don't remember) adapter.
In fact, here in Mauritius the whole thing is about US $25... And that was when it launched several years ago.
Also, my guess is that they just cloned [some system]...no ground up code writing here.. so they used a controller(6502) which the whole original code could be ported to without any hassle. The fact that the 6809 had a 'better' instruction set does not matter here..they just needed a compatible platform. 'They' being, of course, the Chinese manufacturers.
Does anyone else think that those controllers would be excellent for Super Street Fighter II HD Remix and SFIV?
Commodore VIC-20, but newer and more RAM! Oh wait, wasn't that the Commodore 64?
I have played on that thing when I was 12 or so
My parents bought it for 500 rupees which is about 15$ CAD.
It ain't no thing man, you can always go out into the field and swing at some grass while making "KYAH!" noises and you will make those rupees back in no time.
Uh... dont they know where the name FamiCom came from?
SOOO BEEN DONE.
Could have at least made me a new Amiga 500.
My friend got one of these when he went to Morocco about 5 or so years ago. They are plain terrible. The keyboard is terrible, completely unusable, with fake windows keys on it and the controllers are pretty disgusting too.
1 MHz 6502, that sounds familiar. Hey, I had one of those 30 years ago - learned to write assembly code on it - I can almost put my finger on it; it was made by some fruit company, CEO was a kind of new age freak. I wonder if they're still in business.
Damn. That was *so* much better than what I was going to post....
WOW!
Brings back the ole TRS-80 memories.. My, first... sigh............ :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer
Lift Up The 8bit-er I'll Make You A Believer
The idea is excellent. But the language to use to program this thing is assembler. There is a N-Basic but it is only for very basic programs.
This would be a killing app. in underdeveloped country if it had big developer community, something that is not going to happen with assambler or nbasic. (different story would be with Python).
BTW, in Argentina I just saw one clone at 80 pesos, that is, u$22.
I had this kind of thing when I was 8 or 9 back in China. (that's like 17 years ago).
It has quite a few fun things, basic programming, the turtle programming thing and bunch of other cool stuff AND you can use it as a game console !
i got a black one of these in india for $12 bucks and the games were $1 and it came with a laser gun.
some games are like 100 in 1 or some are just 1 game/cartridge.
but contra I and II were bundled together.
$50 for the US... ridiculous.
I've got a couple of Famiclones laying around somewhere. Bought them for $10 each or so, along with the controllers, generic 10,000-in-one cart (with 5 or so actual games) and a lightgun. Amusingly enough, it's styled as a first-gen PS2, if somewhat smaller and waaaaaaay lighter.
Anyway, great to see that they're making headway over in the states. I expect a lot of awesome+relatively simply mods to come. I suspect that the reason they're finally arriving in numbers in the US is that certain Famicom patents expired a little while ago, making Famiclones mostly legal. Take that with a grain of salt though, I'm not entierly certain of that factoid.
So this is what happened to all the Commodore VIC-20 and original Nintendo parts. The VIC-20 has the same 1Mhz 6502 CPU and I wonder if that BASIC programming language is the same too LOL. The article also says it plays NES games too but needs adapter? If the NES used 72-pins for the games where did they scrap the 60-pin connector from? Anyway if someone buys this thing you have to open it up and tell us if the chips have Commodore and Nintendo on them.
I've seen those around here, on the street... they cost around 11 to 25 bucks (there was one with a blaster riffle).
$50
It's expensive even if it were 1985.
This thing was popular in china like 10 years ago...., no one use it anymore i guess. maybe good for programming practice.
I've played with this kind of so called "computer learning machine" when I was a child, back in 1980s.
It was quite popular at that time in China.
Didn xpected this freakish thing on ur blog
btw this thing sucks, m frm india no warranty or guarantee wotsoever
maximum running time : 2 months
use n throw in d pond coz whrvr yu wil take this thing 4 repair dey wil say this iz a ver high tech gadget, USA parts wont get repaired here