FM Towns Marty
Encyclopedia
The FM Towns Marty was a fifth-generation
video game console
released in 1993 by Fujitsu
, exclusively for the Japan
ese market. It was the first 32-bit
home video game system, and came complete with a built in CD-ROM
drive and disk drive
. It was based on the earlier FM Towns
computer system Fujitsu had released in 1989. The Marty was backward-compatible
with older FM Towns games.
In 1994 a new version of the console called the FM Towns Marty 2 was released. It featured a darker gray shell and a new lower price (66,000 yen) but was otherwise identical to the first Marty. It is widely believed that the FM Towns Marty 2 would feature similar improvements to the FM Towns 2, which had a swifter CPU than the first, but this is not the case. It has also been speculated that the Marty 2 featured a 486
CPU, however this was also discovered to be false.
As well as this, there is also the FM Towns Car Marty for installation in automobiles. This came in two versions, the MVP-1 (released in April 1994) and MVP-10 (released in November 1994). The only difference between the MVP-1 and MVP-10 is the drive mechanisms. There has been speculation that the MVP-10 was introduced since the MVP-1 broke easily. An additional accessory that was available to FM Towns Car Marty owners included a GPS, subsequently sold with a video monitor.
(IBM PC
Clones with Japanese DOS
or Microsoft Windows
) systems. NEC
's PC98 series computers were also dominant in Japan when the FM Towns Marty was released, making it difficult to break out before the DOS/V invasion took control of the market. This was despite such revolutionary features as bootable CD-ROMs and a color GUI
OS
on the FM Towns PC, something that predated Microsoft
's Windows 95
b bootable CD by 7 years. Software today is rare and expensive due to the low production runs. Despite backwards compatibility with most older FM Towns PC games, compatibility issues plagued the Marty as newer titles were released with the FM Towns in mind, further limiting its potential as a true "console version" of the Fujitsu FM Towns
PC. The Marty did have its own library of "Marty" specific games, but they were not enough to strengthen its niche position between video game console systems and personal computers.
When Fujitsu lowered the price and released the Marty 2 sales started to increase, but the corporate attitude was that it was a lost cause, and so the system was dropped. This led to the creation of the Japanese "Marty's Law" (マーティーの法則): if you don't keep offering something to sell, you can't increase sales.
CPU Speed: 16 MHz
Graphics
:
The Marty had only composite and S-video output, no other video connectors are possible. As some FM Towns games were VGA-only, the Marty had a 15 kHz down-scan capability for displaying on a household TV screen.
Sprites:
Up to 1024 sprites,16 x 16 sprite size
Sound
:
RAM
:
Data Storage:
Floppy disks must be formatted 1.2M (PC98-style). This can be done from the BIOS GUI. The Marty's disk drive does not support standard 1.44M or 720k FAT formatted 3.5" floppy disks. For a PC to be compatible with FM Towns Marty floppies it must have a disk drive, BIOS and OS that supports "3 Mode". There are also USB floppy drives that support "3 Mode".
Multi-Purpose:
The Marty's IC Card slot is compatible with type 1 PCMCIA cards, including battery-backed SRAM cards (accessible from the BIOS menu) that can be mapped to a drive letter and used as a small drive. Fujitsu also officially released a PCMCIA 2400 bit/s modem (FMM-CM301) for the FM Towns Marty. This modem was bundled with the special TCMarty that also came with a printer port. While it is widely believed that the IC Card slot can be used for RAM expansions, this is not correct.
Controllers:
The controller connector is a DB9, referred to as an "Atari Type" in Japan because it's fundamentally the same connector as an Atari 2600
. The Marty's Run and Select buttons are the equivalent of pressing right and left, or up and down at the same time. A six-button controller from Fujitsu was available for use with Capcom
's Street Fighter II
. Capcom also released an adaptor for their CPS Fighter stick which made the stick compatible with the FM Towns/Marty as well as the Sharp X68000
.
History of video game consoles (fifth generation)
The fifth-generation era refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at stores...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
released in 1993 by Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
, exclusively for the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese market. It was the first 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
home video game system, and came complete with a built in CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
drive and disk drive
Disk storage
Disk storage or disc storage is a general category of storage mechanisms, in which data are digitally recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical methods on a surface layer deposited of one or more planar, round and rotating disks...
. It was based on the earlier FM Towns
FM Towns
The FM Towns system is a Japanese PC variant, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with regular PCs...
computer system Fujitsu had released in 1989. The Marty was backward-compatible
Backward compatibility
In the context of telecommunications and computing, a device or technology is said to be backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older device...
with older FM Towns games.
In 1994 a new version of the console called the FM Towns Marty 2 was released. It featured a darker gray shell and a new lower price (66,000 yen) but was otherwise identical to the first Marty. It is widely believed that the FM Towns Marty 2 would feature similar improvements to the FM Towns 2, which had a swifter CPU than the first, but this is not the case. It has also been speculated that the Marty 2 featured a 486
Intel 80486
The Intel 80486 microprocessor was a higher performance follow up on the Intel 80386. Introduced in 1989, it was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...
CPU, however this was also discovered to be false.
As well as this, there is also the FM Towns Car Marty for installation in automobiles. This came in two versions, the MVP-1 (released in April 1994) and MVP-10 (released in November 1994). The only difference between the MVP-1 and MVP-10 is the drive mechanisms. There has been speculation that the MVP-10 was introduced since the MVP-1 broke easily. An additional accessory that was available to FM Towns Car Marty owners included a GPS, subsequently sold with a video monitor.
Reception
Despite having excellent hardware from a gaming perspective, both the FM Towns and the FM Towns Marty were very poor sellers in Japan. They were expensive and the custom hardware meant expandability wasn't as easy as with DOS/VDOS/V
DOS/V was a Japanese computing initiative starting in 1990 to allow personal computers to handle double-byte Japanese text via software alone. It was developed by IBM for its PS/55 machines . Kanji fonts and other locale information were stored on the hard disk rather than on special chips as in...
(IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
Clones with Japanese DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
or Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
) systems. NEC
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
's PC98 series computers were also dominant in Japan when the FM Towns Marty was released, making it difficult to break out before the DOS/V invasion took control of the market. This was despite such revolutionary features as bootable CD-ROMs and a color GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
OS
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
on the FM Towns PC, something that predated Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
b bootable CD by 7 years. Software today is rare and expensive due to the low production runs. Despite backwards compatibility with most older FM Towns PC games, compatibility issues plagued the Marty as newer titles were released with the FM Towns in mind, further limiting its potential as a true "console version" of the Fujitsu FM Towns
FM Towns
The FM Towns system is a Japanese PC variant, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with regular PCs...
PC. The Marty did have its own library of "Marty" specific games, but they were not enough to strengthen its niche position between video game console systems and personal computers.
When Fujitsu lowered the price and released the Marty 2 sales started to increase, but the corporate attitude was that it was a lost cause, and so the system was dropped. This led to the creation of the Japanese "Marty's Law" (マーティーの法則): if you don't keep offering something to sell, you can't increase sales.
Technical specifications
CPU: 32-bit AMD 386SX processorAm386
The Am386 CPU was a 100%-compatible clone of the Intel 80386 design released by AMD in 1991. It sold millions of units, positioning AMD as a legitimate competitor to Intel, rather than being merely a second source for x86 CPUs ....
CPU Speed: 16 MHz
Graphics
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...
:
- Resolution: 352x232 up to 640x480
- 32768 color palette - 256 onscreen
The Marty had only composite and S-video output, no other video connectors are possible. As some FM Towns games were VGA-only, the Marty had a 15 kHz down-scan capability for displaying on a household TV screen.
Sprites:
Up to 1024 sprites,16 x 16 sprite size
Sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
:
- 6 channel FM
- 8 channel PCM
RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
:
- 2 MB
Data Storage:
- CD-ROMCD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
, Single-speed (1x) - Internal 3.5" HD floppy drive
Floppy disks must be formatted 1.2M (PC98-style). This can be done from the BIOS GUI. The Marty's disk drive does not support standard 1.44M or 720k FAT formatted 3.5" floppy disks. For a PC to be compatible with FM Towns Marty floppies it must have a disk drive, BIOS and OS that supports "3 Mode". There are also USB floppy drives that support "3 Mode".
Multi-Purpose:
- PCMCIA type 1 slot
The Marty's IC Card slot is compatible with type 1 PCMCIA cards, including battery-backed SRAM cards (accessible from the BIOS menu) that can be mapped to a drive letter and used as a small drive. Fujitsu also officially released a PCMCIA 2400 bit/s modem (FMM-CM301) for the FM Towns Marty. This modem was bundled with the special TCMarty that also came with a printer port. While it is widely believed that the IC Card slot can be used for RAM expansions, this is not correct.
Controllers:
- 4-way D-pad, A and B buttons, Select, and Run, as well as an extra button above the two "face" buttons
- 2 standard controller ports
- Keyboard port
The controller connector is a DB9, referred to as an "Atari Type" in Japan because it's fundamentally the same connector as an Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
. The Marty's Run and Select buttons are the equivalent of pressing right and left, or up and down at the same time. A six-button controller from Fujitsu was available for use with Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
's Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II
is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in . It is the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in and was Capcom's fourteenth title that ran on the CP System arcade hardware...
. Capcom also released an adaptor for their CPS Fighter stick which made the stick compatible with the FM Towns/Marty as well as the Sharp X68000
Sharp X68000
The Sharp X68000, often referred to as the X68k, is a home computer released only in Japan by the Sharp Corporation. The first model was released in 1987, with a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM and no hard drive; the last model was released in 1993 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68030...
.