At the Kaiten Sushi Restaurant with a Turbo Twin Famicom

I found a cheap Turbo Twin Famicom at Omocha Souko today. As luck would have it the only reason I was at Omocha Souko today was that my wife and I were going to a local sushi place for dinner but arrived too early so we needed to kill a few minutes. The restaurant is right up the block from Omocha Souko so I suggested we spend a couple minutes browsing there.

Of course, when I found the Twin Fami they had just put out I had to have it, so we ended up lugging it to dinner with us.
And I just decided to take a few photos of it there because....hey, its not every day that you have a Twin Famicom at a sushi restaurant so why not make the best of a good opportunity?

It is a pretty cool restaurant. You order stuff from these video screens at the table and your food comes on these bullet trains right to you:
You aren`t actually allowed to take pictures in the place so I had to take these somewhat surreptitiously. Unfortunately that meant I couldn`t get many interesting angles or anything. I did make sure to get a shot with some sushi (actually beef) on the Twin Famicom though:
You don`t see that every day now do you?
Related Posts:
- I Nearly Died Getting a Red Twin Famicom Today
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Exorcising my Twin Famicom Demons

I Nearly Died Getting a Red Twin Famicom Today.

Today I finally broke down and bought a complete, working Twin Famicom. I was at Omocha Souko and they had one for 8,000 yen (about 100$). That is a lot of money considering I bought my three other Twin Famicoms for between 100 and 300 yen apiece there. But they didn't come with the all-important power cable, so I've had them just collecting dust, not even sure if they work, for quite some time now. This one came with the cable. Get!

Anyway, I actually almost died on the way home with my purchase. It was raining heavily today and as I rode my bike down a hill I went over a metal grating that, it turns out, becomes extremely slippery when wet. I was going quite fast, probably 30-35 kmph, when suddenly my bike just completely fell down right underneath me. This sent me flying across the pavement at an alarming rate, screaming "Oooooooohhhhh shitttttttttttt" as I did so. I came within a couple of feet of getting run over by a passing car, but luckily we avoided each other (or more accurately they avoided me, I had no control over my body's motion at that point).

My knees and the palms of my hands were a ghastly site and my pants now had a couple of new holes in them, but nothing was broken (except my bike), so I was pretty relieved.

After confirming that I was in one piece I then remembered: My Twin Famicom!! Shit!

By an incredible stroke of luck, I had put it into my backpack, which was on my back during the accident. 9 times out of 10 I would have put it into my bicycle's basket. If I had done so, it would have gone flying and been smashed for sure. A two litre bottle of water I had in there came skidding to a halt a good thirty metres up the road.

Anyway, to take this post back to the subject of my Twin Famicom, the long and the short of it is that after arriving at home (after a quick stop at the drug store for some bandages and disinfectant) I took it out of my backpack. Nothing obviously wrong with it. It is the red one. I agree with Bryan that this is the best version of the Twin Famicom. A thing of absolute beauty:
As a way of building up the suspense, I tested the Famicom cartridge part first. I stuck a copy of Bomberman in there and it worked the first time. That was a good sign. But the real test was going to be that Disk Drive.

I've accumulated quite the collection of Disks from junk bins here and there. I dumped them out on the floor next to it:
And one by one started testing them. The first time, things looked promising. I have two broken FDSs and I know what ones with a broken drive belt sound like. "GRRRRRRRR" is what the sound like. A very annoying sound. This one, thankfully, did not make that sound. It made a lot of different sounds, which indicated to me that it knew what it was doing and would make my game work momentarily.

Only it didn't. Each time I tried, I just kept getting an Error 27 message. Crap. Again and again I tried, but nothing.

Until.....
Moero Twin Bee. I put that disk in there and steadied myself for the disappointment of seeing another error message. Only it didn't. For the first time in my entire life I laid eyes on the sight of a Famicom Disk System displaying something other than an error message: the actual game itself appeared on the screen:
Fuck Yeah!!!

Sorry about that profanity, but fuck yeah. That was sweet. I could actually play an FDS game! My Twin Famicom works!! Yes!

The bad part is that it seems my entire collection of Famicom Disk System Disks except for Moero Twin Bee do not work:
So much for my plans to spend the rest of the day playing Super Mario Bros. 2.

The other bad news is that, with the arrival of my first Twin Famicom AC adapter, I could finally test my other 3 Twin Famicoms.

All three of them load Famicom carts just fine. And the disk drives on all three are completely broken. Error messages and that "GRRRRRRR" sound galore.

Mega Bargain of the Day: Exorcising my Twin Famicom Demons

Yesterday when I was at Omocha Souko buying my 300 yen square button Famicom (see previous post), I noticed they had something else in the junk section. Here it is:
Kind of hard to see in this photo. All these black bins are loaded with retro game console stuff - controllers, wires and consoles. On the far left, middle shelf, you can sort of see a Black Twin Famicom sitting there. For 300 yen.

I already have two Twin Famicoms so I didn't buy it. But this one was different from the ones I have. Its the "turbo" twin Famicom, in black and green.

I had to fight hard to resist the urge to buy it. 300 yen is an insanely cheap price for a Twin Famicom (well, I paid only 100 yen for my other Twin Famicoms but that is not normal at all). The fact that it was big and I don't have an AC adapter for it (or my other Twins) was, however, enough reason for me to resist the temptation. Insanely good deal though it was.

And so I left the store and lived happily ever after. The end.

No, wait. That isn't what happened at all. All I could do was think about that 300 yen Twin Famicom sitting there on that shelf. All night.

So today I had some errands to run this morning which took me into the neighborhood of Omocha Souko. I dropped by to see if the Twin Famicom was still there. It was, sitting on top of a cutely-named Famiclone (the "Fami-Comfort"):
I spent about 20 minutes pacing the aisles. Debating whether or not I should get it.

An angel Sean was perched on one of my shoulders. He said "Don't buy it, Sean. You don't need more of this junk clogging up your already over-burdened shelves. And you don't even have an AC adapter for it."

On the other shoulder sat devil Sean. He told me: "Go on. You know you want it. Its the last Twin Famicom you need, you'll have the whole set. Shelf space be damned. You'll get an AC adapter for it eventually, then you'll be able to use it."

Believe it or not, angel Sean won out in the end. I left the store without purchasing it.

Then I went to do my errands, the last of which was stopping off at my local fruit and vegetable stand. It was as I was paying for my purchase that devil Sean discovered some really good ammunition.

"Look at that. 348 yen for a little bag of oranges. You mean to tell me you are throwing away 348 yen on a light snack but you won't pay less than that for the most awesome Famicom console out there? Are you nuts?"

I looked over to angel Sean, but he had no response to that. He just kind of silently shrugged and gave me that "Ah, what the hell, go for it" look.

So I hopped back on my bike, strode back into Omocha Souko, went right up their cool escalators:
Grabbed the Twin Famicom and bought it.

Here she is, my newest Famicom addition (haven't had a chance to clean her up yet):
That makes three Twin Famicoms that I have. I am probably the only person in the world to have successfully collected three different versions of the Twin Famicom without being able to play games on any of them:
The new one is a bit different from the other two. Like they just say "Famicom" on the top and have this kind of cool curved bit:
The new on though says "twin Famicom" and it has all straight lines:
The controllers are different too. The new one has a turbo switch that the other two don't:
Anyway, if any of you have a Sharp Twin Famicom AC adapter, let me know!! Seriously!!

Related Posts:
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Kousenjuu Electro Safari
- Mega Bargain of the Day: 3 Consoles and a Game for 10 Bucks
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Another Square Button Famicom
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Famicom Basic, Family Trainer and Climber Stick

Famicom Console Wars

Pictured above are the five distinctly different types of Family Computer console that I own. From left we have:

AV Famicom
Square Button Famicom with Famicom Disk System
Regular Round Button Famicom
Red Twin Famicom
Black Twin Famicom

There are a lot of other variants that I don't have and probably don't know about but anyway, these are the five that have fallen into my hands over the years.

I'm a little torn about which one I like the best. The one I use the most is the AV Famicom:
My preference for it is purely functional though. It gives a clearer picture and is easier to hook up than the old RF switch-dependent Famicom, so I use it more.

I like the look of the old Famicoms much better than the AV Famicom though:
The AV Famicom is much sleeker than the old red and white, but I don't view that as a positive thing. Aesthetically the two versions are worlds apart. The AV Famicom, in terms of its design, shares much more in common with the XBox 360 than it does with the original Famicom, even though they are the exact same console on the inside.
The Twin Famicoms for their part are very much the dark horse candidates of my Famicom consoles. I've been so frustrated by the fact that I still can't play them (lacking the necessary AC cables). Chronologically their release falls in between the original Famicom and the AV Famicom, though the overall "feel" of their design makes me categorize them with the old school Famicom rather than the AV one. They look nothing like the old school Famicom, but they share with it a certain "clunky and colorful" appearance that I find very endearing. Give me clumsy over sleek any day - at least so long as it doesn't affect the console's performance.

I feel that if I ever get them working they'll probably be the ones I'll rely on and like the most....but I'll never know for sure until I get a bloody AC adapter for them. Oh, and then I may find I'm in need of a new belt for their disk systems, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

One curious thing that really separates the Twin Famicoms from the others, as Bryan at the Gay Gamer noted recently when he got his, is their size. They are basically only slightly smaller than a regular Famicom and an FDS put side by side:
Obviously that is because inside they are a regular Famicom and FDS put side by side. Still though, I kind of wonder why they chose to orient them like that instead of stacking them, like you do with a regular Famicom/FDS combo:
It would dramatically reduce their profile and save a lot of shelf space - which readers of this blog will know is one of my over-arching concerns in life. I'm sure they had some valid technical or cost related reasons for doing it the way they did, but still. Would have been kind of nice.

My Twin Twin Famicoms

Its been about 2 months since the last time I posted anything here, my time just gets eaten up in the summer and I've neglected my Famicom collection. Until today that is.

There is nothing like finding a bargain to make one want to publish on a blog and I got a great one today. I went into one of my regular retro game shops this afternoon (Omocha Souko, which sells tons of non game stuff too but I just go because they sometimes sell Famicom stuff really cheap). A couple of weeks ago they set up a new "Junk" corner where they dump game hardware they get in but can't be bothered to test or anything and I wanted to see if they had put anything new out there. Mostly its just old Famiclones or incomplete consoles (ie without the controllers or cables) that nobody wants (like the PS1 which nobody bothers with if they have a PS2). Every once in a while though they might throw something in there which is actually worth buying.

Today was such a day as they had just put out these two babies:
Yup. Not one, but two Twin Famicoms! Oh I forgot to mention the best part: everything they dump in this junk pile costs just 100 yen (about 1$ US). So for the price of a bottle of soda I was able to score two Twin Famicoms - one in each color!

Now you might ask why I bought both of them - why not leave one for somebody else to pick up? I mean, its kind of impolite to horde this stuff.

I was thinking about doing that - only buying one of them - but I had a bit of a dilemma. The consoles they put in the junk pile are not tested and you cannot return them - you basically are taking a chance when you buy them that they won't work. And I know the Disk Systems are notoriously prone to breaking down. So what to do? I basically decided to get both of them as a form of insurance - even if one of them didn't work the other might. And even if they both didn't work I could possibly cobble together a working one by cannibalizing parts from both. And for the ridiculously low price I could afford to go for it.

So, apologies to the anonymous person who would have gladly plunked down 100 yen for a Twin Famicom but arrived at Omocha Souko after I did: you'll never know the bargain you missed out on.
Anyway, on arriving home I naturally wanted to test them but ran into two problems. One is the simple fact that I don't own a single FDS game, so I could only test the cartridge part of each.

Second and more importantly though is the fact that neither one of them came with a power cable. The red one did come with an AV cable, but the black one was console and controllers only.

I didn't think this would be a problem because pretty much every early Nintendo console used the same power cable. My Famicom (both the regular and AV) and Super Famicom all use the same power and AV cables, I just switch them over when I want to use one. So I assumed the Twin Famicom would be the same.

It isn't. I tried, but the Twin Famicom uses a different kind of power cable that isn't compatible with the regular Famicom one. Crap. So now I have to go out and try to track down a Twin Famicom power cable, which I suspect is going to be a challenge. Nonetheless, I'm glad I got them!