Dendy Documentry -Dendy Famiclones from a Russian POV - English subbed

[satoshi_matrix]

Sorry if this already been posted, but I didn't see it anywhere and it's totally worth watching. Think you already know about the Dendy Famiclones? I did, and this documentary taught me a lot more. Watch as a Russian classic gamer recalls memories of SECAM induced woes, Famiclone design flaws, and much more in this whirlwind documentary of one of the biggest names in Famiclones.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQr3tnjHlg

[133MHz]

This documentary is teh awesome. Informative, fun and engaging all the way through.
It's great to see how things were back then from a Russian gamer's perspective, and with English subtitles. What more could I ask for?

Some random thoughts & rants which came to me after watching the video:

• At 19:29 into the video they used a picture from my blog! This very one in fact, taken about two years ago at my old house.

• I've also played video games in black & white for a good part of my life... because my personal TV set was a B&W hand-me-down from my parents. Back then the idea of having my own color television set as a kid was preposterous, I didn't get one until 2000 (and that was a hand-me-down too). Fortunately I was allowed to hook up my video games to my parents' TV set when they were not using it so I could play in color.
  Same deal with my friends, the ones with gaming consoles usually had a small B&W set for their personal use and could occasionally get some play time on the family TV.

• The guy mentions that when his parents got a brand spanking new Japanese TV set they wouldn't allow him to hook up his Dendy to it because it'd wear out the CRT in no time and how as a kid he couldn't argue but now he thinks it's a load of crap. Thing is, in my years of repairing/restoring CRT TV sets I've noticed that computer graphics seem to put more strain on the CRT and deflection circuits than regular television material, especially 8 bit era consoles with their bright colors, sudden dark/light transitions, sharp geometry and not-quite-standard video waveforms. An aging set might show visible distress with NES-like graphics that regular TV wouldn't bring up, at least not as pronounced. Also I've read somewhere that worn out PC monitors tend to exhibit deeper, imbalanced cathode wear than TV tubes due to the nature of the displayed graphics, not to mention burn-in from static images which is rare in color tubes but it can happen.
  It's not something I'd worry about since any TV set that's remotely decent shouldn't have any problems with computer games (in fact VCRs are much worse in the deflection straining department), but I think there is a grain of truth in that statement. Once again I was lucky that my parents didn't think this way.

• So Dendy consoles are PAL and so they didn't play nice with old SECAM TVs, but I remember reading about a SECAM Famiclone with a special 44 or 48 pin PPU instead of the usual 40 pin that supposedly would output SECAM color. Has it ever been spotted in Russia? The Chinese blog where I found it seems to be down.

[(^_^)]

Thank you for this.

[Benc]

Truly an entertaining and informative video. I like the AVGN impressions/references he made 

[satoshi_matrix]

I love the mid-90s Russian reaction to the GameBoy - Who would buy this overpriced piece of shit that needs four batteries and doesn't even have games build in? We'll stick with our Brick Game Tetris knock offs, thank you very much.

This is why since Tetris, must-have videogames never come out of Russia

[Parodius Duh]

uhhhhh...wheres the subtitles?

[Benc]

uhhhhh...wheres the subtitles?

You need to turn the captions on first.

[Oreanor]

• So Dendy consoles are PAL and so they didn't play nice with old SECAM TVs, but I remember reading about a SECAM Famiclone with a special 44 or 48 pin PPU instead of the usual 40 pin that supposedly would output SECAM color. Has it ever been spotted in Russia? The Chinese blog where I found it seems to be down.

One of the first models of Dendy Classic was SECAM. But it hadn't wide spread

[Cheetahmen]

I'm guessing whoever produced the Dendy Famiclones probably thought that Russia used a PAL signal for its TVs. Either that or they couldn't be bothered to change it to SECAM.

[satoshi_matrix]

Likely the latter. The Russian man shows many examples of the pirates just not caring in the least, such as the player 2 controller for his dendy clone missing Start/Select AND the mic, but on closer inspection of the controller pcb, it actually has the contact points for Start/Select, they just didn't bother to drill holes and add in the rubber buttons.

Famiclones are a nice distraction, but man he really drives home the reality of how much if would suck if you ONLY had Famiclones and pirated games. talk about quality not guaranteed lol.

[jpx72]

I hope nobody would be against me posting relevant nesdev link here:
http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=8169

[Strider_Hiryu]

At 19:29 into the video they used a picture from my blog! This very one in fact, taken about two years ago at my old house.

If you search "famiclone" on Google images, some of the pictures come from your blog  (on the first page!)