Hori game repeater

[punkpolitical]

Hori game repeater. Anyone know anything about this thing?
is it rare? how much is it worth? couldn't find out anything about it on the net.

[133MHz]

The Hori Game Repater is the 1980s equivalent of a macro recorder. It allows you to record your gameplay as discrete button presses (think piano rolls) and to play it back at a later time. It should playback with perfect accuracy if the game doesn't have any elements of randomness or luck added to it, otherwise the results may not be consistent across repeated playbacks.

It also allows for saving and loading of its internal memory to audio cassette tape, much like the Family BASIC Keyboard does.
It requires the use of a DB-15 expansion controller in order to record your gameplay, since the Game Repeater piggybacks from the Famicom's EXT port.

[MS-DOS4]

Wouldn't it still work though random events though? If the button presses are truly timed exactly by the machine, the pseudo random number generator should display the same result every time. (unless it uses the 2nd controller microphone)

[133MHz]

No, the only connection between the Famicom and the Game Repeater is the EXT controller input. The Famicom only sees game controller activity. Subsequent playbacks would yield different gameplay if random events are used in the game, leading to desync issues in severe cases. The only sync between both devices AFAIK is by daisy chaining the Famicom's AC adapter through the Game Repeater, that way it can power on your Famicom in sync with the start of the recording.

EDIT: Your statement made me a bit curious so I started to look up information and it seems that randomness in most Famicom games is actually related to the timing of the button presses, so you might be onto something.

[punkpolitical]

THANK YOU guys for the info! i was offered one CIB and had no clue what it was.
i just started getting into famicom.

[Trenton_net]

It's pretty useless in my humble option. Because almost all games introduce an element of randomness to them (Ie. any game with basic AI). In fact, I can't think of any game of the top of my head that would work well with this.

[nintendodork]

Go to lukemorse1's channel on Youtube. He made a video of it in action.

[cubelmariomadness]

It's pretty useless in my humble option. Because almost all games introduce an element of randomness to them (Ie. any game with basic AI). In fact, I can't think of any game of the top of my head that would work well with this.

Super Mario Bros. It doesn't have any "Randomness". Just enemies and such which all don't do anything different the next time you play. There's loads others.

[nintendodork]

Yeah they do.  The enemies do slightly vary depending on how many enemies you did or didn't kill.  Take SMB2j for instance where sometimes if there's too many enemies on the screen, the bridge you need to advance further in a certain castle won't appear, and you'll have to kill yourself and start over.

[UglyJoe]

That's not randomness, though.  That's a reaction to user actions.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

That sucks, it loses the data after unplugging the unit.

[MWK]

HGR is a wonderful device - all I can say is this :

>> http://www.forum.emunes.pl/index.php?topic=2927.0

[NintendoKing]

I have wanted one of these for quite some time, they totally rock.

[satoshi_matrix]

This to me is one cool "proof of concept" things that doesn't serve much practical use, pretty much like every other Famicom accessory from the Powerglove to the modem to the karaoke mic.