|
|
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| − | {{Infobox console
| + | ==Duplicate Article== |
| − | |title = FM Towns
| + | This should be merged with [[Mods and Texture Packs]]. --[[User:SonofUgly|SonofUgly]] ([[User talk:SonofUgly|talk]]) 21:02, 6 September 2015 (EDT) |
| − | |logo = FMTOWNS 2F.jpg
| |
| − | |developer = [[Fujitsu]]
| |
| − | |type = [[:Category:Computers|Home computer]]
| |
| − | |release = 1989
| |
| − | |discontinued = 1997
| |
| − | |predecessor = [[Fujitsu FM-7 emulators|FM-7]]
| |
| − | |emulated = {{✓}}
| |
| − | }}
| |
| − | The '''FM Towns''' was a Japanese line of personal computers designed and manufactured by Fujitsu between February 1989 and the summer of 1997. Fujitsu designed it under the codename '''Townes'''<ref group=N>After Charles Townes, the winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics; it was common for Fujitsu to use Nobel Prize winners as product codenames during development.</ref> as their own proprietary variant of [[Intel CPUs|the IBM PC platform]], intended for multimedia applications and video games, but it gradually became interoperable with regular PCs over time. The "FM" part of the name is short for "Fujitsu Micro," which was in line with their earlier products. The e in "Townes" was dropped to help users avoid confusion over a possible mispronunciation of Townes as "tow-nes".
| |
| | | | |
| − | The FM Town's sprite handling was well in excess of even 16-bit consoles of the time, which allowed game developers to port early 90s arcade titles much more accurately to the FM Towns than on other systems. Combined with big box packaging, and the ports were eventually highly sought after by collectors later on. With CD-ROM support from the start, it also had a lot of ports of existing PC games, with differing amounts of content expansions to take advantage of the FM Towns' own hardware. Several American DOS games had unique and arguably superior FM Towns ports, especially a few early 2D point-and-click adventures from LucasArts. Some notable examples include ''<abbr title="Which was given CD music, the ability to use the FM Towns' 256-color mode, and uncut dialogue.">LOOM</abbr>'', ''<abbr title="Which was reprogrammed under 32-bit protected mode and would actually run at a consistent speed.">Wing Commander'', and ''<abbr title="Which had Ultima VII-style keywords and a low-budget English dialogue track that didn't exist in the original release.">Ultima VI</abbr>''. The FM Towns version of LucasArts' ''Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders'' is the only version of the game with 256 colors.<ref name="YC News">{{cite web|url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269460 |title=“Tsugaru” – FM Towns Emulator Project (in.coocan.jp) |publisher=Y Combinator |accessdate=2020-07-04|date=2020 May 23}}</ref>
| + | I'd argue that shitty page needs to be deleted instead (I already incorporated most of its content related to Texture Packs here) and split to two pages. In fact that's what I'm doing right now - this is the first half of this effort. |
| | | | |
| − | In 1993 Fujitsu released the [[wikipedia:FM Towns Marty|FM Towns Marty]], a game console which was compatible with existing FM Towns games.
| + | : Texture Packs don't actually modify the game and just modify how select emulators render it visually. They're useless on most emulators or real hardware. But they don't abide by hardware constraints. |
| | | | |
| − | ==Emulators==
| + | : Mods alter the game files. They're permanently included in the ISO, but they need to abide by hardware constraints (meaning the texture will need to be low res to fit in VRAM, and the NES sprite replacement will only have 3 colors) |
| − | {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|Name
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|Operating System(s)
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|Latest Version
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|Open-Source
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|<abbr title="FM Towns">FMT</abbr>
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|<abbr title="FM Towns Marty">Marty</abbr>
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|Active
| |
| − | ! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |UNZ
| |
| − | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows}}
| |
| − | |[http://townsemu.world.coocan.jp/download.html V0.5 L30]
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |Xe
| |
| − | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}
| |
| − | |[http://web.archive.org/web/20140212232811/http://www.xe-emulator.com/index.php?m=download 2.16.2]
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{~}}
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |[[MAME]]
| |
| − | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD}}
| |
| − | |[http://www.mamedev.org/release.html {{MAMEVer}}]
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{~}}
| |
| − | |{{~}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |Tsugaru
| |
| − | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}}
| |
| − | |[https://github.com/captainys/TOWNSEMU/releases v20201111]
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |FM Towns/Bochs
| |
| − | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}
| |
| − | |[http://web.archive.org/web/20070119144846/http://fmbochs.emuvibes.com/ 1.2.1]
| |
| − | |{{✓}}
| |
| − | |{{~}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |{{✗}}
| |
| − | |-
| |
| − | |}
| |
| | | | |
| − | [[Category:Computers]]
| + | Also, mods could be either hacks (like replacing Mario with a walking dick, balance mods, new weapons..) or fanmade translations. This includes the PC ones in addition to console stuff. |
| − | [[Category:Consoles]]
| |
| − | [[Category:Fourth-generation video game consoles]]
| |
| | | | |
| − | ===Comparisons===
| + | It's misleading and confusing to lump both under one umbrella single "and all of that other garbage" page as they're not even the same thing. The "texture pack" part is more relevant to emulation (we've only saw recent developments to it recently, and it's barely covered anywhere), the "mods" part is distinct and more of its own thing, really (it's as relevant to cartmodding and trainer cheating stuff as it is to emulation). --Jose |
| − | ;UNZ
| + | :Fair enough, didn't know you were going to make them separate articles. --[[User:SonofUgly|SonofUgly]] ([[User talk:SonofUgly|talk]]) 18:59, 7 September 2015 (EDT) |
| − | :The only FM Towns/Marty emulator with very high compatibility, last updated in 2010. Despite the website and documentation being in Japanese, the emulator is available in English. It cannot run ISOs directly: images must be either burnt to a CD and read from the disc or mounted to a virtual drive. Floppy disk images, however, can be loaded directly. The emulator requires a number of ROM files, which can be found [http://emuz0n3.tripod.com/townsbios.zip here]. The only noteworthy thing UNZ isn’t yet capable to run is Windows 95.
| |
| | | | |
| − | ;Xe
| + | == "No More Heroes 2* PS3/360 Button Replacement" should be removed == |
| − | :An old multi-system emulator for Linux (x86 and PowerPC) with decent FM Towns Marty support. Windows port requires [https://sourceforge.net/projects/gladewin32/files/gtk%2B-win32-runtime/ GTK+ Runtime]. It requires a very odd BIOS file to work, obtained by concatenating the two MAME-ready ROMs into a single file named ‘marty.rom’, then placed into a subfolder titled ‘bios’. On Windows, this can be achieved using the command <code>copy /B mrom.m36 + mrom.m37 marty.rom</code>.
| |
| | | | |
| − | ;MAME
| + | I made that texture edit years ago. The download is gone and I don't have the files anymore, and iirc the textures needed to be converted to the newer texture format anyway. With the PC port now available, this mod is now both obsolete and unnecessary. |
| − | :Preliminary driver. It’s not a skeleton anymore, but it’s far from being up to snuff.
| |
| − | | |
| − | ;Tsugaru
| |
| − | :A new FM Towns emulation project, started in January 2020. [http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/towns/Tsugaru/e.html Compatibility] is preliminary, but some games like Afterburner II boot and run. Early release builds started popping up in [https://github.com/captainys/TOWNSEMU/releases late August 2020].
| |
| − | | |
| − | ;FM Towns/Bochs
| |
| − | :A patch of [[Bochs]] that makes it somewhat compatible with FM Towns, deemed to be the first working emulator for the system. Just like regular Bochs, its configuration file needs a lot of tweaking to work (rough documentation [https://illusioncity.net/Towns/bochs%20config.txt here]). It has been long abandoned, compatibility is very spotty and emulation is remarkably slow, so don’t hold your breath.
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==Emulation issues==
| |
| − | A true and proper open-source FM Towns emulator has been severely lacking all the way up to 2020. Though, by late 2010's, a few modern emulators such as MAME and Tsugaru strove toward this goal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Sometimes around May 2018, Jon Campbell, the lead author of [[DOSBox#DOSBox-X|DOSBox-X]] has [https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/729#issuecomment-391049978 stubbed] the emulator such that other aspiring coders can build an FM-Towns core into their own fork. There have been discussions, but so far, nobody has taken up on that offer yet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==Notes==
| |
| − | <references group=N />
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==References==
| |
| − | {{Reflist}}
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==External links==
| |
| − | * [https://illusioncity.net/fujitsu-fm-towns-emulators-lists/ Old emulators + lists guide at illusioncity.net]
| |
Duplicate Article
This should be merged with Mods and Texture Packs. --SonofUgly (talk) 21:02, 6 September 2015 (EDT)
I'd argue that shitty page needs to be deleted instead (I already incorporated most of its content related to Texture Packs here) and split to two pages. In fact that's what I'm doing right now - this is the first half of this effort.
- Texture Packs don't actually modify the game and just modify how select emulators render it visually. They're useless on most emulators or real hardware. But they don't abide by hardware constraints.
- Mods alter the game files. They're permanently included in the ISO, but they need to abide by hardware constraints (meaning the texture will need to be low res to fit in VRAM, and the NES sprite replacement will only have 3 colors)
Also, mods could be either hacks (like replacing Mario with a walking dick, balance mods, new weapons..) or fanmade translations. This includes the PC ones in addition to console stuff.
It's misleading and confusing to lump both under one umbrella single "and all of that other garbage" page as they're not even the same thing. The "texture pack" part is more relevant to emulation (we've only saw recent developments to it recently, and it's barely covered anywhere), the "mods" part is distinct and more of its own thing, really (it's as relevant to cartmodding and trainer cheating stuff as it is to emulation). --Jose
- Fair enough, didn't know you were going to make them separate articles. --SonofUgly (talk) 18:59, 7 September 2015 (EDT)
"No More Heroes 2* PS3/360 Button Replacement" should be removed
I made that texture edit years ago. The download is gone and I don't have the files anymore, and iirc the textures needed to be converted to the newer texture format anyway. With the PC port now available, this mod is now both obsolete and unnecessary.
