After a tornado damaged the Telegames warehouse in Lancaster, Texas, a lot of their stock ended up in a few shops around Dallas called Electronic Discount Sales. That's how I ended up with a Dina 2-in-1 console. And loads of Atari 2600, 5200, Lynx, Intellivision, and Colecovision games dirt cheap. That was a great time. It's hard to find a working Colecovision nowadays, so even though the visual quality is fairly poor, it's nice having a machine that still adequately runs Coleco games (along with Sega SG-1000 games in the second cart slot).
Wow, that's really cool and really interesting. That tornado damage destroyed all their archives apparently, so all the unreleased Jaguar and Lynx games they had worked on couldn't be recovered, such a shame!
1:34 Did you know that there is an officially released Zemmix Mini console made in the same vein as the NES Classic Edition, Sega Genesis Mini, etc. It was released back in 2019 by a Korean MSX group called Team Neo and it was a miniature version of Daewoo’s Zemmix V console from 1985 (shown at 3:42 and 4:00). The Zemmix Mini was released exclusively at Toys R Us in Lotte Mart South Korea and only 500 units were ever produced. 450 of them were sold at Lotte Mart Toys R Us and the remaining 50 were auctioned at video game conventions in South Korea. Each Zemmix Mini console came with a docking station that allowed you to play original MSX cartridges on the Zemmix Mini. It also has USB keyboard support and USB floppy drive support so you can also play MSX floppy disk games as well. You can even access the Korean MSX2+ Basic screen by inserting a USB keyboard onto one of the Zemmix Mini USB controller ports and pressing the “Z” key while on the Zemmix Mini menu screen. This year in 2022, Team Neo released the Zemmix Super Mini. A miniature version of the Zemmix Super V console from 1990 (shown at 4:07). Team Neo only produced 2,000 of these units and sold them exclusively at Toys R Us Lotte Mart in South Korea. Like most mini consoles, the Zemmix Super Mini was able to receive a GRAC rating of “ALL” (GRAC is South Korea’s video game rating system). Unlike the Zemmix Mini, the Zemmix Super Mini does not include a docking station for MSX cartridges but it does include a micro SD card slot to add your own MSX and MSX2 roms. The Zemmix Mini and Zemmix Super Mini are the closest things we will ever get to an officially released MSX Mini and MSX2 Mini respectively.
I believe that's the Super A-Can on the thumbnail. Love the design of that thing, though from what I do know about, I hear it has a rather small library of games. 2:21 - I cannot recall if I've watched that video or not... that ad you had playing seemed familiar but the name (Zemmix) doesn't. I'm guessing this is going to be a console based off the MSX micro-computers? An 2:44 confirms it! A lot of the console designs seemed decently familiar. Seems they made quite the success out of turning a micro-computer into a console, which is pretty funny given the lack of success a lot of the official micro-computer companies had in trying to do the same. 4:32 - I have certainly never heard of the Olympus Otron so I'll have to agree with you on it being the most obscure. 9:13 - That makes the A-Can's lack of success even sadder. The company tried to do something original with their system and were not rewarded for it in the slightest. Of course, given it's delays and pricing, I can see why it failed. 12:21 - Oh wow; I was not expecting the Chintendo Vii to actually have additional games available via cartridges. It's cheap looking design and bootleg name made it seem like a poorly thrown together plug-and-play system rather than a poorly thrown together console that it is.
You could EASILY make this a niche series with multiple crunches for specific territories and I and literally dozens of others would use them to go to sleep again and again (and watch them separately in a wakeful state, js)! Love this one!
I'm pretty sure the KenSingTon Sport Vii "Chintendo" was dual standard PAL/NTSC for Asia as well, rather than specific US or EU export. China is PAL, Taiwan is NTSC, etc.
They only Bit Corp console that I own is a (boxed) Bit Corp Gamate. It made it out of Asia. If you want one check the serial number. The early version used substandard capacitors and sounds really bad, with the audio being low unless you use the headphone jack. It also sounds better that way. Mine is a late version and has much louder sound from the speakers. The screen is easier to see too. There were about 70 games released for it, most developed by Bit Corp. While all of my games for it are complete I don't have a complete set. I do have two copies of Dino Ball, which is a pinball game. I bought mine from a guy in Australia after reading about the system in an issue of Retro Gamer Magazine. What was the name of the console that can play Colecovision and Sega SG-1000 carts? I already have a Japanese Sega Master System, which also plays games for the SG-1000, but I have no way to play Colecovision games.
The Gamate was released worldwide, in the UK it was branded as the Cheetah Gamate (Cheetah were a well-known joystick manufacturer). You mean Bit Corp Dina 2-in-1, AKA the Telegames Personal Arcade, the one I am talking about in this very video?
@@TheLairdsLair Yes I know about the Gamate's worldwide release. As for the Bit Corp Dina 2-in-1, I know you covered it in the video, but by the end I forgot what it was called. I'll try and hunt one down for my collection. I currently have over 30 consoles. Thanks for the info.
2:39. Sorry but Daewoo hasn't been branded as a car manufacturer in Korea since late 00's or the very early 2010's when GM closed the brand and used their plants to make Chevy's... Maybe a brief Alpheon branded Buick or two. Daewoo's Uzbekistan car division had also been rebranded Chevy when I traveled there in 2012. I think Daewoo had had a major bankruptcy in the 00's and was split up. Daewoo Bus still exists I think. And I own a Daewoo washing machine (Klasse) and refrigerator. It seems they are still in the appliance business.
I didn't know that, but doesn't change the fact they are still best known for making cars here in the UK. They were the first really cheap Asian car brand over here, long before people like Kia and Ssang Yong arrived on the scene.
@@TheLairdsLair yes. I think that is why they are best known outside Korea. If you travel I bet you can spot the Daewoo head ornament on contemporary Charter buses ( I don't know if they sell in left side driving nations... I assume Japan has a lock on right side steering wheel bus imports in the UK, if there are any) The 2009 or 2010 Daewoo's are still on the road here the next model year the models remained the same but just got branded with Chevy logo. I think the last few years of Daewoo all of their models with the exception of one maybe were almost identical to American Chevy's. In the 1990s Daewoo opened a factory in Uzbekistan. They became the only domestically made cars in Uzbekistan. So the Usbek government slapped a massive import tariff(100% or around that) on all import cars. So when I was in Uzbekistan in 2012. You could only see some shiny new Chevy branded cars ( still made in the old Daewoo plant) a ton of Daewoo's and then old Soviet made cars. I think I saw this daewo system in a museum in Seoul. I seem to recall an old Samsung system in the Seoul History museum as well. Perhaps the Samsung one was a fami-clone or a Master sys-clone? ( I am not sure my memory is correct) Samsung made its name blatantly cloning Motorola's etc back in the day. So I wouldn't be surprised if they blatantly ripped off their early game consels ( if they even made any.) The game systems were part of an 80's domestic life display. One little oddity I remember. A cool bar in Itaewon ( sadly in the news this weekend) had a bartop/ sit down Street fighter 2 unit. The game was not a clone. It was definitely the Arcade Capcom game. But the cabinet was odd.... I had never seen that in the US. Perhaps it was an aftermarket re-tread ? The controls were definitely original.
@@TheLairdsLair Ssang Young was ( is) available in the UK? I don't think they ever Made any vehicles that lived up to US highway certifications! I seem to remember Kia Sephias and Hyundai Elantras in the USA first. I think Daewoo entered the US market later.
Most buses here are either British built or European (Volvo and Mercedes usually). Samsung produced fully licensed versions of all the Sega consoles (a lot like Tectoy in Brazil), I showed their Master System (Samsung Gam*Boy) briefly in the video. The Gam*Boy and Super Gam*Boy were also known as the Aladdin Boy and Super Aladdin Boy too, for some strange reason. They didn't bother to rename the Saturn.
Yes, mainly SUVs, I think they make a small super-mini too, but it's the SUVs I always see as they are much cheaper than their rivals. That does surprise me though, as UK certifications are far higher than the U.S., which is why you see so few old cars on the road here. We have Hyundai here too and have done for a long time, but they sell a real mix of different cars, so can't really call them a budget brand as such.
I cannot understand how all these companies probably spent what little revenue the had to live or die on a product they develop using their all to have to show nothing for the incredible time they devoted to being the first in line. You dont see today any company banking on the idea that they can only make 1 good product to hopefully keep them in the industry. Right now some poor kid is working his butt off to get thru school and make video games to probably find he cant get his dream job because some A.I. can outdo them for free. What a world we live in
Was it actually ROM cartridges? Those old pong machines weren't actually microcomputers they were state machines with discrete circuits that created the various game elements and had no program code. The "programmable" units I've seen either would connect the various circuits together in different ways to make different games or they would put different "pong chips" (literally pong circuitry condensed down into an IC, General Instruments and others made a lot of these in the 70's) into cartridges that could be swapped out.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, there were 2 different Otron Pong consoles (discreet logic) followed by a Otron console that used ROM cartridges.
This long publicity for the Vii console is the best proof that the so-called communism in China can be VERY capitalist too! 🤣 Great video, for sure! The MSX standard or Coleco one are, definitely, the ones that were more influential beyond what we've known. But the ones that were developed from scratch such as Super A'Can or Kensington Vii were the most surprising stories.
The dina was pretty available in north America though radio shack, though you had to order it from their in store catalog, in the early 2000's a roommate and I discovered a box of his old cloeco games at his parents house, and I had a coleco as a kid as well so we took our asses to radio shack ordered one of them for like 40 bucks? and a few days later we had it and playing old memories. The biggest problem with the system is that it ran hotter than a toaster, and shortly after the plastic warped it died all together
The Otron was from Olympos, not Olympus. Spelled with an O, not U. Olympos Electronic Co. Ltd, of Seoul. Presumably they done that to differentiate from the Japanese company, Olympus.
Yes. they are hard wired and can be used either attached to the main unit or in your hand, as the pictures show. On a lot of Pong consoles the controls were fixed to the console itself.
Yes, they can either be used attached to the console (many pong consoles of this time had built in controls on the unit itself) or detached and used in your hand. Yes, at the time that was actually a gimmick.
Sorry, but I gotta disagree with you about the ACAN being made from scratch. The game you are showing on it is clearly a Sonic the Hedgehog knockoff! Then you show a Bomberman knockoff.
Yeah I was, I've been on holiday and so essentially had to do 2 week's worth of videos in in one week and then schedule them all. I only got back this evening and didn't notice the mistake until now.
14min 9sec a logo appears that says "TV Let V Go" let g go are blue the V is red. This got me thinking ... Is the company connected to the Let Go portable emulator that was for sale 10+ years ago? I can no longer find pics of the Let Go online but it was a typical portable emulator but could connect to a tv & came with 2 wired controllers.
If the snes was the super a can instead hardwarewise,it would,ve be more powerful in performances,also i do wonder why sega never sewed telegames for bringing their multiplatform system out, in wich only coleco gave aproval for it but not sega,mmm.
After a tornado damaged the Telegames warehouse in Lancaster, Texas, a lot of their stock ended up in a few shops around Dallas called Electronic Discount Sales. That's how I ended up with a Dina 2-in-1 console. And loads of Atari 2600, 5200, Lynx, Intellivision, and Colecovision games dirt cheap. That was a great time. It's hard to find a working Colecovision nowadays, so even though the visual quality is fairly poor, it's nice having a machine that still adequately runs Coleco games (along with Sega SG-1000 games in the second cart slot).
Wow, that's really cool and really interesting. That tornado damage destroyed all their archives apparently, so all the unreleased Jaguar and Lynx games they had worked on couldn't be recovered, such a shame!
Texas really
17:10 "If you don't buy one you will be sad." Ha!!! Someone should have told Marketing they're supposed to imply this and not say it out loud.
1:34 Did you know that there is an officially released Zemmix Mini console made in the same vein as the NES Classic Edition, Sega Genesis Mini, etc. It was released back in 2019 by a Korean MSX group called Team Neo and it was a miniature version of Daewoo’s Zemmix V console from 1985 (shown at 3:42 and 4:00). The Zemmix Mini was released exclusively at Toys R Us in Lotte Mart South Korea and only 500 units were ever produced. 450 of them were sold at Lotte Mart Toys R Us and the remaining 50 were auctioned at video game conventions in South Korea. Each Zemmix Mini console came with a docking station that allowed you to play original MSX cartridges on the Zemmix Mini. It also has USB keyboard support and USB floppy drive support so you can also play MSX floppy disk games as well. You can even access the Korean MSX2+ Basic screen by inserting a USB keyboard onto one of the Zemmix Mini USB controller ports and pressing the “Z” key while on the Zemmix Mini menu screen. This year in 2022, Team Neo released the Zemmix Super Mini. A miniature version of the Zemmix Super V console from 1990 (shown at 4:07). Team Neo only produced 2,000 of these units and sold them exclusively at Toys R Us Lotte Mart in South Korea. Like most mini consoles, the Zemmix Super Mini was able to receive a GRAC rating of “ALL” (GRAC is South Korea’s video game rating system). Unlike the Zemmix Mini, the Zemmix Super Mini does not include a docking station for MSX cartridges but it does include a micro SD card slot to add your own MSX and MSX2 roms. The Zemmix Mini and Zemmix Super Mini are the closest things we will ever get to an officially released MSX Mini and MSX2 Mini respectively.
Yep, I've covered it in my video on the Zemmix a few years back, which is linked in the description.
I believe that's the Super A-Can on the thumbnail. Love the design of that thing, though from what I do know about, I hear it has a rather small library of games.
2:21 - I cannot recall if I've watched that video or not... that ad you had playing seemed familiar but the name (Zemmix) doesn't. I'm guessing this is going to be a console based off the MSX micro-computers? An 2:44 confirms it! A lot of the console designs seemed decently familiar. Seems they made quite the success out of turning a micro-computer into a console, which is pretty funny given the lack of success a lot of the official micro-computer companies had in trying to do the same.
4:32 - I have certainly never heard of the Olympus Otron so I'll have to agree with you on it being the most obscure.
9:13 - That makes the A-Can's lack of success even sadder. The company tried to do something original with their system and were not rewarded for it in the slightest. Of course, given it's delays and pricing, I can see why it failed.
12:21 - Oh wow; I was not expecting the Chintendo Vii to actually have additional games available via cartridges. It's cheap looking design and bootleg name made it seem like a poorly thrown together plug-and-play system rather than a poorly thrown together console that it is.
Now, if only they would make terrible flash game knock offs illegal. There's probably over 100 Mario clones you can play on your phone.
You could EASILY make this a niche series with multiple crunches for specific territories and I and literally dozens of others would use them to go to sleep again and again (and watch them separately in a wakeful state, js)!
Love this one!
Apparently, the Super Acan was supposed to come out 2-4 years earlier, but Funtec had trouble getting chips.
I'm pretty sure the KenSingTon Sport Vii "Chintendo" was dual standard PAL/NTSC for Asia as well, rather than specific US or EU export. China is PAL, Taiwan is NTSC, etc.
I feel so bad for those kids in the zemmix commercial. They must have got picked on so bad
They only Bit Corp console that I own is a (boxed) Bit Corp Gamate. It made it out of Asia. If you want one check the serial number. The early version used substandard capacitors and sounds really bad, with the audio being low unless you use the headphone jack. It also sounds better that way. Mine is a late version and has much louder sound from the speakers. The screen is easier to see too. There were about 70 games released for it, most developed by Bit Corp. While all of my games for it are complete I don't have a complete set. I do have two copies of Dino Ball, which is a pinball game.
I bought mine from a guy in Australia after reading about the system in an issue of Retro Gamer Magazine.
What was the name of the console that can play Colecovision and Sega SG-1000 carts? I already have a Japanese Sega Master System, which also plays games for the SG-1000, but I have no way to play Colecovision games.
The Gamate was released worldwide, in the UK it was branded as the Cheetah Gamate (Cheetah were a well-known joystick manufacturer).
You mean Bit Corp Dina 2-in-1, AKA the Telegames Personal Arcade, the one I am talking about in this very video?
@@TheLairdsLair Yes I know about the Gamate's worldwide release. As for the Bit Corp Dina 2-in-1, I know you covered it in the video, but by the end I forgot what it was called. I'll try and hunt one down for my collection. I currently have over 30 consoles. Thanks for the info.
This channel should have more views.
2:39. Sorry but Daewoo hasn't been branded as a car manufacturer in Korea since late 00's or the very early 2010's when GM closed the brand and used their plants to make Chevy's... Maybe a brief Alpheon branded Buick or two. Daewoo's Uzbekistan car division had also been rebranded Chevy when I traveled there in 2012. I think Daewoo had had a major bankruptcy in the 00's and was split up. Daewoo Bus still exists I think. And I own a Daewoo washing machine (Klasse) and refrigerator. It seems they are still in the appliance business.
I didn't know that, but doesn't change the fact they are still best known for making cars here in the UK. They were the first really cheap Asian car brand over here, long before people like Kia and Ssang Yong arrived on the scene.
@@TheLairdsLair yes. I think that is why they are best known outside Korea. If you travel I bet you can spot the Daewoo head ornament on contemporary Charter buses ( I don't know if they sell in left side driving nations... I assume Japan has a lock on right side steering wheel bus imports in the UK, if there are any)
The 2009 or 2010 Daewoo's are still on the road here the next model year the models remained the same but just got branded with Chevy logo. I think the last few years of Daewoo all of their models with the exception of one maybe were almost identical to American Chevy's. In the 1990s Daewoo opened a factory in Uzbekistan. They became the only domestically made cars in Uzbekistan. So the Usbek government slapped a massive import tariff(100% or around that) on all import cars. So when I was in Uzbekistan in 2012. You could only see some shiny new Chevy branded cars ( still made in the old Daewoo plant) a ton of Daewoo's and then old Soviet made cars.
I think I saw this daewo system in a museum in Seoul.
I seem to recall an old Samsung system in the Seoul History museum as well. Perhaps the Samsung one was a fami-clone or a Master sys-clone? ( I am not sure my memory is correct)
Samsung made its name blatantly cloning Motorola's etc back in the day. So I wouldn't be surprised if they blatantly ripped off their early game consels ( if they even made any.) The game systems were part of an 80's domestic life display.
One little oddity I remember. A cool bar in Itaewon ( sadly in the news this weekend) had a bartop/ sit down Street fighter 2 unit. The game was not a clone. It was definitely the Arcade Capcom game. But the cabinet was odd.... I had never seen that in the US. Perhaps it was an aftermarket re-tread ?
The controls were definitely original.
@@TheLairdsLair Ssang Young was ( is) available in the UK? I don't think they ever Made any vehicles that lived up to US highway certifications!
I seem to remember Kia Sephias and Hyundai Elantras in the USA first. I think Daewoo entered the US market later.
Most buses here are either British built or European (Volvo and Mercedes usually).
Samsung produced fully licensed versions of all the Sega consoles (a lot like Tectoy in Brazil), I showed their Master System (Samsung Gam*Boy) briefly in the video. The Gam*Boy and Super Gam*Boy were also known as the Aladdin Boy and Super Aladdin Boy too, for some strange reason. They didn't bother to rename the Saturn.
Yes, mainly SUVs, I think they make a small super-mini too, but it's the SUVs I always see as they are much cheaper than their rivals. That does surprise me though, as UK certifications are far higher than the U.S., which is why you see so few old cars on the road here.
We have Hyundai here too and have done for a long time, but they sell a real mix of different cars, so can't really call them a budget brand as such.
I cannot understand how all these companies probably spent what little revenue the had to live or die on a product they develop using their all to have to show nothing for the incredible time they devoted to being the first in line. You dont see today any company banking on the idea that they can only make 1 good product to hopefully keep them in the industry. Right now some poor kid is working his butt off to get thru school and make video games to probably find he cant get his dream job because some A.I. can outdo them for free. What a world we live in
Was it actually ROM cartridges? Those old pong machines weren't actually microcomputers they were state machines with discrete circuits that created the various game elements and had no program code. The "programmable" units I've seen either would connect the various circuits together in different ways to make different games or they would put different "pong chips" (literally pong circuitry condensed down into an IC, General Instruments and others made a lot of these in the 70's) into cartridges that could be swapped out.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, there were 2 different Otron Pong consoles (discreet logic) followed by a Otron console that used ROM cartridges.
"Chintendo Vii" sounds like a parody
Can anyone translate the Korean zemmix commercial with them in the silver spaceship. Love to hear the words to this jingle
Chintendo Vii.... no, doesn't sound like another system at all.
Hahaha 😂"Fry Egg, Come On, and Free Craps"
This long publicity for the Vii console is the best proof that the so-called communism in China can be VERY capitalist too! 🤣
Great video, for sure! The MSX standard or Coleco one are, definitely, the ones that were more influential beyond what we've known. But the ones that were developed from scratch such as Super A'Can or Kensington Vii were the most surprising stories.
We owe a great debt to James Big Head.
Only knew one of these really, nice vid!
The dina was pretty available in north America though radio shack, though you had to order it from their in store catalog, in the early 2000's a roommate and I discovered a box of his old cloeco games at his parents house, and I had a coleco as a kid as well so we took our asses to radio shack ordered one of them for like 40 bucks? and a few days later we had it and playing old memories. The biggest problem with the system is that it ran hotter than a toaster, and shortly after the plastic warped it died all together
That was probably the Telegames imported models, as they were only available mail order, as I said in the video.
The Otron was from Olympos, not Olympus. Spelled with an O, not U. Olympos Electronic Co. Ltd, of Seoul. Presumably they done that to differentiate from the Japanese company, Olympus.
It's wrong on Hardcore Gaming 101 and numerous other sites too then, thanks for the correction.
Hahaha 😂 "the whole thing thought up by James big head" 😅
"hard wired detachable controllers?!:?"
Yes. they are hard wired and can be used either attached to the main unit or in your hand, as the pictures show. On a lot of Pong consoles the controls were fixed to the console itself.
The commercials made this entertaining
damn james is like china tony stark
It's all those burned famiclone carts that caused global warming
How about a list of failed consoles that got only released in few regions and never released in other regions?
That's basically what this series is - I did America, Asia, Japan, Europe etc.
5:05 "Hardwired, detachable controllers"?
Yes, they can either be used attached to the console (many pong consoles of this time had built in controls on the unit itself) or detached and used in your hand. Yes, at the time that was actually a gimmick.
Love the content
Sorry, but I gotta disagree with you about the ACAN being made from scratch. The game you are showing on it is clearly a Sonic the Hedgehog knockoff! Then you show a Bomberman knockoff.
The A'Can was, I never said anything about the games!
Can you change to 5 instead of 10? are you rushing bit to upload this?
Yeah I was, I've been on holiday and so essentially had to do 2 week's worth of videos in in one week and then schedule them all. I only got back this evening and didn't notice the mistake until now.
14min 9sec a logo appears that says "TV Let V Go" let g go are blue the V is red. This got me thinking ... Is the company connected to the Let Go portable emulator that was for sale 10+ years ago?
I can no longer find pics of the Let Go online but it was a typical portable emulator but could connect to a tv & came with 2 wired controllers.
Interesting, I've never heard of that before, may require some research.
@@TheLairdsLair I believe I may have older pics of the console on my computer, or one could try internet archives to look for it
😁🤘✌💪😀 It's interesting that one company with their products makes success, and other with similar products no...
4:16 what the hell msx is that
A Zemmix Turbo R console
@@TheLairdsLair looks like a medieval washing machine. I must see more of this atrocity. Thank you for your assistance
If the snes was the super a can instead hardwarewise,it would,ve be more powerful in performances,also i do wonder why sega never sewed telegames for bringing their multiplatform system out, in wich only coleco gave aproval for it but not sega,mmm.
All consoles are fails..
10?