This video is wonderful!!!! For years, hardcore gamers in the English speaking world have had only a little bit of info on this console. Even with emulation through MAME though, we could only ever hope to have half the story without a Taiwanese perspective. Things like the references to politicians and celebrities would be totally lost on us and pieces of info like how Super Chinese Professional Baseball League captures a snapshot of the league's feel at the time just aren't things we could pick up on. Lacking the perspective on gaming in Taiwan in general we also wouldn't be able to draw comparisons with other games of the era. What you've done here is invaluable. Also, I can confirm that Sango Fighter had quite a bit of notoriety in the US. It wasn't as big as Street Fighter II but since it was one of the only fighting games for DOS and it had a shareware version, pretty much everyone into PC gaming at the time had played it in some form.
Your videos are outstanding, and thank you so much for posting this in English! You're absolutely correct regarding the responsibility of our generation to preserve the history of this medium, especially from the nascent period of the 80s and 90s where hardware and software designers were learning their craft at a time when the internet wasn't there to act as a near-permanent record. I'm so glad you had a personal interest in documenting a Taiwanese-made console, as I'd likely never have come across the A'can if not for your work. Please keep it up!
Finally, another English video from Low Score Boy, awesome! I never heard of this console before, but now I know pretty much everything there is to know.
As someone who honestly knew very little about the A'can, this was fascinating to watch. It seems like was a lot of history behind the console and its titles that I probably wouldn't have been able to find out without an understanding of of Taiwanese language and culture. Thanks for the English translation!
I have an A'can unit here at my home in the Philippines. My uncle bought it ages ago but doesn't recall doing so. One controller has the Select and Start buttons broken, but I also have the AC adaptor but no RCA and RF cables. I don't have any games coming with it. Thanks for sharing!
what an awesome video. thanks Low Score Boy. We don't really get a lot of stuff from Taiwan/UMC in English language. Fascinating stuff, and it's just really too bad that more people aren't watching this video. cheers!
Thanks for this video in english, I've read about A'Can but never got the chance to see the games in action. Thanks again for sharing this, greetings from Brazil
Wow! That was some interesting video to watch... and it's really great to see some niche video game console I couldn't hear about earlier! Cheers from Poland :)
Thank you so much for translating this into English. There's basically no English information on this system or really any of Taiwan's gaming history and it's fascinating to hear more than a fairly dismissive "a lot of piracy happened". Fantastic video.
What an amazing video. You’re bringing this info to a whole new audience, I’m from the uk and while I knew this system existed my knowledge was limited. Thank you.
This was fantastic! Extremely well edited, researched, and everything else. This was one of the greatest videogame documentaries I've seen. It's too bad that A'Can, in the end, A'Couldn't...
I had no idea. What a great production you made. Also thanks to those who lend their systems. I was hoping for at least one decent game to start searching for this system. Luckily there was no game that interested me.
Excellent video! I remember seeing this console online years ago and I always found it curious. With the hardware it's a shame that there might not be much development information out there to make homebrew for it.
thank you so much for this video! im in the UK and have been a video game collector for many years, i thought i knew all the 16bit systems until i came acrossed this very intresting video
The improvement in your English ability from the Saturn videos to this one is really incredible; I'm a native speaker, and didn't need subtitles at all for this video! Looking forward to any English videos you do in future. 😊
4:27 I've noticed the hole in the PCB for the games before, some cartridges have a corresponding hole in the back of the plastic casing that lines up with it. Why is this?
Another note about Speedy Dragon, the sound that plays near 15:42 is pretty much a muffled version of the Boss Damage sound from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, if you have keen ears like me.
Thanks for doing this in English too, that was actually a fascinating story to learn about. Maybe I'll take a trip to Taiwan sometime and try to search for an A'can and some games, at least the Son Goku platformer looks decent.
Interesting console, and it's hella cool to see it from the perspective of a Taiwanese gamer. Seems to be a system and games made with heart, but without the needed skills. I can't help but respect that.
There’s something warm and nostalgic about somewhat amateurish retro games. Though most games with this kind of charm can be found on DOS (such as Legend of the Seven Paladins), it feels like this console was made for me. It’s just so nice looking back at an era mainly remembered for games made by bigger companies and looking at smaller games. It’s just such a refreshing break.
Thanks for this! This is a really neat looking machine, it's a shame there's so little software for it. Has anyone taken an interest in homebrew development for the console?
Coming back to this video after learning Sango Fighter got an updated rerelease in Ikemen for free, mixing the DOS and A'can versions together. Anyone interested in it should check it out!
does this console's game cartidges uses the same PCB for every game, or some of them have different chips? since i knew about the existence of this console i've becoming more obsessed with it, hoping to get one in the future, specially with the 2 games i'm more interested: Sango Fighter and Formosa Duel. Thanks for sharing this information!
Ah yes, Dinosaur Wars. It was very reminiscent of Quest Corporation's Ogre Battle. I remember back in the day when ASSEMblergames user Bramsworth found some easter eggs inside the game Son of Evil including a picture of Dinosaur Wars which together with the magazine pictures ad up to five unrelated scenes and a music track. So there has to be a demo of some sort, I wish it could be found.
Yes, I paused the video to comment and then I kept watching and realized my mistake. Did you find any news about a posibile a D-War demo? There's so many scenes to be just in a pre-alpha state.
I heard many unsold units were recalled and parted out to recycle chips and components. What I would like to know is how many units were sold, and how many were parted out or destroyed? Also, does anyone have an idea of how many exists today? Even a ballpark estimate would be helpful.
Man, I would have loved to see the Graphic Accelerator or CD drive released, that would have been really cool to see. Also, Sango Fighter was on more than just PC? Hell yeah, that's awesome!
UMC also produced chips used for the clone consoles you mentioned. Nintendo later took offence and sued them for copyright infringement. Besides that, they also made clones of Intel processors, but that never made much traction in the States due to patent issues. Also, the Dina 2-in-1 is actually a clone of both the Sega SG-1000 and Colecovision (both consoles shared much of the same internals hence why the Dina was able to run titles from both systems, but Colecovision compatibility is spotty at best) consoles. As far as the A'Can is concerned, it was pretty much dead on arrival, even if they did release the 32X-esque addon. Sega, Nintendo and Sony's influence in the games industry was enough to displace smaller competitors off the market with their mindshare.
Such a pity the Taiwanese developers couldn't deliver a decent title for the system back in the day. Funtech should've collaborated with established developers such as IGS, Soft-World and Softstar to develop for the system. Even just three proper games from each one of those developers would make a wonderful collectors item of the console.
This would've been a nice piece of technology had it been picked up better. honestly I think if more taiwanese or chinese (I know there's a difference) companies had made their own consoles outright instead of stealing hardware I think more people would respect them in the industry. I mean look at this one, it even claimed to have US and Japanese developers on board.
It seems it could have been an interesting console had it came out earlier and had a bigger and better library, and there had been more C&E software (and even stuff from gamtec and PC companies like Softstar). Son of Evil seems to have some genuinely interesting concepts and really could have been good had it been in development for longer.
Hello, I wrote a huge chronicle on Super A'Can on a blog that was called Paku Paku Story, and after many research, I can assure you that THERE'S NO secondary 6502 processor.
I think the composer for the songs in Son of Evil actually moved onto Engine Technology possibly with other Funtech employees to make games using a reverse engineered Hexen engine with Build engine elements too. Why do I know this? well, one of the songs in Engine Technology's game Mars 3D is directly from Son of Evil seemingly being the original MIDI track composed for the game and I would not be surprised if other Son of Evil tracks or unreleased Funtech game tracks got later reused in Mars 3D or other Engine Technology games.
I think its his voice but in faster speed. He must be recorded his voice over very carefully not to mispronounce each of the word. As the same non-native english speaker, I knew how its feels T_T,bro...
This video is wonderful!!!! For years, hardcore gamers in the English speaking world have had only a little bit of info on this console. Even with emulation through MAME though, we could only ever hope to have half the story without a Taiwanese perspective. Things like the references to politicians and celebrities would be totally lost on us and pieces of info like how Super Chinese Professional Baseball League captures a snapshot of the league's feel at the time just aren't things we could pick up on. Lacking the perspective on gaming in Taiwan in general we also wouldn't be able to draw comparisons with other games of the era. What you've done here is invaluable.
Also, I can confirm that Sango Fighter had quite a bit of notoriety in the US. It wasn't as big as Street Fighter II but since it was one of the only fighting games for DOS and it had a shareware version, pretty much everyone into PC gaming at the time had played it in some form.
Shareware game? Definitely like the original DOOM.
Thanks so much for the English track @Low Score Boy ! Your content is great and you got at least one fan from Trinidad!
Thank you!
I just realized something.
You posted this video on the A’Can’s anniversary!
Oh wow! It's also.. my anniversary!
Your videos are outstanding, and thank you so much for posting this in English! You're absolutely correct regarding the responsibility of our generation to preserve the history of this medium, especially from the nascent period of the 80s and 90s where hardware and software designers were learning their craft at a time when the internet wasn't there to act as a near-permanent record. I'm so glad you had a personal interest in documenting a Taiwanese-made console, as I'd likely never have come across the A'can if not for your work. Please keep it up!
Finally, another English video from Low Score Boy, awesome!
I never heard of this console before, but now I know pretty much everything there is to know.
One of the best videos on RUclips
This is a wonderful documentary, and I enjoyed every second of it. Thank you.
Great video. I moved to Taiwan from USA nearly 2 years ago, and I'm very interested in Taiwan's video game history. Thanks!
As someone who honestly knew very little about the A'can, this was fascinating to watch. It seems like was a lot of history behind the console and its titles that I probably wouldn't have been able to find out without an understanding of of Taiwanese language and culture. Thanks for the English translation!
Thanks for sharing this incredibly interesting piece of gaming history!
I have an A'can unit here at my home in the Philippines. My uncle bought it ages ago but doesn't recall doing so. One controller has the Select and Start buttons broken, but I also have the AC adaptor but no RCA and RF cables. I don't have any games coming with it. Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic video dude
I wasn't aware how deep the history went with this console
and I learned a bit about Taiwan
Thanks :)
what an awesome video. thanks Low Score Boy. We don't really get a lot of stuff from Taiwan/UMC in English language. Fascinating stuff, and it's just really too bad that more people aren't watching this video. cheers!
thank you , i have only read about the a'can on forums, awesome commentary i love the design of the a'can
Amazing, love when you put up the English , such a well made documentary.
Still watching in 2021
Thanks for this video in english, I've read about A'Can but never got the chance to see the games in action. Thanks again for sharing this, greetings from Brazil
Wow! That was some interesting video to watch... and it's really great to see some niche video game console I couldn't hear about earlier! Cheers from Poland :)
Thank you so much for translating this into English. There's basically no English information on this system or really any of Taiwan's gaming history and it's fascinating to hear more than a fairly dismissive "a lot of piracy happened". Fantastic video.
What an amazing video. You’re bringing this info to a whole new audience, I’m from the uk and while I knew this system existed my knowledge was limited. Thank you.
Fascinating stuff! Thanks for putting this together and sharing it with us.
This was fantastic! Extremely well edited, researched, and everything else. This was one of the greatest videogame documentaries I've seen. It's too bad that A'Can, in the end, A'Couldn't...
I had no idea. What a great production you made. Also thanks to those who lend their systems. I was hoping for at least one decent game to start searching for this system. Luckily there was no game that interested me.
Dbn Poldermans You can actually get half of these on MS-DOS (DOSBox) anyways so no loss on the A'Can honestly
Very interesting video! Thank you for making this!
Excellent video! I remember seeing this console online years ago and I always found it curious. With the hardware it's a shame that there might not be much development information out there to make homebrew for it.
Great video! Finally I can understand something. Great english, very good pronunciation!
FINALLY!! Been looking forward to this video for a long time! Thank you so much for translating this! :D
Incredibly good video about a console people just don’t talk about in English. Excellent!
I wish there was an A’Can emulator.
This is such a great video, Keep up the good work!
Awesome video thank you for your time and effort.
thank you so much for this video! im in the UK and have been a video game collector for many years, i thought i knew all the 16bit systems until i came acrossed this very intresting video
The improvement in your English ability from the Saturn videos to this one is really incredible; I'm a native speaker, and didn't need subtitles at all for this video! Looking forward to any English videos you do in future. 😊
4:27 I've noticed the hole in the PCB for the games before, some cartridges have a corresponding hole in the back of the plastic casing that lines up with it. Why is this?
Another note about Speedy Dragon, the sound that plays near 15:42 is pretty much a muffled version of the Boss Damage sound from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, if you have keen ears like me.
Thanks for doing this in English too, that was actually a fascinating story to learn about. Maybe I'll take a trip to Taiwan sometime and try to search for an A'can and some games, at least the Son Goku platformer looks decent.
This is great stuff. Great work on this, very comprehensive.
WOw, even if I understand Chinese and Taiwanese, I love the explanation in English. Well done! ^_^
Interesting console, and it's hella cool to see it from the perspective of a Taiwanese gamer.
Seems to be a system and games made with heart, but without the needed skills. I can't help but respect that.
Always enjoy your videos, thank you!
Thank you so much for this video. I would never have know about this intriguing console.
Excelente video! Tirou todas As minhas duvidas! Parabéns!
Thank you for the translation
this console just acan't.
great works ,thanks !
Thanks for the english content
There’s something warm and nostalgic about somewhat amateurish retro games. Though most games with this kind of charm can be found on DOS (such as Legend of the Seven Paladins), it feels like this console was made for me. It’s just so nice looking back at an era mainly remembered for games made by bigger companies and looking at smaller games. It’s just such a refreshing break.
Thanks for this! This is a really neat looking machine, it's a shame there's so little software for it. Has anyone taken an interest in homebrew development for the console?
Not yet at least.
This is very interesting, thank you
I want to see a port of the RPG on SNES and translated in English
very great review.. a lot of info
Coming back to this video after learning Sango Fighter got an updated rerelease in Ikemen for free, mixing the DOS and A'can versions together. Anyone interested in it should check it out!
More english content or subtitle please, your works are excellent...
This is great! I want to make my videos more like this!
does this console's game cartidges uses the same PCB for every game, or some of them have different chips?
since i knew about the existence of this console i've becoming more obsessed with it, hoping to get one in the future, specially with the 2 games i'm more interested: Sango Fighter and Formosa Duel.
Thanks for sharing this information!
This was so, so, so interesting! I wish you could do an episode on what Chinese classic games are out there! It seems that many were made for PC?
Jay Boerner A WHOLE bunch actually
brilliant.
I like the part where you added the falcon plane when you mention the consoles codename
I really appreciate the English.
I just recently found out about this console from Giant Bomb. I never even knew it existed until a few hours ago, no joke.
Ah yes, Dinosaur Wars. It was very reminiscent of Quest Corporation's Ogre Battle. I remember back in the day when ASSEMblergames user Bramsworth found some easter eggs inside the game Son of Evil including a picture of Dinosaur Wars which together with the magazine pictures ad up to five unrelated scenes and a music track. So there has to be a demo of some sort, I wish it could be found.
Yeah, I mentioned these easter eggs from 31:31 of this video.
Yes, I paused the video to comment and then I kept watching and realized my mistake. Did you find any news about a posibile a D-War demo? There's so many scenes to be just in a pre-alpha state.
I heard many unsold units were recalled and parted out to recycle chips and components. What I would like to know is how many units were sold, and how many were parted out or destroyed? Also, does anyone have an idea of how many exists today? Even a ballpark estimate would be helpful.
@@rogue1348 I own 2 units (not selling) and I never found out the numbers.
I would love the music of Son of Evil, as well as a way to make music using the UMC UM-6618 Sound Chip.
If only someone were to upload them(unless if they give people copyright strikes for that).
wow! so good!
Man, I would have loved to see the Graphic Accelerator or CD drive released, that would have been really cool to see. Also, Sango Fighter was on more than just PC? Hell yeah, that's awesome!
UMC also produced chips used for the clone consoles you mentioned. Nintendo later took offence and sued them for copyright infringement. Besides that, they also made clones of Intel processors, but that never made much traction in the States due to patent issues. Also, the Dina 2-in-1 is actually a clone of both the Sega SG-1000 and Colecovision (both consoles shared much of the same internals hence why the Dina was able to run titles from both systems, but Colecovision compatibility is spotty at best) consoles.
As far as the A'Can is concerned, it was pretty much dead on arrival, even if they did release the 32X-esque addon. Sega, Nintendo and Sony's influence in the games industry was enough to displace smaller competitors off the market with their mindshare.
Such a pity the Taiwanese developers couldn't deliver a decent title for the system back in the day. Funtech should've collaborated with established developers such as IGS, Soft-World and Softstar to develop for the system. Even just three proper games from each one of those developers would make a wonderful collectors item of the console.
This would've been a nice piece of technology had it been picked up better. honestly I think if more taiwanese or chinese (I know there's a difference) companies had made their own consoles outright instead of stealing hardware I think more people would respect them in the industry. I mean look at this one, it even claimed to have US and Japanese developers on board.
It seems it could have been an interesting console had it came out earlier and had a bigger and better library, and there had been more C&E software (and even stuff from gamtec and PC companies like Softstar). Son of Evil seems to have some genuinely interesting concepts and really could have been good had it been in development for longer.
The only edge this had on the SNES, all the face buttons are concave and not just the X and Y buttons.
Gotta give them credit for trying!
A'Can play games, but A'Can't beat Sony and Nintendo.
失蹤人口回歸啦啊啊啊
Hello, I wrote a huge chronicle on Super A'Can on a blog that was called Paku Paku Story, and after many research, I can assure you that THERE'S NO secondary 6502 processor.
I think the composer for the songs in Son of Evil actually moved onto Engine Technology possibly with other Funtech employees to make games using a reverse engineered Hexen engine with Build engine elements too. Why do I know this? well, one of the songs in Engine Technology's game Mars 3D is directly from Son of Evil seemingly being the original MIDI track composed for the game and I would not be surprised if other Son of Evil tracks or unreleased Funtech game tracks got later reused in Mars 3D or other Engine Technology games.
fantastic video and the UMC is cool manufacturer make every IC from the 80s and early 90s
Looks like these console and its games are really rare and expensive,its so weird
It would have been great in 1991 or 92, with a few goodbgames to show off its capabilities...
低分少年是不是「舊遊戲時代」雜誌第二期的特約作者
是的，第一期與第二期都有我的文章刊出。
Cool.
🇹🇼 number one.
4 years late... 500 games short.
Amazing. This is definitely not Low Score Boy himself speaking...XD
I think its his voice but in faster speed. He must be recorded his voice over very carefully not to mispronounce each of the word. As the same non-native english speaker, I knew how its feels T_T,bro...
If you guys really read the damn credit screen @ 37:58, it clearly shows English translation and narrated by other guy, not Low Score Boy himself.
Excellent work there... Your English has greatly improved since the Sega Saturn video you did a while back too. 😀
Not narrated by myself though. lol
Lady Decade brought me here
what to say, there was an attempt.
And it was not that bad attempt.
C.U.G is the og black myth wukong
Cool
I just have one question: is the system PAL or NTSC?
NTSC
Nex ntsc is for us and asia
Thanks for the info!
With the hardware being so similar to the Super Famicom, I wonder if it's possible to run the games on a SNES flash cart in some way or another?
How did you find those consoles and games???
I borrowed from a friend.
@@lowscoreboy Are they cheap in Taiwan?
No, since they are rare.
Taiwan number one
Habrá un día que china compita con Sony y Microsoft, Nintendo en el mercado de las videoconsolas.
Narrator速度可以慢一點 ：）
因為腳本從中文翻譯成英文後，句子的長度會多出不少，為了配合原影片的畫面剪輯(其實還是有做過一些調整)，不免需要緊湊一些。
Low Score Boy 有需要我可以幫忙
A'Can't
A'Can should have really been a 32X style console instead of SNES inspired
I mean out of the box, not down the road
居然有英文版了，這是低分大自己配音的嗎
可參閱片尾credits。
CUG game is similar to a congos caper snes
可惜沒有中文字幕，我真的聽不懂是在說什麼？
中文版請看這則影片
ruclips.net/video/rTicHEXVF0A/видео.html
Something about the color palette of this console that i don't like. Looks too "pastel" and soft.
低分大大英文進步好多！👍
這次不是由我配音的XD