As a South American, while I love these kind of history videos, I never expect to relate to them... Imagine my surprise when you showed the same controller I had as a kid!
I also had this controller back in the early 2000s, IIRC it was the first thing I ever bought online. It was the start of my lifelong obsession with flight simulation gear and the idea of a sim setup for any type of vehicle. I’ve looked for it before, but could never find any info at all about this controller on the internet. I never imagined it was that old and had so much history behind it. Fascinating! The controller itself is actually pretty cheaply made and not very good at all for flight simming. I tried to make upgrades to it over time, but eventually gave up as my 15 y/o self didn’t have the skills or patience to make things properly (and 3D printers and arduinos weren’t a thing back then) I reckon my unit is still in a closet back home somewhere. It might be possible to dig it up and make it into an arduino powered sim device.
Hey, you guys love Sega Mega Drive, and made some really amazing Master System and Mega Drive games! Don't discount your huge contributions to gaming, at least for the Sega and Famicom scene. I used to love finding Brazilian Sega and Famicom games (which I could get a South American adapter to play them on my NES also) at my local used games shop. You guys put a lot of time, love, and passion into your Sega and Famicom games. You weren't just trying to make quick money, you wanted it to be perfect, and it absolutely shows! :o) Thank YOU guys for the cool memories, especially the Master System port of Street Fighter 2 that works perfectly to this day.
Being from the US, I'd never heard of this thing until this year. It's such a shame they focused so much on all the gee-whiz peripherals and assorted wank, because had they focused all their time and resources on the system itself, it could have easily competed with the Neo Geo, and even early PS1 and Saturn 2D titles. Had they focused on sorting the hardware, putting their peripheral knowledge into making great quality/feeling normal controllers, at half-ish the price of the Neo Geo, combined with cheap games on floppy...we may have had an extremely different video game scene in the first half of the 90's. What a shame.
Same! Born and raised in the States. 🇺🇲 NEVER heard of this "console " until this upload... Could've been something in it's day especially going up against Sega/Nintendo.
My thoughts exactly! Feels like they put the cart before the horse, sinking tons of money and R&D into outlandish peripherals first and a promising console as an afterthought. If MultiSystem was even half as powerful as they claimed, there could've been an interesting third (4th? 5th?) player in the late-80s console war. Ultimately, I doubt Konix could've been a serious contender, as it would face the same problem as Jaguar - far too few competent developers willing to gamble on supporting a very different, unproven platform.
@@darkfalzx Good Point. I feel like being able to use floppy disks may have (no guarantee, but maybe) attracted smaller time developers as it did for platforms like C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Apple...if they could have attracted some of those, and even a little support from arcade publishers, they may have exploded. Imagine putting out Street Fighter II Turbo on a ~$1 floppy disk instead of a cartridge may have attracted Capcom and other big players, especially because it was Motorola 68K based, like the majority of arcade hardware at the time (and the Sega, and the Neo Geo...). Now, it's not a direct port, but the same CPU is still a huge step in that direction. You're right though, that, as with any platform, if the software isn't there, nobody will care.
I’m American and I was born in the mid 90s so the only thing I know about Alan Sugar is that he said the iPod would fail and that he was on the U.K. Apprentice
Still breaking my heart over never getting hold of a Multisystem. I did manage to play on one though, at the 1989 PC Show at Earls Court. I saw a few game demos running & got to have a go on Mutant Camels '89.
I was at that show too!. Although I don’t think I got to play on it. I can’t say I was surprised to see the system fail. I’m trying to remember if the Sega Megadrive made an appearance at the same show, that was seriously impressive the first time I saw it.
@@32mlucas Megadrive was there, but not as a brand new console. I remember playing Golden Axe on a Megadrive on another display & being blown away by how arcade perfect it seemed.
A stand alone console could have done well, the hardware looked good, the games looked good for early efforts. They should have kept the peripherals and the system separate.
That's what I think too. A traditional system with controller would have been cheaper to produce and develop, and still would have sold if the games had been impressive enough. Plus even if it had released, what happens when parts wear out in a completely integrated system? You can't just buy another controller. I bet the thing would have been a warranty nightmare for Konix after a couple of years.
Should've tried selling the peripherals to companies like Neo Geo, Sega and Nintendo. Would've raked in the money with those innovative controllers. The install base of those systems eclipsed home computers that could actually fully use those peripherals.
I started work for ATD in 1995 and worked for Martin. I am still friends with Fred Gill ( a great guy) and knew Jim Torj and Chris too. They had quite a lot of circuit boards kicking around including Jamma boards and a custom board called RasterSpeed (I used to have one on the shelf in front of my desk..) I remember they had ported Zool to it as an arcade game. I also had to burn the original discs for CyberMorph which featured the vocal talents of a very young Rob Brydon I believe. Happy days.
To this day I'm still gutted that this never launched. I went to the PC Show 1989 and still have Konix poster and bag for the multisystem. Then again my parents would not have bought me a console that could only play games.
Living in the states, I never heard of this until briefly reading this on a computer magazine. I was very familiar with Konix periferals because I often bought their Joysticks in NYC Radio Shack, Babbages, and later Electronic Boutique. I loved their 2600 joysticks, and thier early flight sim sticks, Its very sad that funding was the demise to this great system that could of been, great video!
Wow wow wow, lots of old memories floating up to the surface. Seeing that clip from Swedish TV-show "Bit för bit" nearly put a tear in my eye. This is really a weird form of nostalgia if you think about it: reminiscing on your childhood *dreams* - not even things that actually happened.
Born 1997. Never heard about Bit för bit. But that intro 3d render looks like some .... good stuff XD. And I mean it. I guess calling it rad is wrong? Anyways, got to look into this rabbit hole. I think I'm not going to enjoy it but dam. Traffikmagasinet, Bolibompa, Björne! All so Classic Swedish! Macken! Rony o... Heck Bit för bit screams like Minecraft no? But that probably have no connections what so ever.
Wow, what an amazing story. I was an 80’s kid and I don’t remember ever hearing about this console. It is a massive shame that the funding dried up; the UK would’ve had a console to not only rival Sega and Nintendo, but potentially beat them. We will never know. One thing though, it was way ahead of it’s time. Thanks for another fantastic voyage into gaming history 👍🏻
The controller was being sold by Tandy in Australia. I was wanting a steering wheel at the time but the display unit felt rather fragile and didn't feel like it would last long, I ended up buying a Thrustmaster Grand Prix 1.
Stuff that is in the here and now, and amazes/intrigues us, which gets the "Ahead of its time" tag, before you know it, falls flat... Then a good few years later, the idea comes roaring back and for someone else, is a major success. That must hurt the original pioneers of stuff like this, they put their soul into it, only to see it bounce to the highest of success later on without them involved.
All that incredible talent and vast amounts of money sank into development, only for it to end up as a crappy, unused controller. Thanks @nostalgia nerd for some of the best content on RUclips, merry Christmas and all the best for 2022!
Funny thing Jaguar also was crippled by low memory capacity. I remember that one of games was released both as a cart and a CD (Hover Strike?). CD version not only had more details, but also was faster. Many cart games were so limited that they had to decompress ROM data on the fly, because uncompressed textures didn't fit anywhere in the memory. Guess how that impacted the performance. Also people got tired with mostly undocumented custom chips, and coded most of the games on 68000, that supposed to be just a 'joystick CPU', and as such also was crippled by lack of stuff needed on the system bus. On the bright side, it had a very interesting 16-bit color mode that looked like 24-bit (it used 8-bit chroma and 8-bit luminance instead of ugly 3x5-bit RGB). And you can easily DIY video cables and controllers for it.
Hoverstrike Unconquered Lands was basically a CD Special Edition of the cartridge version. Atari Engineers moved coding away from the 68000 onto the GPU and got according to the late Lance Lewis, an extra 3-5 fps performance out of it. The CD storage allowed for more missions, intro, cleaner, more varied textures.
@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 Thanks for the info. Interesting that they kept working on the engine after the initial release (5 fps from the cart version was a huge improvement).
That's were the Amiga CD32 was the only computer to console device to work, since it's basically an Amiga 500 without the computer parts. So game development was super easy. But it to, failed. Sold mostly in Amiga shops where Amiga owners had no reason to buy it. Oh, it was kind of ugly and the joystick sucked. By the 1990, it was pretty much a Japanese gaming market. Unless it was Mario or Sonic... You were dead. Xbox squeaked by, but it's pretty much a loss. It has the backing of MS to give it a chance.
The speedking was a nightmare, the microswitch assembly was held in place with tiny little plastic stubs, every drop on the floor was a heart in mouth moment to see if one had snapped off, making the joystick useless. Still loved it though.
Thank you for bringing this console to my attention. There are so many European consoles, computers, and other gadgets that I would have never known about if it wasn't for you. So much history to be shared and enjoyed. Love it.
I remember actually seeing one of these at a computer fair at Earls Court. It was hidden inside a capsule type display, inside a stand at the arse end of the arena. I think it was supposed to be a "behind closed doors" type thing, but someone left the door open and there it was! I never saw it running, but that distinctive design was very obvious!
OMG I think I threw mine away only a few weeks ago! I had this controller as a kid and it was utter crap. I had no idea on the back-story, thanks for the very informative video! Also are you secretly sneaking about in my parents attic? This is like the 3rd fairly obscure bit of 90s tech that you've done a video on that I left there.
Yup I had one too - lasted about a month before a belt snapped inside making it useless. Even as a kid I could tell its lifespan would be in hours rather than years, it felt so hollow and cheap. Shame, because it was a great idea.
@@OriginalityDaniel , No doubt! ...If there can be (could have been) an accurately controlling and well-built motorbike/ATV handlebar combined with a steering wheel option, that controller would sell (have sold) well since it's an overlapping interest in instances for those gamers, even after the cost of shipping it with pedals. There might have been enough interest for some to purchase two of them for split-screen/system link. In the '90s, there were at least a couple if not a few analog protocols but that could have likely been handled easily with an onboard switch to neGcon/UltraRacer and couple MadCatz wheel analog protocols - the Micro-MC2 or the full-sized ... Such a controller, alone, would have kept the company bills paid if not well-off for all of the players enjoying ATV/Quadracer titles (i.e., "MX versus.." and ATV Offroad Fury titles - local and online), the early popularity of Jet Moto and Wipeout titles, Gran Turismo, generations of ToCA/DTM ttles, generations of motorbike games such as MotoGP, etc. ... For 2-wheeled, I would have found it interesting if they could have been around long enough to eventually have been inspired by Sony's SCPH-1110 Analog joystick regarding using the infinitely variable lean of the joystick to create the matching lean of the motorbike - i.e. , Castrol Honda Superbike Racing for PS1 - there's some kind of mechanical unlock/lockout and switch for remapping options.
that "it's really 32 bit" reminds me of the Neo-Geo marketing that called the system "24 bit" because it had an 8-bit and a 16-bit processor handling different tasks, under design principles not unlike the Flare 1 and the Multi-System even back then I knew almost nothing about how computers worked but I knew that's not really how it works, but I also knew that at the time bit count was EVERYTHING in the home gaming space so they had to do SOMETHING with it either way, the Neo-Geo was a ridiculously good console that was too expensive for most gamers at the time, but it had some serious longevity, coming out in 1990 and, even though hardware production ended in 1997, SNK was releasing games for it until 2004
Yeah, the Neo Geo was what every kid in my neighborhood wished they could have but only 1 family willing to shell out the dough. I instead went with the " Turbo Graphix 16 ". Some of the games were awful but I had fun with games like Bonk's Adventure and the 60 or 70 dollar (wayyyy overpriced) space shooter I can't remember the name of
We just call it "vibration", but I owned many "force feedback" devices from the DOS 95 era forward that actually had actual real effects from the environment and the other etc. This was literally the prototype for this actual real world > game concept that was not realized for decades. My flight sims were way more accurate than anything the home consoles were offering, even after they added vibration feedback.
I remember ACE mag, a short lived publication that introduced us to the concept of the interest curve in game reviews. I recall in one review, they thought the game was so bad the line drawn, went off the bottom of the page. They were the only magazine that seemed to go all in on the Konix system with a number of issues featuring something about it.
I had the controller in Australia. I tried playing Rally Championship with it, every turn felt like this thing would fall apart in your hands. It's still in one piece at my parents house somewhere, but I attribute that to how little I actually touched it.
I wanted the Konix System so badly. ACE magazine had me all hyped up for it. I really wanted the chair, and I was a huge Minter fan at the time as well. Oh to be living in an alternative time line where it actually manifested.
@@hicknopunk I loved Llamatron, Attack of the Mutant Camels and other games he released during that era. But I can't say I've played a new Minter game in quite a while now. I still think he is awesome and respect everything he's done. but what I think what I said is true.
It's difficult to predict the success level of the system had it been released. As a yankee lad when this was in development, I remember being less than impressed with the screenshots of the system in EGM. They really did not match the claims being made about it. I also want to point out a clever control scheme does not mean developers themselves will be clever in utilizing them. I point to the Nintendo Wii and DS third party games as examples. I would say out of their libraries, most were shovelware that looked at the controller as an afterthought with designs starting from the traditional directional input and some buttons rather than how a game should 'feel' when played. You can't make a good experience playing a game with unique controls if they're not even part of the design process from the beginning. I suspect a lot of game development houses are very cynical in the first place, which probably contributes quite a lot to the lackluster libraries of systems with novel user input schemes. They are not like arcade game design where the control methods and software can evolve with each other because there's no 'prefab controls' that are imposed on them if they're willing to spend money manufacturing the machine's custom parts. Also, just as an aside, if the prototype chair was sparking, I think rumors of people being electricuted in this 'electric chair' would have started flying around playgrounds. That could have been a fun historical story in and of itself in the alternate dimension where the Multi-System made it out of the factory door in tact.
Honestly, I think it would have been a flop. The Japanese comments feels like attempting to save face, cause then why didn't they sabotage the other systems from non Japanese game companies, and also why only game companies
I don't know that I believe the story that backers stopped providing funds for fear of the damage it would do to the Japanese market systems. It may have been a factor, but is likely being overstated how much impact that had, and I think there were likely other reasons they suddenly fell short on backers. I feel like the system was being a bit over ambitious which lead those who had already given money to question why they needed even more money. They needed even more money because they were making something that was so full of features, without considering the cost of development and production. The games market was in its early days then, and a financial backer had good reason to pause when they kept coming back to them for even more money. In the end what needed to happen was someone to step in and focus on what key features the first release of the system really needed, and to cut away anything that could be left out to make it fit in to a smaller budget, and make a release possible. You know the old saying right? If you want everything you often end up with nothing, and that seems to be the case of what happened here.
For the majority of the video I was getting the impression of feature creep too. Atari/Amstrad may have been a better option had they struck a deal with either of those. It seems as soon as Konix entered the design philosophy took a big shift.
Hmm... there is a famous quote from Creative Labs CEO about Soundblaster's control of the market when it competed with Adlib. Yamaha was holding off releasing the OPL3 chip that Adlib needed for its much better hardware under the guise of "it's still being tested and not ready". He said "OPL3 will be ready when I say it's ready". I have no doubt the Japanese console manufacturers had taken steps to kill this competitor. Recall that the hardware was on-par with Jaguar at the time of SNES. That's a generation ahead of time. And Jaguar in turn is underappreciated because there were two ways to develop games for that platform. You could completely ignore the 3D graphics portion of it and use the Motorola 68K processor to run simple game ports. That hid its true power as a 3D system. Few software companies made the necessary investment to fully harness Jaguar's power.
Your right, Wanye kept wanting to make changes, he never had any plan or concept, you had to do what he said or leave, which many did. Others had the plan and concept but wanye always wanted it to do more, or make such change that the concept and vision of others was trampled upon and as best as they try made working for wayne impossible, along with the realisation of the visions the creative guys that were just trying to earn their daily bread, as there was no real money in it for those guys, not even enough to pay daily living costs.
@@knyshov It's easy to be a ahead of your competitors tech wise, when you give absolutely no thought to the amount of money you're spending to do so. There did not seem to be any business planning or proper budgeting work being done for this project, at all. Yes, the hardware of the other consoles were inferior to what was in the works here, but those were made with the cost of what developing and producing them would cost in mind, and then how much it could be sold for on the market. That didn't seem to be a concern in this project, it was just add all the features you can, and not worry about the cost. You have to have a realistic business plan to make a project like this work, and mass produce a product on the scale they wanted to, and they didn't seem to have one at all. I don't think the Japanese companies had to do much, they kind of derailed their own project by not making a proper business plan for it.
I went to that PCW Show at Earls Court in 1989, hoping to try out the Konix chair. When I got there on the first public day (I believe the 2 prior days were press only), the chair was there, but I was told by a lady on the stand that due to technical issues, the chair wasn't working, but if I came back the next day, it might be. Imagine my disappointment as I was only there for the day - at least I know that it never worked, so I would have wasted my time going back for the following two days. However, I did bump into the guys from the then new Amiga Format magazine and had a good chat with them and then listened to a salesman telling a punter that Hard Driving could be used to teach people to drive.... hmm I don't remember the 360 loop on my driving test! One other thing is that in 2001-2002, I bought one of those multi-system and controllers off the internet and realised it was the Konix system. I used it a few times and it was pretty poor, so it ended up getting dumped. It was a great idea - I don't know if it would have been successful without some outstanding games. I categorise it along with the Sam Coupé. Great video, as always
The Speed King or XJ 500 here in the states was my favorite joystick ever. I wish we had a chance to get a Konix Multi here. ...well we did get their Jaguar tech, so ...
This thing is impressive even in 2023 honestly. Having a device that could shift so easily into multiple different options AND with a chair like that? I can't believe this was something they almost did in 1989. Just for reference but even in 2022 when I finally got into sim racing having a wheel and pedals was so cool. I know the tech today blows what they had in 1989 out of the water but I'm sure even that limited tech would have felt fun and immersive. I really feel like if this thing had released the landscape of gaming would be a little bit different than it currently is today
Seeing how this still supported standard-style joysticks, I can't help but be reminded about the last few console generations. You think about the fixation on motion controls and other gimmicks that were really pushed by the manufacturers, but eventually the novelty wore off and developers went back to making games with standard controls and consumers were right there with them. I'm sure that if the Multisystem actually did come out and managed to initially sell well, the number of games supporting the wheel/yoke would of dropped off sharply after a year in favor of basic joystick support. Hell, they would of probably end up releasing a pared-down "lite" version that removed the wheel and would use controllers ports only.
What a vid. I remember the Konix appearing in CVG and the Complete Guide To Consoles magazines but had no idea about the whole history of it, thanks for making a truly interesting video and a very entertaining dive into gaming history.
The funny thing is with the emulator, somebody could _today_ get one, reverse-engineer it, gain perms, create a special board for it and create a literal Konix multi-system using an RPi as a base, or maybe Radxa's CM3 if they need more I / O than what a CM4 would provide. It would be easy enough to recreate, that peripheral and it can be modified to host the hardware inside, thus creating a truly luggable experience.
Most computers in those days caused arguments about using the TV. Imagine trying to convince your mum to let you have an arcade flight sim contraption in the living room?
That's what I thought too, so few people would want to buy a system with a chair. Even with just the controller was a terrible idea, they could've just sold the controller as a seperate option. Not to mention the inherent cost.
@@DoubleMonoLR If you think about it, the whole thing came full circle. Started out as a joystick, went through being a console, chair contraption, and then ended up as it began...as a fancy joystick...like most things, it comes down to timing and money. It was ahead of its time and needed finance. The Jaguar shows it would have worked as a platform, but probably wouldn't have been successful due to the scarcity of decent games. It would have been even harder trying to convince people to buy a Jaguar type console in the late 80's at high cost and next to zero games. Even Neo Geo had few owners back then due to the high cost of the console and games. At that time I was buying games for my C64 for £1.99 and £2.99...
As someone who is from Cambridge - this is definitely the first time I've heard Cherry Hinton mentioned in any sort of media haha! My mother and cousin used to do the catering for Clive Sinclair and his employees back in the 80s. Cheers!
Given how the Arm and Argonaut (Super Fx) chipsets continued to evolve, plus Flare's involvement in the Jaguar, maybe they could have had success at a purely silicon level.
Yes always remember drooling over this hardware in C+VG magazine. Looked amazing especially the switching of controls. What i still find unique about the konix is the bike handle bar controller. We have amazing steering wheels now for games but none for bike games.
In the early iteration it is amazing to see what could be done with the humble z80 - the inventiveness around systems architecture was amazing back then! I guess most chips are designed around modern architecture these days, but it does make me wonder could be achieved with different combinations and designs with modern CPUs and GPUs. Your videos have always been great, but you have been turning it up to 11 recently - some great subjects, brilliantly researched and presented.
If you think that's what you can do with a z80, imagine what you can do without one weighing the system down. Just a tms34010 or something. Such systems were around, there were a number of specialised systems such as for typesetting and video titles made this way, and the Midway arcade of the early 90s as well.
I had the joystick featured at 0:42 with the red/black stripe motif. It was INCREDIBLE! I can still remember the clicky sounds it made when you moved the joystick, and the positive feedback it provided. The solid steel shaft that ran from the base of the joystick case through the top of the unit guaranteed you wouldn't, COULDN'T ever destroy it like the other cheaper controllers made by Atari and other aftermarket makers. The base was ergonomic, fitting comfortably in one hand, unlike the square base to the original Atari controllers that must have been designed more to fit in a box than for any consideration to the user. It lasted me many years, and I still consider it money well spent. My only regret is that it was not compatible with other video game consoles that came afterwards, especially the SEGA Master System which had also terribly uncomfortable controls.
Amazing work documenting this! I thoroughly enjoyed remembering reading the ACE articles back in the 80s and all the hype surrounding this system. Now that was a fine mag, I miss it. :) It's a real shame for sure, that we never got to play with the Konix. It really looked good.
I've always wanted to know a bit more about this system than the few snippets I've found online, and this video really delivered. I really do wonder though if the system would have been released and a great success if they had ditched all of the extra control components that made development quite expensive.
Excellent video! I really enjoyed learning more about this system! As we've seen time and time again. When it comes to game consoles you can have good or even great tech and ambitious goals. But if you don't have the funding to back it all up then it generally ends up all for naught. Such a shame. While there was plenty of speculation that the Japanese console makers had put pressure on various entities which prevented Konix from securing additional funding. I would guess that funding was cut off in large part because the Multisystem was just too different for its own good. Even by the late 80's in most of the world a game console the primary input device was a joystick or gamepad and a computer used a keyboard. The Multisystem had neither of those as the default. That combined with other factors probably scared a lot of potential funding away. Plus it didn't help that there hadn't been any terribly successful western developed game consoles since the late 70's/early 80's either.
I own a "Super MS-200E" myself, just caught a glimpse of it in the attic while visiting my parents over the holidays (and because Google can read minds, got recommended this video out of the blue shortly after). In Germany, it was sold by ex-shareware-distributor-turned-tripe-seller Pearl Agency, mostly known for their 32-page catalogs that were tacked to the middle of most PC and gaming magazine of the 90s. I think I got it as a birthday present in '93, and was very excited about it! It saw a lot of use in racing games, before it was replaced with a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel. I definitely remember the creaky plastic and cheap feel of it, but unlike other commenters I seem to remember that mine never gave me any trouble. Years later, I coincidentally found out about the Konix Multi-System story behind it online, but I didn't know how close it actually came to being released. An excellent video! I guess I found another gaming channel I actually like. I like the production value, the pacing, and your very non-RUclips style suitable for watching by grown-ups 😅(pleasing voice, calm demeanor, no eardrum-bursting shouting, and no constant memes or attempted humour).
Fantastic video. The amount of research you must have done is simply mind boggling. I'll admit I was drooling over this console back in the day. So much potential and such a shame it never made it in the end.
Great video, never seen much or really any videos looking at this in any detail. The fact you have one to show is bloody amazing! This was really really good.
A project way too ambitious from what I see in the video. The uncontrolled feature creep doomed this project as the company wanted to build more and more and promised all sorts of things to their investors. A console can be doomed by games alone and this console seemed entirely focused on a loose vision of making a ground breaking console. They could have released this console on their own terms and it could still have been a massive flop due to so many factors.
Agreed... There was a way for a newcomer or one of the big guns to dominate the UK hone compute market, and possibly the world... A do-it-all UK computer that runs most older popular UK computers' software. Spec features a 68008 (used in the QL, cheap 68000 with a cut-down 8 bit bus), 6502 (BBC, C64) and Z80 (Speccy, Amstrads, ++), all running at about 8mHz, instead of lots of custom chips.. -- Perhaps 1 ULA + VRAM to drive the screen and provide basic blitter and hardware scrolling, but one of the parallel processing CPUs could do that, especially with a dedicated DMA, shared memory system.. Would have run in emulation or native mode, perhaps being able to switch between modes without a reboot.. Could have also emulated an 8086 via software emulator and eventually re-assembler / recompiler.. -- Probably best to ship it with Spectrum and BBC compatibility and get 3rd parties in on developing other emulators and native software that fully utilised its multiple CPUs without the emulator overhead... These were always my thoughts as a kid, stuck with a Sinclair QL... This is what the Sinclair QL should have been... At least a Z80C + 68008, but I wanted a fast, 8mHz 6502 to handle I/O, graphics and sound.. 68008 as the main CPU in native mode as its the most advanced.
Yeah, it's easy to be 'years ahead' if you're offering state of the art technology for a bargain price. But not much of an achievement if you go out of business before the product is even launched. The Japanese consoles were more conservative, but actually had a business model.
@@axi0matic Yup. The chair was a mistake from the get go. Even the controller was a bit of a mistake. They should have shipped the computer in a small form factor/arcade board, then when enough money was coming in, release the controller.
@@j.d.6915 The only thing with making the transforming controller optional is that then only part of the user base has it. Developers would need to decide whether to support it or not, which leads to a chicken and egg situation (like Kinect on the X360). Aside from cost though, the controller would have required a desk to put it on, making it awkward to use on a sofa. It's true that in Europe, people were used to using home computers on a desk. But as consoles became popular, gamepads were much more living room friendly.
This video was awesome! I have read some articles about the Konix Multiststem, but this is the first time everything has been gathered together. Thank-you and Happy New Year!
AMAZING documentary! I was reading about the Multisystem just a few days ago, and wondering if someone had done a "deep dive" on the system. Stop reading my mind! 😂
it would have flopped hard and changed nothing. Feature creep made it impossible. The controler without the chair could have been a good idea...if it works well.
Fascinating. I thought they had similar problems, than the later Atari Jaguar, which was my first console. Briefly after: "The Jaguar was basically Flare 2". Lol. Yeah, it didn't have enough support. Developers apparently had a hard time getting accustomed to the system. Games got stalled a lot, and many early games were more like ones for SNES, but more expensive and on a more expensive console.
Their trouble with financing was more based on the open storage structure with 3.5 diskettes as their main media. It would of been a software pirates' dream console. They also admitted to the fact they were not seeking any type of what we now know as DRM. You can easily see why this information would get to the financiers and cause some concern. Since backing this project would be tanking many of the others in the market also with loans.
I love your channel. Thanks for another fantastic video! Just one thing, though… 16:10 Foul on the play: Redundant use of “bespoke” (twice in 12”). Loss of down, ten yard penalty. 🏈 Seriously, though, this is a masterpiece. What a time to be alive. Thank you for help us to remember those heady days! We are in your debt, sir.
Nah. Features are good. The main issue was... there were not games worthy of attracting investment and enough interest. Look at the partially working examples of the flight game. It looks horrible. Both in graphical look, as well as in movement. If they could have made the graphics and gameplay that was far more similar to Afterburner II... they would have had a much larger level of Demand. Not hiring quality artists, and not getting quality games in development fast enough... is what make any investors legs shaky. Porting pre-existing, old computer games... was not Impressive, and a huge waste of time and resources. And Jeff Minters game.. is more of an ugly chaotic Tech Demo, than an actual polished game, IMO. One can look at Sega, for a very similar issue in the Console wars. Sega's Master System had somewhat superior hardware to the NES... however... The NES has Super Mario Bros as a pack-in. Anyone that played 5 min worth of SMB... was totally HOOKED... and HAD to have that system. The NES also had a buttload of other decent games... both from their own development teams, as well as 3rd party companies. Where as Sega had almost no 3rd party support... and the games that were developed by segas smaller teams... tended to produce lackluster games. (though, there are a few excellent Gems, that really shine)
Awesome work. Congrats to the team. The concept of the transforming controller was also attempted by Sony on the PS3 Move Racing Wheel, a much better controller than people give it credit for. Probably some inspiration taken from this controller.
I could absolutely believe Nintendo would Bully Banks to prevent them from helping their competitors get started. I don't know about the UK but in the United States antitrust enforcement has always been extremely weak. It usually takes a lawsuit from another nearly equally powerful company to get anything done
Nintendo supposedly strong-armed major toy retailers with threats of withholding shipments if they carried any competitors to a point where a local pawn shop became the only place in town to buy new releases for Turbografx for a while. This story has odes to the original spec for the Turbo-duo (my choice for next generation console) being able to run some Apple software, but was delayed and ultimately abandoned with a NEC warehouse fire.
In the UK Nintendo wasn't all that big until the SNES though, so I question whether they could have thrown enough weight around to cut off all avenues of funding. The video game crash didn't happen in the UK and home computers dominated gaming in the '80s, with the NES being very much an also-ran. The gaming market was quite different to that in the US.
@@Silanda true but I find it hard to believe Sega would play hardball like that. Not because they're Angels but because they're just not very good at it. The only other company with the wait to do that was NEC and they were ignoring the entire rest of the world besides Japan. Even in the United States they didn't put much effort into pushing the turbo graphics 16. I could see Nintendo using the possibility that they were going to be a large customer at a bank though. Remember the super Nintendo was right around the corner and they would have been getting ready for a huge push into the country. New customers often have more clout than existing customers
@@jeremygregorio7472 Thing is, we don't really know what the truth was. Konix were blaming Japanese companies for sabotaging them, but we don't know what their financials were really like, what the estimated profit margin for each system was, etc. Who knows, maybe they already had a significant debt load, the margins were thin, and their bank was just unwilling to risk millions more to fund full scale production. It wouldn't be the first time that a company blamed their rivals for sabotaging them when the reality was more mundane.
Antitrust laws would hit USA FIRST if it was enforced, US trade deals force counries like China to not only BUILD your children's toys, but take the massive amunts of trash USA produces and ultimately just burn them, into Chinese atmosphere. American samoa is forced to take in masses of low quality meat from the US so health hipsters could have all the best parts, while local FOOD production can't compete, so that's basiacaly the same as the recycled trash scam, it all ought to jsut be burned even when it would ruin the local air quality, US overproduction creates so much of this gunk. Just to artificially lower food prices in the US and play capitalist anyway. The nintendo products strongarmed into exclusive deals have an exclusive deal strongarming them to be sold IN USA at all, because USA threatens to crash the markets of entire countries if the're not treated like Nintendo treats Walmart. The whole MO of nintendo is to get some profits back in return from USA, it's an exceptionally west facing company in the Japanese landscape. They've gone a long way adjusting to America's total war model and attacks agaisnt civilians and industry, instead of military property and bases like it was more common in imperial societies. If you want a powerful company, you already get a free vote in ONE. And everyone who looks can see what you voted them to do, that is the real face of democracy and the heroes who spread its ideology.
The story of this game system reminds me of the story of Jodorowsky's Dune. A masterpiece that never came to fruition, yet influenced the industry for years to come.
Perhaps if they had been a bit more hush during the development phase and gotten their ducks in a row before going full monty on the product, they could have thwarted any outside fuckery from the competition. Your best mini doc yet though sir, well done! Well done indeed!
I'm guessing that Commodore and others didn't like the sound of it, a machine that was twice the power but nearly half the cost of their own products. So they most likely had it quietly throttled behind the scenes.
Interesting show! I learned a lot. That said, I'm not buying some the speculation. I find it VERY difficult to believe that "Japan" got the funding pulled for this....that's a tough one to swallow. It looks more like an iffy business model and iffy hardware in a crowded market might be the culprit there. I'm also not convinced this would blow the other 16 bit machines out of the water...that's TOTAL speculation. This thing was barely touched by anyone, and it already have a rep for being difficult to program on. I don't think ANYONE believe this "super peripheral" chair/steering wheel gimmick would make it...I think there is a ZERO percent chance. The control was interesting, even innovative, but not something to base hardware around! Now, if you'd said "Hey, it's like the Nintendo Wii but years earlier", that'd i'd buy..but to consider the Konix this long lost mega system that would have changed home gaming....naw...no way.
As someone who once developed 6-dof seats, I knew it was going to be doomed after hearing the seat belt idea. These seats remain a solution in search of a problem.
Ponderous... Why the correlation - [needless cost] mindset or [other]? What seats did you work on and how would you sum up your contemporaneous experience as well as your retrospection?
I definitely did not expect to feel as sad as I did by the end of this video to see a failed console - what a shame, it would have been lovely to see this thing actually in action
I was 12, buying these magazines and even then i could sense 'mission creep'. Along with the fact the graphics really don't look much better than a juiced up C64 with nicer colours. If it could shift polygons, certainly no games seemed to show it. And those racing games are abysmal. I realise the Amiga A500 was twice the price, but in my school, half the computer kids were getting them for christmas, and once you'd seen Blood Money, F/A 18 interceptor and Lotus Turbo Challenge, this looked well behind the times. Anyway, most people wanted beat em ups and platform games, rather than racing.
just checked - A500 batman pack was released Autumn 1989. And half my friends got one. As soon as I saw one in action, i could hardly believe it. The Americans had arrived.
As an American born in 82, it’s always fascinating to learn more about this whole solar system of computer/console things you had going on in the UK, most of which we never heard of, or maybe you’d have that one kid whose uncle had a commodore or something, and he might know about one or two of them
This is a great video!!! And then again recently I've been reading about people grabbing multi-figures monthly as incomes in investments even in this crazy days in the stock market.
The best piece of advice would be to not put too much in cryptocurrencies. Most have no actual use except for those who are already wealthy to pump and dump.
I remember reading exciting stuff about the Konix Multisystem in magazines like C&VG and ACE, but then it just vanished, like many hyped-up systems did in those days. Awesome information, the QOS machine!! No idea that an early chipset was actually produced and used in pub quiz machines, or the obscure connections to Jaguar! I also remember the pictures of that long haired hippy guy sitting the chair, but had no idea it was Jeff Minter, explains a lot though as i remember him being involved in the NUON technology.
That technical trick of having two alternate memory maps for video graphics, allowing 1 video map to B displayed while the other (hidden) video map was in the process of being rendered before switching maps, was a method also used by game / graphics programmers on the Apple II platform to enable smoothly animated sequences in "hi-res" graphics mode. The 2 video maps were known as "pages" & switching the video output from 1 page to the other was known as "flipping" -- so unsurprisingly the method was commonly known as "page flipping" & became something of a gold standard for animated graphics on Apple II systems.
I don't think I've ever used a RUclips sponsor link before today, but I happily signed up for Readly! I love magazines and reading them on my tablet is great. Big thanks for having a sponsor that is something actually really cool! The video is great too lol
A z80 based system that could rival the Amiga... Dream on, the z80 was an 8-bit, 8mHz chip from 1976 that had no place as the CPU of a computer as late as 1989. Four custom chips, well, the Amiga had custom chips too, and more importantly, was built around the Motorola 68000, which was many times faster then the z80 and had an upgrade path., whereas the z80 was a dead end - no faster, more advanced variants were to come. Seems to me these guys came up with an iterative improvement on the Spectrum rather than something really worthwhile. I had several Konix joysticks, good designs but utter crap build quality, which was why I ended up having several of them - they broke and had to be replaced.
Love listening to these long videos in the back ground while cleaning the house. Let's me remember my nerdy self while getting shit done. Keep up the great work my friend!!
The second you held up that board, I knew exactly what it was - a COBRA 1 board. I worked at Bell Fruit's sister company but would visit the Nottingham factory very often. BFM (latterly Bell Fruit Games) were incredibly innovative and even pioneered the use of capacitive touch screens in gaming. I'll name check Paul Arnold, Martin Burgess, Chris Padwick, Pete Farrell among others who really pushed the boundaries of what coin op gambling could do. They closed the factory a few years back but I am incredibly lucky to have worked alongside them. It was a really education in software, hardware, electrical engineering, R&D, sound, graphics....the list goes on. I'll write a book about it one day. Cheers.
Love watching this stuff. I developed games for Gremlin Graphics in that era and I had friends in the other companies mentioned in your video. Keep up the good work!
Really ace video. I've met Jeff Minter a few times and he was absolutely gutted this failed. It was truly ground breaking stuff at the time. Love all your content too, been on a bit of a binge of it lately and it's all great and well produced! Nice to see other RUclipsrs I like turn up too! :D
Reminds me of a competition run in an early eighties magazine called 'TV Gamer' where you were asked to design a console for the future. Most of the entries seemed to feature multiple cartridge slots enabling you to play games from each of the leading systems - Atari, Coleco, Intellivision and Vectrex. They tended to include the various controllers from each system as well.
I had a music machine. The advert "At £50, Fairlight ought to be a little worried", sold me. and apart from the speccy,s tiny memory rather limiting your sampling options......it was great.
Excellent video. Pretty sure like Nostalgia Nerd in 1988/89 if you were a UK gamer in your early to mid teens, had a Speedking or Navigator so were aware of the Konix brand and read ACE magazine, you’d be hyped for this. I have one of those Multi System controllers and have thought about mocking it up to look like a Konix a few times! If you could get that emulator running on a Raspberry PI and tuck it inside, you’d have the real deal - without the chair of course! I’m pretty sure had it made it to retail, it would never have surpassed the ST/Amiga market, or the incoming Mega Drive market as the games just wouldn’t have been as good, but who knows…
I bought an Amiga 1000, a week after they hit the market. Before I retired it several years later I had hacked in double memory, a 68030 processor, and a scsi controller. Hearing the capabilities of this console compared to the Amiga was a real eyeopener. I come from a hardware background and always loved the point at which the hardware and the software came together. I lived for clock timing charts and programing in hex. I miss it to this day.
Great video, this section of gaming history missed me but I do remember the controller itself and those clunky joysticks! To live in the 80s and 90s was an honour :)
Great video. I remember seeing an article in C+VG around 1989 when I was a kid. My thoughts were just "my parents will never buy me that chair" and "that racing game doesn't look as good as the games on my Master System". Seeing that game moving it looks fast and smooth, but this was the era where to really impress it would have to look like Out Run or Power Drift. The graphics were way too sparse in stills. Contrast with the stills from PC Engine games, where they looked almost as good as the arcade, despite being less technically impressive for those in the know.
the content i live for. amazing stuff
Yours is my favorite retro gaming channel, MVG.
Btw, thanks for the og xbox homebrew. :)
awesome treat for 21 Dec right?
Twas' the 21st of December and my true love gave to me: A modded xbox OGGGG
Inb4 another click bait "komix mistakes were made" title.
With punctuation. Mistakes were made.
As a South American, while I love these kind of history videos, I never expect to relate to them... Imagine my surprise when you showed the same controller I had as a kid!
I also had this controller back in the early 2000s, IIRC it was the first thing I ever bought online. It was the start of my lifelong obsession with flight simulation gear and the idea of a sim setup for any type of vehicle.
I’ve looked for it before, but could never find any info at all about this controller on the internet. I never imagined it was that old and had so much history behind it. Fascinating!
The controller itself is actually pretty cheaply made and not very good at all for flight simming. I tried to make upgrades to it over time, but eventually gave up as my 15 y/o self didn’t have the skills or patience to make things properly (and 3D printers and arduinos weren’t a thing back then)
I reckon my unit is still in a closet back home somewhere. It might be possible to dig it up and make it into an arduino powered sim device.
Hey, you guys love Sega Mega Drive, and made some really amazing Master System and Mega Drive games! Don't discount your huge contributions to gaming, at least for the Sega and Famicom scene. I used to love finding Brazilian Sega and Famicom games (which I could get a South American adapter to play them on my NES also) at my local used games shop. You guys put a lot of time, love, and passion into your Sega and Famicom games. You weren't just trying to make quick money, you wanted it to be perfect, and it absolutely shows! :o) Thank YOU guys for the cool memories, especially the Master System port of Street Fighter 2 that works perfectly to this day.
As a fat greasy Jewish Tasman stuck in Perth to white slave owners, this would of still been unaffordable.
Wow, that's quite a video. Can't begin to imagine how long it took to get all that history together. Awesome!
Being from the US, I'd never heard of this thing until this year. It's such a shame they focused so much on all the gee-whiz peripherals and assorted wank, because had they focused all their time and resources on the system itself, it could have easily competed with the Neo Geo, and even early PS1 and Saturn 2D titles. Had they focused on sorting the hardware, putting their peripheral knowledge into making great quality/feeling normal controllers, at half-ish the price of the Neo Geo, combined with cheap games on floppy...we may have had an extremely different video game scene in the first half of the 90's. What a shame.
Same!
Born and raised in the States. 🇺🇲
NEVER heard of this "console " until this upload...
Could've been something in it's day especially going up against Sega/Nintendo.
My thoughts exactly! Feels like they put the cart before the horse, sinking tons of money and R&D into outlandish peripherals first and a promising console as an afterthought. If MultiSystem was even half as powerful as they claimed, there could've been an interesting third (4th? 5th?) player in the late-80s console war.
Ultimately, I doubt Konix could've been a serious contender, as it would face the same problem as Jaguar - far too few competent developers willing to gamble on supporting a very different, unproven platform.
@@darkfalzx Good Point. I feel like being able to use floppy disks may have (no guarantee, but maybe) attracted smaller time developers as it did for platforms like C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Apple...if they could have attracted some of those, and even a little support from arcade publishers, they may have exploded. Imagine putting out Street Fighter II Turbo on a ~$1 floppy disk instead of a cartridge may have attracted Capcom and other big players, especially because it was Motorola 68K based, like the majority of arcade hardware at the time (and the Sega, and the Neo Geo...). Now, it's not a direct port, but the same CPU is still a huge step in that direction. You're right though, that, as with any platform, if the software isn't there, nobody will care.
But they could of pulled it off if they’d had the financial backing
It was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
.
I’m American and I was born in the mid 90s so the only thing I know about Alan Sugar is that he said the iPod would fail and that he was on the U.K. Apprentice
Still breaking my heart over never getting hold of a Multisystem. I did manage to play on one though, at the 1989 PC Show at Earls Court. I saw a few game demos running & got to have a go on Mutant Camels '89.
I was at that show too!. Although I don’t think I got to play on it. I can’t say I was surprised to see the system fail. I’m trying to remember if the Sega Megadrive made an appearance at the same show, that was seriously impressive the first time I saw it.
@@32mlucas Megadrive was there, but not as a brand new console. I remember playing Golden Axe on a Megadrive on another display & being blown away by how arcade perfect it seemed.
THE TECHNOLOGY was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
.
A stand alone console could have done well, the hardware looked good, the games looked good for early efforts. They should have kept the peripherals and the system separate.
That's what I think too. A traditional system with controller would have been cheaper to produce and develop, and still would have sold if the games had been impressive enough. Plus even if it had released, what happens when parts wear out in a completely integrated system? You can't just buy another controller. I bet the thing would have been a warranty nightmare for Konix after a couple of years.
Should've tried selling the peripherals to companies like Neo Geo, Sega and Nintendo. Would've raked in the money with those innovative controllers. The install base of those systems eclipsed home computers that could actually fully use those peripherals.
I started work for ATD in 1995 and worked for Martin. I am still friends with Fred Gill ( a great guy) and knew Jim Torj and Chris too. They had quite a lot of circuit boards kicking around including Jamma boards and a custom board called RasterSpeed (I used to have one on the shelf in front of my desk..) I remember they had ported Zool to it as an arcade game. I also had to burn the original discs for CyberMorph which featured the vocal talents of a very young Rob Brydon I believe. Happy days.
Any of it still around? I know some people who would love to see it!
Where did you learn to fly?
😊 Your thinking of the Cybermorph sequel, Battlemorph.
Cybermorph was the cartridge launch title, voice work provided by Carrie Taquechi.
@@pinrod1 wdym?
To this day I'm still gutted that this never launched. I went to the PC Show 1989 and still have Konix poster and bag for the multisystem. Then again my parents would not have bought me a console that could only play games.
It was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
.
Living in the states, I never heard of this until briefly reading this on a computer magazine. I was very familiar with Konix periferals because I often bought their Joysticks in NYC Radio Shack, Babbages, and later Electronic Boutique. I loved their 2600 joysticks, and thier early flight sim sticks, Its very sad that funding was the demise to this great system that could of been, great video!
Wow wow wow, lots of old memories floating up to the surface. Seeing that clip from Swedish TV-show "Bit för bit" nearly put a tear in my eye.
This is really a weird form of nostalgia if you think about it: reminiscing on your childhood *dreams* - not even things that actually happened.
Born 1997. Never heard about Bit för bit. But that intro 3d render looks like some .... good stuff XD. And I mean it. I guess calling it rad is wrong? Anyways, got to look into this rabbit hole. I think I'm not going to enjoy it but dam. Traffikmagasinet, Bolibompa, Björne! All so Classic Swedish! Macken! Rony o...
Heck Bit för bit screams like Minecraft no? But that probably have no connections what so ever.
Wow, what an amazing story.
I was an 80’s kid and I don’t remember ever hearing about this console. It is a massive shame that the funding dried up; the UK would’ve had a console to not only rival Sega and Nintendo, but potentially beat them. We will never know. One thing though, it was way ahead of it’s time.
Thanks for another fantastic voyage into gaming history 👍🏻
The controller was being sold by Tandy in Australia. I was wanting a steering wheel at the time but the display unit felt rather fragile and didn't feel like it would last long, I ended up buying a Thrustmaster Grand Prix 1.
Stuff that is in the here and now, and amazes/intrigues us, which gets the "Ahead of its time" tag, before you know it, falls flat... Then a good few years later, the idea comes roaring back and for someone else, is a major success.
That must hurt the original pioneers of stuff like this, they put their soul into it, only to see it bounce to the highest of success later on without them involved.
All that incredible talent and vast amounts of money sank into development, only for it to end up as a crappy, unused controller.
Thanks @nostalgia nerd for some of the best content on RUclips, merry Christmas and all the best for 2022!
Blame the Japanese!
@@bluephreakr Blame Konix.
Funny thing Jaguar also was crippled by low memory capacity. I remember that one of games was released both as a cart and a CD (Hover Strike?). CD version not only had more details, but also was faster. Many cart games were so limited that they had to decompress ROM data on the fly, because uncompressed textures didn't fit anywhere in the memory. Guess how that impacted the performance. Also people got tired with mostly undocumented custom chips, and coded most of the games on 68000, that supposed to be just a 'joystick CPU', and as such also was crippled by lack of stuff needed on the system bus.
On the bright side, it had a very interesting 16-bit color mode that looked like 24-bit (it used 8-bit chroma and 8-bit luminance instead of ugly 3x5-bit RGB). And you can easily DIY video cables and controllers for it.
Hoverstrike Unconquered Lands was basically a CD Special Edition of the cartridge version.
Atari Engineers moved coding away from the 68000 onto the GPU and got according to the late Lance Lewis, an extra 3-5 fps performance out of it.
The CD storage allowed for more missions, intro, cleaner, more varied textures.
@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 Thanks for the info. Interesting that they kept working on the engine after the initial release (5 fps from the cart version was a huge improvement).
That's were the Amiga CD32 was the only computer to console device to work, since it's basically an Amiga 500 without the computer parts. So game development was super easy.
But it to, failed. Sold mostly in Amiga shops where Amiga owners had no reason to buy it. Oh, it was kind of ugly and the joystick sucked.
By the 1990, it was pretty much a Japanese gaming market. Unless it was Mario or Sonic... You were dead. Xbox squeaked by, but it's pretty much a loss. It has the backing of MS to give it a chance.
@@TexasCat99 the CD32 was essentially a console Amiga 1200 (it had AGA). The CDTV was based on the 500.
Another brilliant video! That must have taken so much work to make.
Your icon is great 😆
@@cornsyruptrucker his channel is also great! So is his toy car channel Little Car. You should check them out 👍
@Uncle Joe Indeed!
The speedking was a nightmare, the microswitch assembly was held in place with tiny little plastic stubs, every drop on the floor was a heart in mouth moment to see if one had snapped off, making the joystick useless. Still loved it though.
Thank you for bringing this console to my attention. There are so many European consoles, computers, and other gadgets that I would have never known about if it wasn't for you. So much history to be shared and enjoyed. Love it.
I remember actually seeing one of these at a computer fair at Earls Court. It was hidden inside a capsule type display, inside a stand at the arse end of the arena. I think it was supposed to be a "behind closed doors" type thing, but someone left the door open and there it was! I never saw it running, but that distinctive design was very obvious!
OMG I think I threw mine away only a few weeks ago! I had this controller as a kid and it was utter crap. I had no idea on the back-story, thanks for the very informative video! Also are you secretly sneaking about in my parents attic? This is like the 3rd fairly obscure bit of 90s tech that you've done a video on that I left there.
Yup I had one too - lasted about a month before a belt snapped inside making it useless. Even as a kid I could tell its lifespan would be in hours rather than years, it felt so hollow and cheap. Shame, because it was a great idea.
would love to see a modern version, would be great for mame
@@jhbodle1 I remember the noisy, creaky squeaky plastic... still a pretty good controller for the time, but really garbage in retrospective!
@@OriginalityDaniel ,
No doubt! ...If there can be (could have been) an accurately controlling and well-built motorbike/ATV handlebar combined with a steering wheel option, that controller would sell (have sold) well since it's an overlapping interest in instances for those gamers, even after the cost of shipping it with pedals. There might have been enough interest for some to purchase two of them for split-screen/system link. In the '90s, there were at least a couple if not a few analog protocols but that could have likely been handled easily with an onboard switch to neGcon/UltraRacer and couple MadCatz wheel analog protocols - the Micro-MC2 or the full-sized ... Such a controller, alone, would have kept the company bills paid if not well-off for all of the players enjoying ATV/Quadracer titles (i.e., "MX versus.." and ATV Offroad Fury titles - local and online), the early popularity of Jet Moto and Wipeout titles, Gran Turismo, generations of ToCA/DTM ttles, generations of motorbike games such as MotoGP, etc. ... For 2-wheeled, I would have found it interesting if they could have been around long enough to eventually have been inspired by Sony's SCPH-1110 Analog joystick regarding using the infinitely variable lean of the joystick to create the matching lean of the motorbike - i.e. , Castrol Honda Superbike Racing for PS1 - there's some kind of mechanical unlock/lockout and switch for remapping options.
So you just threw away one of these extremely rare Konix Consoles, huh?
wonderfully produced video covering a story ive never heard of. this thing really was ahead of its time. glad it got to live on in some form.
that "it's really 32 bit" reminds me of the Neo-Geo marketing that called the system "24 bit" because it had an 8-bit and a 16-bit processor handling different tasks, under design principles not unlike the Flare 1 and the Multi-System
even back then I knew almost nothing about how computers worked but I knew that's not really how it works, but I also knew that at the time bit count was EVERYTHING in the home gaming space so they had to do SOMETHING with it
either way, the Neo-Geo was a ridiculously good console that was too expensive for most gamers at the time, but it had some serious longevity, coming out in 1990 and, even though hardware production ended in 1997, SNK was releasing games for it until 2004
Yeah, the Neo Geo was what every kid in my neighborhood wished they could have but only 1 family willing to shell out the dough. I instead went with the " Turbo Graphix 16 ". Some of the games were awful but I had fun with games like Bonk's Adventure and the 60 or 70 dollar (wayyyy overpriced) space shooter I can't remember the name of
Add the Atari Jaguar to that too
@@gtijason7853 blazing lazers?
Amiga and CD32 we're 26/32 bit systems from the start.
But yeah... Marketing buzzwords.
Even as a kid I thought Neo Geo were taking the piss with prices.
The Konix Speed King was my joystick of choice for my Amstrad and my early Amiga days.
We just call it "vibration", but I owned many "force feedback" devices from the DOS 95 era forward that actually had actual real effects from the environment and the other etc.
This was literally the prototype for this actual real world > game concept that was not realized for decades. My flight sims were way more accurate than anything the home consoles were offering, even after they added vibration feedback.
I remember ACE mag, a short lived publication that introduced us to the concept of the interest curve in game reviews. I recall in one review, they thought the game was so bad the line drawn, went off the bottom of the page. They were the only magazine that seemed to go all in on the Konix system with a number of issues featuring something about it.
I had the controller in Australia. I tried playing Rally Championship with it, every turn felt like this thing would fall apart in your hands.
It's still in one piece at my parents house somewhere, but I attribute that to how little I actually touched it.
Can I have it please
I remembered this was covered in ACE magazine! I also had a konix navigator joystick for the Amiga - it was very comfortable.
I wanted the Konix System so badly. ACE magazine had me all hyped up for it. I really wanted the chair, and I was a huge Minter fan at the time as well.
Oh to be living in an alternative time line where it actually manifested.
Minter fan...at the time?
😲😲😲
I love Minter's games 😀
@@hicknopunk I loved Llamatron, Attack of the Mutant Camels and other games he released during that era. But I can't say I've played a new Minter game in quite a while now. I still think he is awesome and respect everything he's done. but what I think what I said is true.
@@Asobitech tempest on the Vita is pretty fun.
It's difficult to predict the success level of the system had it been released. As a yankee lad when this was in development, I remember being less than impressed with the screenshots of the system in EGM. They really did not match the claims being made about it.
I also want to point out a clever control scheme does not mean developers themselves will be clever in utilizing them. I point to the Nintendo Wii and DS third party games as examples. I would say out of their libraries, most were shovelware that looked at the controller as an afterthought with designs starting from the traditional directional input and some buttons rather than how a game should 'feel' when played. You can't make a good experience playing a game with unique controls if they're not even part of the design process from the beginning. I suspect a lot of game development houses are very cynical in the first place, which probably contributes quite a lot to the lackluster libraries of systems with novel user input schemes. They are not like arcade game design where the control methods and software can evolve with each other because there's no 'prefab controls' that are imposed on them if they're willing to spend money manufacturing the machine's custom parts.
Also, just as an aside, if the prototype chair was sparking, I think rumors of people being electricuted in this 'electric chair' would have started flying around playgrounds. That could have been a fun historical story in and of itself in the alternate dimension where the Multi-System made it out of the factory door in tact.
Honestly, I think it would have been a flop.
The Japanese comments feels like attempting to save face, cause then why didn't they sabotage the other systems from non Japanese game companies, and also why only game companies
I don't know that I believe the story that backers stopped providing funds for fear of the damage it would do to the Japanese market systems. It may have been a factor, but is likely being overstated how much impact that had, and I think there were likely other reasons they suddenly fell short on backers. I feel like the system was being a bit over ambitious which lead those who had already given money to question why they needed even more money. They needed even more money because they were making something that was so full of features, without considering the cost of development and production. The games market was in its early days then, and a financial backer had good reason to pause when they kept coming back to them for even more money.
In the end what needed to happen was someone to step in and focus on what key features the first release of the system really needed, and to cut away anything that could be left out to make it fit in to a smaller budget, and make a release possible. You know the old saying right? If you want everything you often end up with nothing, and that seems to be the case of what happened here.
For the majority of the video I was getting the impression of feature creep too. Atari/Amstrad may have been a better option had they struck a deal with either of those. It seems as soon as Konix entered the design philosophy took a big shift.
Hmm... there is a famous quote from Creative Labs CEO about Soundblaster's control of the market when it competed with Adlib. Yamaha was holding off releasing the OPL3 chip that Adlib needed for its much better hardware under the guise of "it's still being tested and not ready". He said "OPL3 will be ready when I say it's ready".
I have no doubt the Japanese console manufacturers had taken steps to kill this competitor. Recall that the hardware was on-par with Jaguar at the time of SNES. That's a generation ahead of time.
And Jaguar in turn is underappreciated because there were two ways to develop games for that platform. You could completely ignore the 3D graphics portion of it and use the Motorola 68K processor to run simple game ports. That hid its true power as a 3D system. Few software companies made the necessary investment to fully harness Jaguar's power.
yea i was thinking the same, sounds more like an excuse "Its the fault of the japanese" LOL....
Your right, Wanye kept wanting to make changes, he never had any plan or concept, you had to do what he said or leave, which many did. Others had the plan and concept but wanye always wanted it to do more, or make such change that the concept and vision of others was trampled upon and as best as they try made working for wayne impossible, along with the realisation of the visions the creative guys that were just trying to earn their daily bread, as there was no real money in it for those guys, not even enough to pay daily living costs.
@@knyshov It's easy to be a ahead of your competitors tech wise, when you give absolutely no thought to the amount of money you're spending to do so. There did not seem to be any business planning or proper budgeting work being done for this project, at all. Yes, the hardware of the other consoles were inferior to what was in the works here, but those were made with the cost of what developing and producing them would cost in mind, and then how much it could be sold for on the market. That didn't seem to be a concern in this project, it was just add all the features you can, and not worry about the cost. You have to have a realistic business plan to make a project like this work, and mass produce a product on the scale they wanted to, and they didn't seem to have one at all. I don't think the Japanese companies had to do much, they kind of derailed their own project by not making a proper business plan for it.
I went to that PCW Show at Earls Court in 1989, hoping to try out the Konix chair. When I got there on the first public day (I believe the 2 prior days were press only), the chair was there, but I was told by a lady on the stand that due to technical issues, the chair wasn't working, but if I came back the next day, it might be. Imagine my disappointment as I was only there for the day - at least I know that it never worked, so I would have wasted my time going back for the following two days. However, I did bump into the guys from the then new Amiga Format magazine and had a good chat with them and then listened to a salesman telling a punter that Hard Driving could be used to teach people to drive.... hmm I don't remember the 360 loop on my driving test! One other thing is that in 2001-2002, I bought one of those multi-system and controllers off the internet and realised it was the Konix system. I used it a few times and it was pretty poor, so it ended up getting dumped. It was a great idea - I don't know if it would have been successful without some outstanding games. I categorise it along with the Sam Coupé. Great video, as always
The Speed King or XJ 500 here in the states was my favorite joystick ever. I wish we had a chance to get a Konix Multi here. ...well we did get their Jaguar tech, so ...
This thing is impressive even in 2023 honestly. Having a device that could shift so easily into multiple different options AND with a chair like that? I can't believe this was something they almost did in 1989. Just for reference but even in 2022 when I finally got into sim racing having a wheel and pedals was so cool. I know the tech today blows what they had in 1989 out of the water but I'm sure even that limited tech would have felt fun and immersive.
I really feel like if this thing had released the landscape of gaming would be a little bit different than it currently is today
Seeing how this still supported standard-style joysticks, I can't help but be reminded about the last few console generations. You think about the fixation on motion controls and other gimmicks that were really pushed by the manufacturers, but eventually the novelty wore off and developers went back to making games with standard controls and consumers were right there with them. I'm sure that if the Multisystem actually did come out and managed to initially sell well, the number of games supporting the wheel/yoke would of dropped off sharply after a year in favor of basic joystick support. Hell, they would of probably end up releasing a pared-down "lite" version that removed the wheel and would use controllers ports only.
Yeah, I agree, although I suspect VR is here to stay, but I guess that’s more of a shift than just input method.
What a vid. I remember the Konix appearing in CVG and the Complete Guide To Consoles magazines but had no idea about the whole history of it, thanks for making a truly interesting video and a very entertaining dive into gaming history.
"Where did YOU learn. to fly?"
Sitting on a prototype chair spewing dangerous sparks, apparently.
The funny thing is with the emulator, somebody could _today_ get one, reverse-engineer it, gain perms, create a special board for it and create a literal Konix multi-system using an RPi as a base, or maybe Radxa's CM3 if they need more I / O than what a CM4 would provide. It would be easy enough to recreate, that peripheral and it can be modified to host the hardware inside, thus creating a truly luggable experience.
fuck yes....this would be a great build for the MAME crew
Most computers in those days caused arguments about using the TV. Imagine trying to convince your mum to let you have an arcade flight sim contraption in the living room?
That's what I thought too, so few people would want to buy a system with a chair. Even with just the controller was a terrible idea, they could've just sold the controller as a seperate option.
Not to mention the inherent cost.
@@DoubleMonoLR If you think about it, the whole thing came full circle. Started out as a joystick, went through being a console, chair contraption, and then ended up as it began...as a fancy joystick...like most things, it comes down to timing and money. It was ahead of its time and needed finance. The Jaguar shows it would have worked as a platform, but probably wouldn't have been successful due to the scarcity of decent games. It would have been even harder trying to convince people to buy a Jaguar type console in the late 80's at high cost and next to zero games. Even Neo Geo had few owners back then due to the high cost of the console and games. At that time I was buying games for my C64 for £1.99 and £2.99...
As someone who is from Cambridge - this is definitely the first time I've heard Cherry Hinton mentioned in any sort of media haha! My mother and cousin used to do the catering for Clive Sinclair and his employees back in the 80s.
Cheers!
Given how the Arm and Argonaut (Super Fx) chipsets continued to evolve, plus Flare's involvement in the Jaguar, maybe they could have had success at a purely silicon level.
Great video. Excellent editing and editorial. Brilliant work on a very interesting story. Well done!!!
Your research, narration and writing are on a level of its own! Wow! This was very new to me! Awesome! Thank you!
Yes always remember drooling over this hardware in C+VG magazine. Looked amazing especially the switching of controls. What i still find unique about the konix is the bike handle bar controller. We have amazing steering wheels now for games but none for bike games.
Same. It was still hanging around when Mean Machines took off.
In the early iteration it is amazing to see what could be done with the humble z80 - the inventiveness around systems architecture was amazing back then! I guess most chips are designed around modern architecture these days, but it does make me wonder could be achieved with different combinations and designs with modern CPUs and GPUs.
Your videos have always been great, but you have been turning it up to 11 recently - some great subjects, brilliantly researched and presented.
If you think that's what you can do with a z80, imagine what you can do without one weighing the system down. Just a tms34010 or something. Such systems were around, there were a number of specialised systems such as for typesetting and video titles made this way, and the Midway arcade of the early 90s as well.
I had the joystick featured at 0:42 with the red/black stripe motif. It was INCREDIBLE! I can still remember the clicky sounds it made when you moved the joystick, and the positive feedback it provided. The solid steel shaft that ran from the base of the joystick case through the top of the unit guaranteed you wouldn't, COULDN'T ever destroy it like the other cheaper controllers made by Atari and other aftermarket makers. The base was ergonomic, fitting comfortably in one hand, unlike the square base to the original Atari controllers that must have been designed more to fit in a box than for any consideration to the user. It lasted me many years, and I still consider it money well spent. My only regret is that it was not compatible with other video game consoles that came afterwards, especially the SEGA Master System which had also terribly uncomfortable controls.
Amazing work documenting this! I thoroughly enjoyed remembering reading the ACE articles back in the 80s and all the hype surrounding this system. Now that was a fine mag, I miss it. :)
It's a real shame for sure, that we never got to play with the Konix. It really looked good.
I'd say EDGE magazine is the spiritual successor to ACE these days
@@h1ghju1ceI found edge to be so up itself and pretentious as to be a chore to read, ace was a much better read all round.
Fascinating. It brought a tear to my glass eye. Just watched it again, 7 months later. My real eye shed a tear.
I've always wanted to know a bit more about this system than the few snippets I've found online, and this video really delivered.
I really do wonder though if the system would have been released and a great success if they had ditched all of the extra control components that made development quite expensive.
One word that describes everything about this vid... From beginning to end, from Start to Finish, from Nerd to Nerd...
"Brilliant"
Excellent video! I really enjoyed learning more about this system!
As we've seen time and time again. When it comes to game consoles you can have good or even great tech and ambitious goals. But if you don't have the funding to back it all up then it generally ends up all for naught. Such a shame.
While there was plenty of speculation that the Japanese console makers had put pressure on various entities which prevented Konix from securing additional funding. I would guess that funding was cut off in large part because the Multisystem was just too different for its own good. Even by the late 80's in most of the world a game console the primary input device was a joystick or gamepad and a computer used a keyboard. The Multisystem had neither of those as the default. That combined with other factors probably scared a lot of potential funding away. Plus it didn't help that there hadn't been any terribly successful western developed game consoles since the late 70's/early 80's either.
I own a "Super MS-200E" myself, just caught a glimpse of it in the attic while visiting my parents over the holidays (and because Google can read minds, got recommended this video out of the blue shortly after). In Germany, it was sold by ex-shareware-distributor-turned-tripe-seller Pearl Agency, mostly known for their 32-page catalogs that were tacked to the middle of most PC and gaming magazine of the 90s. I think I got it as a birthday present in '93, and was very excited about it! It saw a lot of use in racing games, before it was replaced with a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel. I definitely remember the creaky plastic and cheap feel of it, but unlike other commenters I seem to remember that mine never gave me any trouble. Years later, I coincidentally found out about the Konix Multi-System story behind it online, but I didn't know how close it actually came to being released.
An excellent video! I guess I found another gaming channel I actually like. I like the production value, the pacing, and your very non-RUclips style suitable for watching by grown-ups 😅(pleasing voice, calm demeanor, no eardrum-bursting shouting, and no constant memes or attempted humour).
Fantastic video. The amount of research you must have done is simply mind boggling. I'll admit I was drooling over this console back in the day. So much potential and such a shame it never made it in the end.
Great video, never seen much or really any videos looking at this in any detail. The fact you have one to show is bloody amazing! This was really really good.
A project way too ambitious from what I see in the video. The uncontrolled feature creep doomed this project as the company wanted to build more and more and promised all sorts of things to their investors. A console can be doomed by games alone and this console seemed entirely focused on a loose vision of making a ground breaking console. They could have released this console on their own terms and it could still have been a massive flop due to so many factors.
Agreed... There was a way for a newcomer or one of the big guns to dominate the UK hone compute market, and possibly the world... A do-it-all UK computer that runs most older popular UK computers' software. Spec features a 68008 (used in the QL, cheap 68000 with a cut-down 8 bit bus), 6502 (BBC, C64) and Z80 (Speccy, Amstrads, ++), all running at about 8mHz, instead of lots of custom chips..
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Perhaps 1 ULA + VRAM to drive the screen and provide basic blitter and hardware scrolling, but one of the parallel processing CPUs could do that, especially with a dedicated DMA, shared memory system.. Would have run in emulation or native mode, perhaps being able to switch between modes without a reboot.. Could have also emulated an 8086 via software emulator and eventually re-assembler / recompiler..
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Probably best to ship it with Spectrum and BBC compatibility and get 3rd parties in on developing other emulators and native software that fully utilised its multiple CPUs without the emulator overhead... These were always my thoughts as a kid, stuck with a Sinclair QL... This is what the Sinclair QL should have been... At least a Z80C + 68008, but I wanted a fast, 8mHz 6502 to handle I/O, graphics and sound.. 68008 as the main CPU in native mode as its the most advanced.
Yeah, it's easy to be 'years ahead' if you're offering state of the art technology for a bargain price. But not much of an achievement if you go out of business before the product is even launched. The Japanese consoles were more conservative, but actually had a business model.
@@axi0matic Yup. The chair was a mistake from the get go. Even the controller was a bit of a mistake. They should have shipped the computer in a small form factor/arcade board, then when enough money was coming in, release the controller.
@@j.d.6915 The only thing with making the transforming controller optional is that then only part of the user base has it. Developers would need to decide whether to support it or not, which leads to a chicken and egg situation (like Kinect on the X360).
Aside from cost though, the controller would have required a desk to put it on, making it awkward to use on a sofa. It's true that in Europe, people were used to using home computers on a desk. But as consoles became popular, gamepads were much more living room friendly.
@@PrivateSi You should look up the SAM Coupe, it went down the route you're describing, was compatible with Spectrum software but more powerful.
This video was awesome! I have read some articles about the Konix Multiststem, but this is the first time everything has been gathered together. Thank-you and Happy New Year!
AMAZING documentary! I was reading about the Multisystem just a few days ago, and wondering if someone had done a "deep dive" on the system. Stop reading my mind! 😂
Lady Decade had made about a video about it last month so I was also kinda like wait I just recently saw this.
Hope all is well I've loved this channel's content for a long time now. Hope things are safe and good.
it would have flopped hard and changed nothing. Feature creep made it impossible. The controler without the chair could have been a good idea...if it works well.
Fascinating. I thought they had similar problems, than the later Atari Jaguar, which was my first console. Briefly after: "The Jaguar was basically Flare 2". Lol. Yeah, it didn't have enough support. Developers apparently had a hard time getting accustomed to the system. Games got stalled a lot, and many early games were more like ones for SNES, but more expensive and on a more expensive console.
Their trouble with financing was more based on the open storage structure with 3.5 diskettes as their main media. It would of been a software pirates' dream console. They also admitted to the fact they were not seeking any type of what we now know as DRM. You can easily see why this information would get to the financiers and cause some concern. Since backing this project would be tanking many of the others in the market also with loans.
I love your channel. Thanks for another fantastic video! Just one thing, though… 16:10 Foul on the play: Redundant use of “bespoke” (twice in 12”). Loss of down, ten yard penalty. 🏈
Seriously, though, this is a masterpiece. What a time to be alive. Thank you for help us to remember those heady days! We are in your debt, sir.
This system has always fascinated me. Sounds like it suffered from repeated feature creep to the point of not knowing when to stop.
Nah. Features are good. The main issue was... there were not games worthy of attracting investment and enough interest. Look at the partially working examples of the flight game. It looks horrible. Both in graphical look, as well as in movement. If they could have made the graphics and gameplay that was far more similar to Afterburner II... they would have had a much larger level of Demand.
Not hiring quality artists, and not getting quality games in development fast enough... is what make any investors legs shaky.
Porting pre-existing, old computer games... was not Impressive, and a huge waste of time and resources. And Jeff Minters game.. is more of an ugly chaotic Tech Demo, than an actual polished game, IMO.
One can look at Sega, for a very similar issue in the Console wars. Sega's Master System had somewhat superior hardware to the NES... however... The NES has Super Mario Bros as a pack-in. Anyone that played 5 min worth of SMB... was totally HOOKED... and HAD to have that system. The NES also had a buttload of other decent games... both from their own development teams, as well as 3rd party companies. Where as Sega had almost no 3rd party support... and the games that were developed by segas smaller teams... tended to produce lackluster games. (though, there are a few excellent Gems, that really shine)
THE TECHNOLOGY was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
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Awesome work. Congrats to the team.
The concept of the transforming controller was also attempted by Sony on the PS3 Move Racing Wheel, a much better controller than people give it credit for. Probably some inspiration taken from this controller.
I could absolutely believe Nintendo would Bully Banks to prevent them from helping their competitors get started. I don't know about the UK but in the United States antitrust enforcement has always been extremely weak. It usually takes a lawsuit from another nearly equally powerful company to get anything done
Nintendo supposedly strong-armed major toy retailers with threats of withholding shipments if they carried any competitors to a point where a local pawn shop became the only place in town to buy new releases for Turbografx for a while.
This story has odes to the original spec for the Turbo-duo (my choice for next generation console) being able to run some Apple software, but was delayed and ultimately abandoned with a NEC warehouse fire.
In the UK Nintendo wasn't all that big until the SNES though, so I question whether they could have thrown enough weight around to cut off all avenues of funding. The video game crash didn't happen in the UK and home computers dominated gaming in the '80s, with the NES being very much an also-ran. The gaming market was quite different to that in the US.
@@Silanda true but I find it hard to believe Sega would play hardball like that. Not because they're Angels but because they're just not very good at it. The only other company with the wait to do that was NEC and they were ignoring the entire rest of the world besides Japan. Even in the United States they didn't put much effort into pushing the turbo graphics 16. I could see Nintendo using the possibility that they were going to be a large customer at a bank though. Remember the super Nintendo was right around the corner and they would have been getting ready for a huge push into the country. New customers often have more clout than existing customers
@@jeremygregorio7472 Thing is, we don't really know what the truth was. Konix were blaming Japanese companies for sabotaging them, but we don't know what their financials were really like, what the estimated profit margin for each system was, etc. Who knows, maybe they already had a significant debt load, the margins were thin, and their bank was just unwilling to risk millions more to fund full scale production. It wouldn't be the first time that a company blamed their rivals for sabotaging them when the reality was more mundane.
Antitrust laws would hit USA FIRST if it was enforced, US trade deals force counries like China to not only BUILD your children's toys, but take the massive amunts of trash USA produces and ultimately just burn them, into Chinese atmosphere. American samoa is forced to take in masses of low quality meat from the US so health hipsters could have all the best parts, while local FOOD production can't compete, so that's basiacaly the same as the recycled trash scam, it all ought to jsut be burned even when it would ruin the local air quality, US overproduction creates so much of this gunk. Just to artificially lower food prices in the US and play capitalist anyway.
The nintendo products strongarmed into exclusive deals have an exclusive deal strongarming them to be sold IN USA at all, because USA threatens to crash the markets of entire countries if the're not treated like Nintendo treats Walmart. The whole MO of nintendo is to get some profits back in return from USA, it's an exceptionally west facing company in the Japanese landscape. They've gone a long way adjusting to America's total war model and attacks agaisnt civilians and industry, instead of military property and bases like it was more common in imperial societies.
If you want a powerful company, you already get a free vote in ONE. And everyone who looks can see what you voted them to do, that is the real face of democracy and the heroes who spread its ideology.
The story of this game system reminds me of the story of Jodorowsky's Dune. A masterpiece that never came to fruition, yet influenced the industry for years to come.
Perhaps if they had been a bit more hush during the development phase and gotten their ducks in a row before going full monty on the product, they could have thwarted any outside fuckery from the competition. Your best mini doc yet though sir, well done! Well done indeed!
I'm guessing that Commodore and others didn't like the sound of it, a machine that was twice the power but nearly half the cost of their own products. So they most likely had it quietly throttled behind the scenes.
Every time I see something about this consol, I always feel sad at the missed opportunity.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Interesting show! I learned a lot. That said, I'm not buying some the speculation. I find it VERY difficult to believe that "Japan" got the funding pulled for this....that's a tough one to swallow. It looks more like an iffy business model and iffy hardware in a crowded market might be the culprit there. I'm also not convinced this would blow the other 16 bit machines out of the water...that's TOTAL speculation. This thing was barely touched by anyone, and it already have a rep for being difficult to program on. I don't think ANYONE believe this "super peripheral" chair/steering wheel gimmick would make it...I think there is a ZERO percent chance. The control was interesting, even innovative, but not something to base hardware around! Now, if you'd said "Hey, it's like the Nintendo Wii but years earlier", that'd i'd buy..but to consider the Konix this long lost mega system that would have changed home gaming....naw...no way.
I don't want/do skip your ad's even anymore, you are a professional professional.
Who's the "this is a chair" lady@9:41?
LOL that would me
The Moon Tapestry in the background is available on Amazon.
10:48 a glitch in the matrix?
Amazing show.. I enjoy learning about what was going on behind the scenes.
As someone who once developed 6-dof seats, I knew it was going to be doomed after hearing the seat belt idea. These seats remain a solution in search of a problem.
Ponderous... Why the correlation - [needless cost] mindset or [other]?
What seats did you work on and how would you sum up your contemporaneous experience as well as your retrospection?
Now this is the sort of old tech deep dives I originally came to this channel for! More please!
C H A I R
I definitely did not expect to feel as sad as I did by the end of this video to see a failed console - what a shame, it would have been lovely to see this thing actually in action
I was 12, buying these magazines and even then i could sense 'mission creep'. Along with the fact the graphics really don't look much better than a juiced up C64 with nicer colours. If it could shift polygons, certainly no games seemed to show it. And those racing games are abysmal. I realise the Amiga A500 was twice the price, but in my school, half the computer kids were getting them for christmas, and once you'd seen Blood Money, F/A 18 interceptor and Lotus Turbo Challenge, this looked well behind the times. Anyway, most people wanted beat em ups and platform games, rather than racing.
just checked - A500 batman pack was released Autumn 1989. And half my friends got one. As soon as I saw one in action, i could hardly believe it. The Americans had arrived.
As an American born in 82, it’s always fascinating to learn more about this whole solar system of computer/console things you had going on in the UK, most of which we never heard of, or maybe you’d have that one kid whose uncle had a commodore or something, and he might know about one or two of them
This is a great video!!! And then again recently I've been reading about people grabbing multi-figures monthly as incomes in investments even in this crazy days in the stock market.
Any pointers on how to make substantial progress in earning, cus it would be much appreciated.
The best piece of advice would be to not put too much in cryptocurrencies. Most have no actual use except for those who are already wealthy to pump and dump.
And I understand that you've got to have an Idea on what you wanna invest in carefully before going in.
Mrs Alice is legit and her method works good, I keep on earning every single week with her new trading strategy....
I have made good profits from my investment in cryptocurrency since I started trading with Mrs Alice. And that’s part of my passive income…
I remember reading exciting stuff about the Konix Multisystem in magazines like C&VG and ACE, but then it just vanished, like many hyped-up systems did in those days. Awesome information, the QOS machine!! No idea that an early chipset was actually produced and used in pub quiz machines, or the obscure connections to Jaguar! I also remember the pictures of that long haired hippy guy sitting the chair, but had no idea it was Jeff Minter, explains a lot though as i remember him being involved in the NUON technology.
THE TECHNOLOGY was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
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I guess you made to much money on patreon.since you havent put anything out in over months
That technical trick of having two alternate memory maps for video graphics, allowing 1 video map to B displayed while the other (hidden) video map was in the process of being rendered before switching maps, was a method also used by game / graphics programmers on the Apple II platform to enable smoothly animated sequences in "hi-res" graphics mode.
The 2 video maps were known as "pages" & switching the video output from 1 page to the other was known as "flipping" -- so unsurprisingly the method was commonly known as "page flipping" & became something of a gold standard for animated graphics on Apple II systems.
Konix Speedking was my weapon of choice for playing on my Amiga back in the day.
I don't think I've ever used a RUclips sponsor link before today, but I happily signed up for Readly! I love magazines and reading them on my tablet is great. Big thanks for having a sponsor that is something actually really cool! The video is great too lol
A z80 based system that could rival the Amiga... Dream on, the z80 was an 8-bit, 8mHz chip from 1976 that had no place as the CPU of a computer as late as 1989. Four custom chips, well, the Amiga had custom chips too, and more importantly, was built around the Motorola 68000, which was many times faster then the z80 and had an upgrade path., whereas the z80 was a dead end - no faster, more advanced variants were to come. Seems to me these guys came up with an iterative improvement on the Spectrum rather than something really worthwhile. I had several Konix joysticks, good designs but utter crap build quality, which was why I ended up having several of them - they broke and had to be replaced.
Love listening to these long videos in the back ground while cleaning the house. Let's me remember my nerdy self while getting shit done. Keep up the great work my friend!!
For me : Saturday morning on headphones while eating breakfast, we’ll done NN.
The second you held up that board, I knew exactly what it was - a COBRA 1 board. I worked at Bell Fruit's sister company but would visit the Nottingham factory very often. BFM (latterly Bell Fruit Games) were incredibly innovative and even pioneered the use of capacitive touch screens in gaming. I'll name check Paul Arnold, Martin Burgess, Chris Padwick, Pete Farrell among others who really pushed the boundaries of what coin op gambling could do. They closed the factory a few years back but I am incredibly lucky to have worked alongside them. It was a really education in software, hardware, electrical engineering, R&D, sound, graphics....the list goes on. I'll write a book about it one day. Cheers.
Love watching this stuff. I developed games for Gremlin Graphics in that era and I had friends in the other companies mentioned in your video. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic video!! The work you put into it is impressive !
We miss you , how are you doing??
Really ace video. I've met Jeff Minter a few times and he was absolutely gutted this failed. It was truly ground breaking stuff at the time. Love all your content too, been on a bit of a binge of it lately and it's all great and well produced! Nice to see other RUclipsrs I like turn up too! :D
Jeff minter has a track record of developing games for failed consoles or games that never come out. He does great stuff just seems to be unlucky.
Reminds me of a competition run in an early eighties magazine called 'TV Gamer' where you were asked to design a console for the future. Most of the entries seemed to feature multiple cartridge slots enabling you to play games from each of the leading systems - Atari, Coleco, Intellivision and Vectrex. They tended to include the various controllers from each system as well.
I had a music machine. The advert "At £50, Fairlight ought to be a little worried", sold me. and apart from the speccy,s tiny memory rather limiting your sampling options......it was great.
This was WAY ahead of its time. Great video! The history and story behind it all is really interesting.
Excellent video. Pretty sure like Nostalgia Nerd in 1988/89 if you were a UK gamer in your early to mid teens, had a Speedking or Navigator so were aware of the Konix brand and read ACE magazine, you’d be hyped for this. I have one of those Multi System controllers and have thought about mocking it up to look like a Konix a few times! If you could get that emulator running on a Raspberry PI and tuck it inside, you’d have the real deal - without the chair of course! I’m pretty sure had it made it to retail, it would never have surpassed the ST/Amiga market, or the incoming Mega Drive market as the games just wouldn’t have been as good, but who knows…
I bought an Amiga 1000, a week after they hit the market. Before I retired it several years later I had hacked in double memory, a 68030 processor, and a scsi controller. Hearing the capabilities of this console compared to the Amiga was a real eyeopener. I come from a hardware background and always loved the point at which the hardware and the software came together. I lived for clock timing charts and programing in hex. I miss it to this day.
Thank-you for creating this. I saw the Konix console at the PCW Show and I was amazed. I’ve always wanted to know what happened to it.
THE TECHNOLOGY was used in Atari Jaguar. So this amazing console did eventually get released (and largely ignored & flopped)
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another killer video. good job.
Great video, this section of gaming history missed me but I do remember the controller itself and those clunky joysticks! To live in the 80s and 90s was an honour :)
Another brilliant video, documenting forgotten videogame history. Peter, you are my retro Wikipedia.
Great video.
I remember seeing an article in C+VG around 1989 when I was a kid. My thoughts were just "my parents will never buy me that chair" and "that racing game doesn't look as good as the games on my Master System".
Seeing that game moving it looks fast and smooth, but this was the era where to really impress it would have to look like Out Run or Power Drift. The graphics were way too sparse in stills.
Contrast with the stills from PC Engine games, where they looked almost as good as the arcade, despite being less technically impressive for those in the know.