FC compact

Overview

I bought from the Cash Generator in Yarmouth (UK) a Famicom clone called FC compact for £29.99 (~$39); I could tell just by looking at the box it was a clone system. As already mention, The Family Computer, or Famicom, is effectively the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that us Westerners are used to. Note that due to expired Nintendo patents it’s legal to sell Famicom clones but not with built-in ROMs that you do not have the rights to (which most likely is case for the FC compact).

We will start by looking at the box as follows:

Of the English present on the box it mentions 'vintage', 'Fc Naruto 30' and '88 game', but no mention of Nintendo (which alone indicates that it's a clone system).

Taking a look at the box contents (see below), in the box is the console, 2 controllers and a 132 in 1 cart (not 88 as suggested on the box unless it means 88 unique games). Under the packaging can be found a 9VDC/1A SMPS travel charger (seems to be the original charger based on other pictures online) and a composite red/white/yellow phono lead (this is really cheaply made and should be replaced otherwise you may have problems getting the console to work). Unfortunately no instruction manual was included and must have been lost by the original owner.

The FC Compact does very much look like an original Famicom at quick glance but there are a number of clues that show it is not an original.

The 2 controllers, one marked 'I' and the other 'II' look like original Famicom controllers but have turbo buttons in addition to the standard two non-turbo buttons, and the second controller lacks the microphone and microphone volume slider, and has select and start buttons even though on an original Famicom the player 2 controller does not have such buttons. The controller wire comes out a different side for each controller so that when placed in the slots on the console the wires run the same way. However, on an original Famicom the controllers are wired into the console and are not easily removable.

The supplied cartridge specifies '132 in 1' and lists all the games it has built-in but in Japanese. On the back of the cart are the usual warnings but the first mention of 'cartridge' is spelt without an 'i' and on the 3rd warning 'not' is spelled as 'noe'. Looking up at the cart connectors you can see a single IC on a small PCB.

Looking at the photo above, you can see that the controllers aren't wired to the system like an actual Famicom and instead has 2 'Atari' 9-pin controller connectors at the front, with a red power LED on the front (an original Famicom does not have a power light), and no peripheral port on the front that the original Famicom had. The FC compact does have the 'FAMILY COMPUTER' branding that an original Famicom would have although without mention of Nintendo. Also, like a genuine Famicom, the FC compact has a latching power switch (left) and push button reset switch (right), with Chinese writing and arrow pointing to each switch (not very clear in the photo). The text most likely mirrors the original Famicom instructing the user to power off the system when changing the cartridge and to push the indicated button for restart.

Continuing with the similarities to an original Famicom, the FC compact has a flap covering the cartridge port and a large lever that can be pushed up to help release an inserted cart. Like an original Famicom the clone has a space either side to hold the controllers which is still useful even though the controllers are detachable.

At the back of the console (see below) is a DC6V barrel jack input socket and indeed you can run the system off 6V instead of the included 9V power supply as the console uses a regulator internally and thus can tolerate 9V input from the power supply. One advantage of using 6V is that only 30mA is drawn instead of 110mA when 9V is used, a side effect of using a Zener diode based voltage regulator. Interestingly, my bench power supply reports that the same amount of current is drawn whether the power switch is on or off so the power switch is likely some form of 'soft' switch that puts the system into run mode.

Also at the back of the console are 3 phono sockets for A/V (although stereo audio connections are provided, internally both audio channels are connected together as a real Famicom outputs mono audio only).

Lastly, there is a date sticker of 2017, suggesting the clone was made recently, perhaps to cash in on the Famicom mini (hence FC Compact) even though the clone is a similar size to the original Famicom.

On the back of the console (see below) there is text which says 'FC COMPACT', 'MODEL No:RS-35', ‘CoolBaby’ and 'RenShun technology co., Ltd'. Note: there are other versions of the FC Compact, such as the FC Compact II which has better sound emulation.

Oddly, an input voltage of 9V-500mA is specified, on the underside of the FC Compact, contradicting what is written above the power connector (DC6V). Lastly, it's worth mentioning that there looks to be a screw hole (bottom left) perhaps for securing something underneath but its use is unknown.

I tried many times to get the console to work with the 132 in 1 cart inserted but although the TV detected an NTSC signal there wasn't a clear picture. Since it is a clone and I figured it may even have games built in I powered on without the cart and sure enough I was presented with a menu prompting me to select Chinese or English (see image below). After selecting English I now had an option to select 1 of 500 games. These games look to be a number of legit games as well as hacks (typically Mario transplanted into a different game), as well as modern games ported to the system, such as Angry birds. Unfortunately, the video signal is poor with banding but better than the RF connection provided by the original Famicom.

Now to look at some screen captures; my Elgato capture card did not like the NTSC signal from the FC compact so I connected the FC compact AV output to a composite to HDMI upscaler and then connected its HDMI output to my Elgato and that worked. So the screens look wide but reflect what I see on my TV.

The first screenshot is of the language select screen that you are greeted with when the FC Compact starts up; the language select only affects the game select screen text. Use d-pad up/down to select a language and start to pick the selected language.

Note the 'banding' of the red background, which is less visible on other screens.

Next up is the game select screen; direction up/down moves through the game selection menu and start begins that game (as far as I can tell there is no way to exit a game; you must press the reset button on the FC Compact).

The background of the game select screen looks to be from the title screen of Super Mario Bros 3. A few quirks are visible; the arrow used to select the game has a glitch where when it reaches the last game on the page (game 8 in the example above) it overrides the graphics below it. Also, you can see below at the right the hills are almost completely cut off which is possibly because each game name is treated as fixed length and where there are spaces in the name is an actual character which overrides the graphics below it (even though it should be transparent).

Although the FC compact has many hacked ROMs built-in, it does have some legit games such as Tetris, of which the title screen can be seen below:

As for hacks, Angry Marionao is an example (a harder version of SMB), with the title showing in the screenshot that follows. Note that the white patch on the cloud top left is normal for the hack.

Let's now take a look inside the FC Compact which can be done by removing the 6 screws on the underside. In the photo that follows you can see that there are 3 boards:

The top board (labelled 'HB-TV-V1.O') is home to the A/V and power connectors; power in is regulated using a simple Zener diode circuit to output about 5V to the middle board. Speaking of the middle board (marked as 'NJ-SN33-V1.1') it has a Chip on board which presumably handles emulating the Famicom. The bottom board (identified as 'HB-KG-V1.1') has the reset and power switches soldered on, as well as the 2 controller ports and power LED with limiting resistor (note how awkwardly the power LED has been bent). The boards have what looks to be flux residue on them and especially the large ribbon cable connecting the middle and bottom boards has been soldered poorly.

Testing shows that the power switch doesn't actually cut power (must act as some kind of activate signal to the main IC) and this means that even with the power switch off but the power supply plugged in, inserting a cartridge could damage it as there would be current flowing through the cartridge port power pins. Thus to be on the safe side, before inserting or removing a cartridge you should power off and remove the power supply from the console as the power supply will otherwise continue to provide current for a short while if recently connected to the mains.

The normally hidden side of the middle board can be viewed below:

As well as the cartridge port exposed the only other interesting component is the single IC which is a S29GL256, which is a 32MB NOR flash chip, and likely contains the 500 games and game select interface.

Returning to the 132 in 1 cartridge, it can be opened up by carefully pulling it apart as it is held together with 4 clips (official Famicom carts are very difficult to take apart by hand). This is what the PCB looks like:

Top left there are 2 diodes in series which drop the main power connection to 3.6V for the IC, S29GL064, which is an 8MB NOR flash chip, similar to what the FC Compact itself uses.

Looking now at the controllers in more detail there are four screws that need to be removed and then the plastic pieces can be separated. There is a single PCB with markings HB-JOY 20151009 (suggesting it was manufactured in 2015) and XYZ-324, the contacts for the buttons and a COB. Wires to the PCB from the lead are very poorly soldered.

I worked out the pinout for the controller but firstly this is the numbering I used by looking at the female DE9 controller connector:

5 4 3 2 1

9 8 7 6

This is the pinout, the colours refer to the controller wiring, which may vary.

1 N/C

2 white DATA

3 blue LATCH

4 brown CLK

5 N/C

6 red VCC 4.4V

7 N/C

8 yellow GND

9 N/C

I measured that LATCH is high for 3.4uS, CLK is high for 500nS and low for 11.2uS, and when a button is pressed the DATA signal goes low for 24uS, which is different timing to an original Famicom. The pinout is common for Famicom clones (perhaps due to a common manufacturer), allowing the FC Compact controllers to be used on other Famicom clones such as the Home Game Computer and Power player (please see the various sections on this page for more information about those clones).

I made a video about the FC Compact which you can view below:

Other versions

There is at least a second version of the FC Compact, the FC Compact II, an improved version over the original model but with no built in games. The FC Compact II's controllers have the A, B and turbo A and B buttons aligned on top of each other (as opposed to the diamond shaped configuration for the first model) and it has English instructions stickers for the power and reset buttons on the console unlike with the previous model which had the instructions embossed on plastic in Chinese. Please see this video for a look at the FC Compact II (not my video):

Resources

Further reading about the FC Compact:

https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/FC_Compact

All content of this and related pages is copyright (c) James S. 2020-2021