About the Fujitsu Ten FM-Towns Car Marty (V /10/22)

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About the Fujitsu Ten FM-Towns Car Marty (V1.0 2006/10/22) Introduction More and more people know about the FM-Towns Marty from Fujitsu.

It was sold by a subsidiary company of Fujitsu : Fujitsu Ten. Only crazy geeks like me (outside of Japan) possess a Marty 1 or 2.

1 About the Fujitsu Ten FM-Towns Car Marty (V /10/22) Introduction More and more people know about the FM-Towns Marty from Fujitsu. It was the first 32-bit console, and had multimedia capabilities, a revolution in itself which never spread outside of Japan. But do you know about its little brother, the Car Marty? It was sold by a subsidiary company of Fujitsu : Fujitsu Ten. Only crazy geeks like me (outside of Japan) possess a Marty 1 or 2. When I found mine on ebay, it was shipped with another Marty, a thing called Car Marty. At this time, I didn t know about it, and didn t even suspect that I was such a lucky guy. When I asked about it on the forums, people replied : A WHAT?! You watched Back to the Future too much *. Only 2 or 3 sites talked about this strange beast, less had pictures of it. This article will try to explain everything I know about it, but many parts remain in the shadow, getting information about this system is a bit like searching the Seven Cities of Gold! * guess the name of the teenage hero in Back to the Future, with the nice Delorean car? Mmh? Warning! If your hands are clumsy, don t even try to touch that screw driver! This article shows dangerous things for the health of your Car Marty. I reject any responsibility in case of accidents, hardware problems, etc. I had to translate many forbidden documents written in Japanese, contact many people, often for nothing. My own Car Marty was crucified and dissected to provide hi-res pictures. Some of my best infiltrated agents died to provide information about this secret system. My wife cursed me because of the long hours passed testing and writing and scanning and by Crom, it was worth it! V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 1 / 29

2 Table of contents About the Fujitsu Ten FM-Towns Car Marty (V /10/22) 1 Introduction 1 Warning! 1 Table of contents 2 Quick view of the FM-Towns Car Marty 3 It s a bird It s a plane No it s a BIG brother! 3 Overview 4 How to connect the Car Marty 6 Exclusive! 6 Car and Home use : the cable(s) 8 The multi-connector pinout 9 How to connect in my car? 10 Pictures of car accessories 11 How to connect at home - the official version 13 The unofficial (and cheaper) way to connect at home 14 Unmounting the unit 19 Exclusive! 19 Screws and plastic : nude content! 19 The Car Marty menu 23 Looking into the ROMs 25 ROMs dump 25 Content of the ROMs 26 Where can I get mine? 28 The end 29 Nobody s perfect 29 Big thanks to : 29 Useful web links : 29 V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 2 / 29

Quick view of the FM-Towns Car Marty It s a bird It s a plane No it s a BIG brother! THIS is a Marty 1.

It was the first 32-bit home video game system, and had a CD-ROM and disk drive built in. It was based on the FM Towns computer system Fujitsu had released in 1989.

I have to add the presence of an early PCMCIA card reader to this description! But Why showing a Marty 1, when this article is supposed to talk about the Car Marty?

3 Quick view of the FM-Towns Car Marty It s a bird It s a plane No it s a BIG brother! THIS is a Marty 1. Here is what you can find in Wikipedia : The FM Towns Marty was a video game console released in 1991 by Fujitsu, exclusively for the Japanese market. It was the first 32-bit home video game system, and had a CD-ROM and disk drive built in. It was based on the FM Towns computer system Fujitsu had released in The Marty was backwardcompatible with the older FM Towns games. The second system, the FM Towns Marty 2, featured an updated processor (486) and internet connectivity. I have to add the presence of an early PCMCIA card reader to this description! But Why showing a Marty 1, when this article is supposed to talk about the Car Marty? It s because the Car Marty is the car version of the Marty (which in comparison is the home version) It was a multimedia player, and what s more, used an early version of the well-known GPS system to provide navigation features (the maps were on CD-ROMS, for Japan only). Just know that this Marty version is very uncommon, it was called The Most Expensive Consumer VG System Ever by people on the News servers. On this photo taken from Yahoo! Auctions (Japan), you can see TWO Car Marty!!! A rare sight V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 3 / 29

Overview This is the front of the Car Marty.

You can find here : The CD-ROM drive (no tray, the Car Marty eats the disc The Eject button, to get back your CD The Reset

Memory Card reader (an early version of PCMCIA), only used as data storage. Now, the back side.

4 Overview This is the front of the Car Marty. The Car Marty is entirely grey with touches of black, white, red and yellow here an there. You can find here : The CD-ROM drive (no tray, the Car Marty eats the disc The Eject button, to get back your CD The Reset button, to soft boot the unit Two Atari-style joystick ports, in which you can plug a joystick or a Marty-compatible mouse An IC Memory Card reader (an early version of PCMCIA), only used as data storage. Now, the back side. There are : A DC 12V connector, for home use A Power button, to switch on the unit A Keyboard connector, for home use A Floppy disk connector, in which you can plug an external floppy drive (home use) Finally, a strange connector, more about it later V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 4 / 29

visible inside the handle hides a big red screw,

Maybe a system to protect the CD drive during

3 led indicators : o Power if your unit is on o Disc

the unit, scratches to attach a plastic holder (not

5 Now the upper part. You can see here : A handle The little round thing visible inside the handle hides a big red screw, which I could never discover the real use. Maybe a system to protect the CD drive during transport? In this case, mine doesn t work. 3 led indicators : o Power if your unit is on o Disc for the CD-ROM drive activity o Card to verify the IC Memory card activity The bottom. Nothing interesting here, you can find the legs of the unit, scratches to attach a plastic holder (not shown here), and stickers. The official model number is MVP-10, my own serial number is V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 5 / 29

6 How to connect the Car Marty Exclusive! Here, you will find fantastic stuff, found nowhere else on the internet : instructions about how to connect the unit, home-made cables for home use, advices. I contacted directly Fujitsu Ten by to ask about a more than 10 years old product. Two month later, a guy called Morio Yamaguchi was kind enough to provide some information. I can t resist sharing with you his answer : Dear Parazythum, First of all, thank you for visiting Fujitsu Ten's web site for your inquiry. Now I reply you as follows; Car Marty was made for Japan in (Yes, Car Marty is an old product as you are aware.) Therefore, the spare parts and optional-kits are not available any more, even in Japan. However, what Fujitsu Ten is able to do for you now is to provide " how to wire it? " as attached PDF file. It's written in Japanese only, but I have added the simple English translation for you. And I'd better mention for your reference that; - AC/DC adapter for home-use is only for Japanese domestic purpose only ( Input: AC 100V ). Please DO NOT plug in to European AC-outlet(AC 220V). - Car Marty has function of Car-Navigation. To perform Car Marty as Car-Navigation system, you need to insert a CD-Map into Car Marty. The CD-Map for Car Marty is also for Japanese domestic purpose only, and is not available any more. But, you can utilize your Car Marty as the CD-player if you have the multi-connector for home-use or car-use. I wish these info will be helpful for you. Again thank you for getting an interest in Fujitsu Ten. With Kind Regards, Morio Yamaguchi V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 6 / 29

7 The PDF file in question consisted in a (bad) scan of an instructions manual, handwritten numbers on it, and for each number a translation or comment. With this document I could decipher many things, and first of all I could (at last!) power on correctly the unit!!! You will find the reworked, English translated version in the following pages. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 7 / 29

Car and Home use : the cable(s) Yes, what you see on the left is only one

(a multi-connector) On the upper-left side, is the plug which goes into the

From this unique plug, will be connected the power source, the audio and

You could buy an ACD-1 Home Use Optional Kit, but I found a way to use the

8 Car and Home use : the cable(s) Yes, what you see on the left is only one cable! (a multi-connector) On the upper-left side, is the plug which goes into the strange connector on the back of the Car Marty. From this unique plug, will be connected the power source, the audio and video extensions. You could buy an ACD-1 Home Use Optional Kit, but I found a way to use the car connector for this purpose. If you don t possess this cable, you can t use your Car Marty. Please stop reading this article :) Seriously, the connector is so specific, I couldn t find a replacement. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 8 / 29

The multi-connector pinout This is what I

9 The multi-connector pinout This is what I could test. You will learn the use of each cable in the following pages. Presented here is the plug of the multi-connector cable, not the connector on the back side of the unit! V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 9 / 29

10 How to connect in my car? A picture is better than words : * Connect to audio input such as Audio compo or TV # Parking brake signal cable (Red/White) is needed to connect to the signal for the parking brake by using the attached short connector Comments : The Navi Pad is a kind of specific joystick for the Car Marty (with only one hand you can use the unit, which is a good thing in a car, eh?) I couldn t find anywhere information about the little monitor used to visualize what s happening Nor could I find what the hell is an Alpha 8000 AV I never connected my Car Marty in a car, I don t have a monitor How does it work in a car? For navigation : you insert the PCMCIA card in the slot, the Navi-CD in the CD-ROM drive, you plug in the GPS antenna, the Navi Pad, the monitor, and you re ready to go! For music use : you plug in the Navi Pad and just insert an audio CD! The Navi Pad is then used as a remote control. Audio playback is automatic when you have an audio CD in and power up the unit. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 10 / 29

11 Pictures of car accessories The big box containing all you need for car use! (the NVK-1A Navigation Kit) The PCMCIA card, the battery and led (?) to use with it. The GPS antenna. The Navi Pad. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 11 / 29

Another model of GPS antenna, the GPS receiver and the Alpha 8000 AV.

Don t think about using your GPS antenna and your NaviSoft CD, this system doesn t work

I m even wondering if it could work now, the GPS technology has evolved since the 90 s.

12 Another model of GPS antenna, the GPS receiver and the Alpha 8000 AV. An example of navigation CD ( NaviSoft ). Don t think about using your GPS antenna and your NaviSoft CD, this system doesn t work outside of Japan. I m even wondering if it could work now, the GPS technology has evolved since the 90 s. This is the reason why you won t get a review of the navigation system in this article. (if a Japanese reader wants to contribute contact me) Another example of Navigation CD : Ski Paradise!!! V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 12 / 29

13 How to connect at home - the official version This is the solution with the optional ACD-1 kit. Comments : The ACD-1 kit will be more difficult to find than the Car Marty itself (goooooood luck!) so don t expect using one without a big amount of money The Navi Pad is a kind of specific joystick for the Car Marty any Marty compatible joystick will be a good replacement (and is better to play games!) For home use, you can also plug a Marty mouse (or a second joystick) PLUS the optional floppy drive, but I can t imagine the price of such a device!!! Alas, a floppy drive is essential to launch many games Think about the AC/DC converter, don t fry your unit! In France for example, you have to find a converter from 220v to 12v. More about it later The best result for video is obtained with the S-Video connector You d better have a good multiscan TV : I don t know exactly the frequencies of the video signal. My own TV is multistandard (PAL, NTSC, and SECAM) and multifrequencies capable. Coming from Japan, it must be NTSC, though With all the options installed, the Car Marty is the perfect equivalent of a home Marty you can play exactly the same games. The only difference is the welcome screen and the CD player program V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 13 / 29

The unofficial (and cheaper) way to connect

& VIDEO ) The power supply (connect to the

14 The unofficial (and cheaper) way to connect at home The cables You only need three things to replace the ACD-1 kit!!! You can see on the picture : The Audio cable (connect to AUDIO STEREO ) The home-made video cable (connect to AUDIO MONO & VIDEO ) The power supply (connect to the rear of the unit) Soldering required! V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 14 / 29

out the connector you need from another cable, just think about leaving enough cable

15 The audio cable This is the result. You can easily find the already-made cable, or you can solder your own (not necessarily cheaper!) For the soldering solution you need : 2 cinch male connectors (also called RCA) 1 female jack (3.5mm) connector stereo cable (right and left channel, ground) Of course, you can cut out the connector you need from another cable, just think about leaving enough cable to solder. Here is the stereo jack connector pinout. Right is always the smallest, Left the biggest pin. Just solder as told on the picture above. Remember that : Right = Red = the small pin (jack connector) Left = White = the little pin V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 15 / 29

You have to find, for this one : 1 yellow cinch (RCA) male connector 1 female jack (3.5mm) connector Here is the pinout for the male cinch.

16 The video cable If there is a ready-made solution, I don t know the name! I found the right combination by hit-andmisses on my TV. I didn t even try to do it with the S-Video cable, too complicated. Prepare yourself, once again, to solder. You have to find, for this one : 1 yellow cinch (RCA) male connector 1 female jack (3.5mm) connector Here is the pinout for the male cinch. The Signal pin is connected to the tip. Only two wires to solder this time. Connect the Signal wire to the smallest pin of the jack connector (would be the Right channel for stereo). You can cut out the other pin if you want. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 16 / 29

I m not on to I am on but I won t start the CD drive The connector is standard.

17 The power supply On the left is a converter from AC 220V to DC-12V. Be careful : Set your DC voltage to 12V exactly (no less, no more) The Car Marty needs a 1200 ma output with less, the unit will have strange behaviors, from I m not on to I am on but I won t start the CD drive The connector is standard. You can find converters with exchangeable connectors You won t easily find such a converter, due to the big value of the output amperage Be careful : as shown on the back of the unit, you have to set the right polarity on your power supply : center is negative, ring is positive. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 17 / 29

18 Options A Marty Mouse. You can try to use it in your car, but I won t guarantee the result! A Marty Pad. A good replacement for the Navi Pad at home. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 18 / 29

19 Unmounting the unit Exclusive! Never the Car Marty was shown with such details already. But I wanted to go farther. I want to show it to you like never you will probably see it : get your screw drivers (you need two sorts of Philips type, little and very little ones), let s play surgeons. I had to open my unit because when I received it, the CD-ROM drive did not work : the CD-ROMs wouldn t be admitted in the interior. After many hours, I deciphered the drive mechanism, and Alleluia! the Car Marty was working like new. *Whew* it was only mechanical Screws and plastic : nude content! Remove the 4 screws on the sides of the unit. Now you can lift (gently) the big upper plastic cover (lift the back first). See the tiny bits of plastic on the bottom, on the right of the picture? Lift them care-fu-lly, they break easily. Do the same on the top and sides (6 of them). Now remove the front cover. You should get the same result as shown on the left. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 19 / 29

To remove the bottom plastic cover, take out

Now you can do the same as for the first big

20 To remove the bottom plastic cover, take out the two screws on the left. On the back of the unit, remove the 4 visible screws. Now you can do the same as for the first big cover : lift it, back first. This is the top of the unit without cover. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 20 / 29

21 The left side. See the 5 connectors at the bottom? They are holding the bottom PCB. The bottom. Notice the two connectors on the bottom left : there s a piece of PCB on a different axis. You can lift it. Remove the 6 screws - NOT the PCMCIA ones (bottom right of the picture, 4 of their kind). Now you can remove carefully the entire bottom PCB. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 21 / 29

The other side of the bottom PCB you just

The 5 connectors we talked about earlier

22 The other side of the bottom PCB you just removed. Notice the 5 connectors on the top, and the little piece of PCB on the bottom-right side. Removing the bottom PCB reveals the CD-ROM drive PCB (on the right) and the system PCB (on the left). The 5 connectors we talked about earlier can be seen on the top. We won t go further now : almost everything is accessible from here. Don t touch the CD-ROM drive mechanism, unless you know what you re doing. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 22 / 29

The Car Marty menu The welcome screen when you

When you press a button on the pad / joystick

23 The Car Marty menu The welcome screen when you power on the unit. The screen saver appears if no CD-ROM or floppy disk is inserted. When you press a button on the pad / joystick the menu appears. It doesn t differ much from the home version. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 23 / 29

24 The only difference in fact is the relooked Audio CD Player, the layer is very different, more easily readable in a car! This is the home version to show you the difference. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 24 / 29

25 Looking into the ROMs ROMs dump I was able to dump the ROMs of my Car Marty, using the ROMBEGER.EXE utility. I donated immediately these ROMs to Kasanova, the UNZ emulator author. I hope there will eventually be a new version of UNZ with this new machine option in the future, the latest version is V0.4 L20, 2004/05/04. The emulation seems to work fine though, when you set in the options that you are using a Marty system. Here is a comparison chart between different FM-towns systems : Marty 1 Car Marty Towns II 20F FMT_SYS.ROM 256 KB 256 KB 256 KB 256 KB FMT_FNT.ROM 256 KB 256 KB 256 KB 256 KB FMT_DOS.ROM 512 KB 512 KB 512 KB 512 KB FMT_DIC.ROM 512 KB 512 KB 512 KB 512 KB FMT_F20.ROM / / 512 KB? MAR_EX0.ROM 512 KB 512 KB / / MAR_EX1.ROM 512 KB 512 KB / / MAR_EX2.ROM 512 KB 512 KB / / MAR_EX3.ROM 512 KB 512 KB / / MYTOWNS.ROM 32 B 32 B?? We can see that the Car Marty has exactly the same ROMs (functions, sizes) as the Marty 1. Marty 1 Car Marty FMT_SYS.ROM D759487F7765D740EF3FD529F F3FDEBC687D2F79E45A5D534924E2AA0 FMT_FNT.ROM B91300E55B70227CE98B59C5F02FA8DD B91300E55B70227CE98B59C5F02FA8DD FMT_DOS.ROM 3F3DDE5DD766B4921E5C7265DF14F93D 3F3DDE5DD766B4921E5C7265DF14F93D FMT_DIC.ROM 8FA4E553F28CFC0C30A0A1E FA4E553F28CFC0C30A0A1E MAR_EX0.ROM 4F43E0A04FA5EB609AD93D6498FC3EE1 58FD370E0B9CB7C4DB6C717BF2D40FD2 MAR_EX1.ROM 62C7F3FE1827AF995D0C82C E54EDE43CDD4B550A6B1DA84CF208D07 MAR_EX2.ROM A260BC140B96EE43445CA026D0CB452B 169CDC057DA A9038EDB06CE92 MAR_EX3.ROM 655FC5F6F661C6B28C8B877DD2E26AD1 CFC7DFB1C4FF62220C BCCD7 In the chart above, I compared the MD5 signature of the ROMs. The font, dictionary and even DOS ROMs are exactly the same! It is no surprise that the rest differ : the mechanical parts, BIOS, welcome screen and base programs aren t exactly the same between the two systems. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 25 / 29

26 Content of the ROMs The MAR_EX? ROMs If you mere the four MAR_EX? ROMs, you get a 2048 KB file. Rename it to extra_files.hdm, and open it with Disk Explorer : here is what you find, a complete file system! In fact, this is the menu launched when no disc is inserted. By comparing it with the Marty 1 extra files, we find these differences : CAR MARTY MD5 MARTY 1 MD5 8e56199f0e74c4dcfda12174ba1ac535 IO.SYS 2310ee1c5eda5b0be545c da75 IO.SYS 97212ef02707c8f4fab14a87c TMENU.EXP 1105c8e447769f8e3b207d9a8eb910ba TMENU.EXP fcdede99708dfb4a4be4cae98ee45f6e T_TOOL\CD_PLAY.EXP b3d2ffa0b3f73f129161eff7f82548b7 T_TOOL\CD_PLAY.EXP 5a388c fd088fdd0647fc2b T_TOOL\CDDIC.EXP effadef4460d82bd8b6e7e84f38bdb68 T_TOOL\CDDIC.EXP Comparing IO.SYS didn t much talked to me, there are only 58 bytes differing between the two files : mostly different functions and addresses to the equipment, I think. TMENU.EXP is the menu launcher of the graphical OS. This explains the differences. The CD player programs differs much (layer, controls, etc) between the Marty 1 and Car Marty, so the files CD_PLAY.EXP and CDDIC.EXP are evidently different. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 26 / 29

27 The FMT_SYS ROM I also looked into the FMT_SYS ROM, but didn t find much to understand. I am not that good, after all! This ROM must contain the BIOS functions used by the system. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 27 / 29

Where can I get mine? On ebay, three or four vendors have a near exclusivity! Many games, but little hardware. Be careful, the prices go very high when the object is found in its original package.

On Yahoo Auctions Japan, it s another problem : about 75% of Japanese people reject your auction when you don t come from Asia! A few hardware here too, but better prices.

28 Where can I get mine? On ebay, three or four vendors have a near exclusivity! Many games, but little hardware. Be careful, the prices go very high when the object is found in its original package. You can try Dream Stars Japan, they have (relatively) good prices, I have bought a Marty Mouse from them with no problem. On Yahoo Auctions Japan, it s another problem : about 75% of Japanese people reject your auction when you don t come from Asia! A few hardware here too, but better prices. If you have a friend in Japan, walk this way. Be careful with the shipping prices. If you don t like auctions, try the forums talking about old Japanese consoles. Tokugawa Corp for example If you don t like forums, you d better have a good Japanese friend, or a lot of luck. You can even try a trip to Japan, there are entire streets specialized in old hardware / software. V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 28 / 29

29 The end Nobody s perfect If you found this article interesting (write me if you did!), or want to correct my English (which is not perfect, not my native language), or want to clarify technical matters (it will increase the version number of this document), feel free to drop a mail at this address : Parazythum@gmail.com Truly yours, Parazythum, The Big Bad Bug! Big thanks to : Ben from Tokugawa Corp (ex FMV ) Kasanova, the UNZ author. It is an emulator for Windows systems only Morio Yamaguchi from Fujitsu Ten The Assembler web site, some photos come from there Useful web links : WinHex : nice utility to track changes between two files, editing in hexa, etc : EditDisk or DiskExplorer : DigestIt 2004, a nice handy tool to calculate the MD5 and SHA1 of files : UNZ, the nice FM-Towns emulator : Tokugawa Corp : Assembler : Google Language Tools and BabelFish, with which you can translate from Japanese to English (and many more languages) : and - I don t speak Japanese!!! Sometimes it s really funny, the translation is weird (e.g. : CD-ROM lighting software instead of burning software ) ebay, where you can sometimes find FM-Towns stuff, but at big prices : Yahoo Auctions (Japan) : more stuff here, but Japanese people don t like much foreign bidders! V1.0 by Parazythum /10/22 Page 29 / 29

IC Memory Card : How to make it work with your FM-Towns computer or console (V /12/20)

IC Memory Card : How to make it work with your FM-Towns computer or console (V1.0 2005/12/20) Introduction I have downloaded many free games on the internet for FM-Towns computers, but some of them don