website/content/museum/fujitsu-fm-towns.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Fujitsu FM Towns	Computers	Home Computer	Japan	1989	Intel 80386dx	name company company_name specs tabs photos screenshots emulators links videos comments related oc_id source FM Towns /companies/fujitsu Fujitsu label value NAME FM Towns label value MANUFACTURER Fujitsu label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN Japan label value YEAR February 1989 label value END OF PRODUCTION Unknown label value KEYBOARD Full stroke 123 (!) keys with function keys and numeric keypad label value CPU Intel 80386dx label value SPEED 16 MHz label value CO-PROCESSOR 80387 arithmetic coprocessor label value RAM 1 or 2 MB, depending models (max 64 MB) label value VRAM Unknown label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES Unknown label value GRAPHIC MODES from 256 x 256up to 640 x 480\ up to 1024 sprites (16x16) label value COLORS 16 M colors palette - up to 32768 on screen label value SOUND 6 channel FM, 8 channel PCM label value SIZE / WEIGHT Unknown label value I/O PORTS SCSI label value BUILT IN MEDIA one or two 3.5'' floppy discs depending models; single speed CD-ROM, optional hard-drive label value OS Town OS label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS Unknown label value PRICE Unknown photos software emulators links videos title subtitle text image FM TOWNS null title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_3x3eye_1.jpg title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_3x3eye_2.jpg title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_amaranthiii.jpg title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_american-ultra-quizz.jpg title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_nobunaganoyabou-tenshouki.jpg title subtitle text image SCREENSHOT Thanks to [fullmotionvideo.free.fr](http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/) for this picture /media/museum/software/fujitsu_fmtowns_ss_nobunaganoyabou-tenshouki_2.jpg title url platform text FM Towns Bochs Emulator http://fmbochs.emuvibes.com/ Windows Windows emulator title url platform text UNZ Emulator & info http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/townsemu/index.html Windows UNZ Emulator & info title url text ASSEMBLER - FM Towns page http://assembler.roarvgm.com/FM_towns_computers/fm_towns_computers.html Nice page with a lot of pictures title url text FM Towns Software Database http://homepage2.nifty.com/ftowns/db/sdb.html The name says it all (in japanese) title url text FM TOWNS world http://homepage2.nifty.com/ftowns/ Dedicated japanese site title url text The World of FM Towns http://ktj.dip.jp/towns/index_e Some interesting info here title url text FM Towns II japanese TV commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkPMpmBfwfI Length: 15 s title url text FM Towns japanese TV commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SstlqNyuD1w Length: 30 s title url text FM Towns japanese TV commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9UlTdrjbr8 Length: 30 s title url text FM Towns japanese TV commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y01Pjyin-pU Length: 30 s author date text Conrad Russo (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Monday 26th March 2012 I would also like to note that the version of Windows that runs on the FM-TOWNS is a special modified version of Windows. Just popping in a standard Windows 95 CD will get you nowhere, although once you have Windows 95 installed, standard Windows software will run unmodified. author date text Conrad Russo (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Monday 26th March 2012 I would like to note that the FM-TOWNS is not fully IBM PC Compatible as stated in the description. I''m not sure as my FM-TOWNS II UR has not arrived to me yet, but as far as I know only well-behaved software that doesn''t bang the hardware will run unmodified on the FM-TOWNS, since there are some significant differences between the PC standard and the FM-TOWNS. Things like port addresses are different and the graphics system is almost certainly incompatible with any PC graphics mode, so that would just leave properly written text mode software as being interchangeable and even then I am not sure. I will test it out once I have the TOWNS. author date text Jay (UK) Monday 23rd August 2021 Gamepads can be pretty expensive for this. However, 3rd party gamepads are available on eBay for a fraction of the price. Just type in RETROPAD to the eBay search and you will find. Great to have a cheap gamepad for second player! author date text Wren Mandagorn (United Kingdom) Tuesday 23rd January 2007 The FM Towns was briefly available in the UK through specialist suppliers. It came as an all black system which I think was unique at the time. The FM Towns was also compatible with most (though not all) PC software at the time. Indeed I played most of the ‘must have’ PC games on my Towns around the early 90’s!! /museum/fujitsu-fm-towns-ii /museum/fujitsu-fm-towns-ii-ex 968 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230609034103/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=968 2023-06-09

Very little is known about this Japanese system. Help welcome !!

It apparently had some success in Japan, with great game conversions. Based on the IBM PC architecture, it had excellent sound and graphic features.

It has the barebone of a classic IBM PC system but was conceived from the start as a real familial multimedia system. Graphic resolutions go from 360x240 to 640x480 with 256 colors simultaneously on screen from a color palette of 16.7 millions colors. Most of these graphic modes have two graphic pages. Up to 1024 sprites can be created, with 16x16 pixels size each.

The sound features are excellent too. It can play stereo CDs of course, thanks to its built-in CD-ROM drive. It also has 8 PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) stereo voices, thanks to a Sega chipset, which is generally used for special effect sounds. A Yamaha FM chipset is also included and offers 6 FM channels, mostly used for melodies...

The FM Towns is delivered with a joypad, a microphone and a mouse. The operating system, Town OS, is graphical and use windows, scrollers, icons, etc. The system is somehow compatible with other IBM PC systems, using a special version of DOS + DOS Extender. It can even run Windows !

Where does the name FM Towns come from? In those days, Fujitsu named its PC products after nobel-prized scientists. So, the codename of the first model of FM TOWNS is thus "Townes", in honour of Charles Hard Townes, one of the winners of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics. But the word "TOWNES" could be pronounced "Tau-Ness", so to be clear that it has to be pronounced "Townz", the letter "e" was removed from the codename before production. The word "FM" comes from "Fujitsu Micro".

It was followed by the FM Towns II.

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More information from Dave Lundberg:
I worked on a few games for this system, notably "The Case of the Cautious Condor". For the era, it was just an incredible piece of hardware. Many, many different graphic modes, sprites, scrolling, etc. As anyone who did real development for this system will tell you, it was just a killer piece of gaming hardware.

The TOWNS-OS was sort of a pre-cursor to Windows and superior to Window 3.1 (but it was still buggy). That said, we didn't use TOWS-OS but instead wrote our games in protect mode assembly and C using (I think) a WATCOM tool chain. Once the system was started and we set the basic video and sound modes, we wrote generally directly to the hardware.

Fujitsu took great pride in the low-cost CD-ROM they had designed. In 1989, we made test CD-ROMs at a pressing plant since there were no cheap writers available. The test discs we made of glass. When you put a glass disc in the vertically mounted CD-ROM drive, the mass of the disc overwhelmed the cheap drive motor, resulting in 1,000s of read retries. An early test of ours once took several minutes to load 30K of code!

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.