[intro sounds of bliss] [Plodding bass representing the 8 bit era commences] The Nintendo Entertainment System. It may not have been as popular in Europe
as it was in the States, but that prevent it from being a thing of intrigue, wonder
and excitement. If anything, it made it seem ore intriguing,
wondrous and exciting. And it is an intriguing thing. I mean look at this corner shaped flap, just
waiting to devour a cartridge into the belly of the beast. It's aesthetics deviate hugely from the original
Japanese Nintendo Famicom, just as much as it deviates from the more futuristic design
of Sega's Master System. But it does so in such a pleasing way. Even the controllers are lust-worthy, in their
own, simple rectangular way. But the NES really is a box full of secrets. As well as two bespoke controller ports on
the front, and the standard power in and RF out connections on the back. The side reveals a composite out, which was
fairly special at the time. But it's underneath where things really start
to get interesting. At first glance you might see nothing of interest,
but then this rectangle in the middle might start to seem a little odd, and the fact that
there are gulleys running away from it, further increases the curiosity. Now on early NES units, you simply get this
plastic block. But on later ones, there's actually a plastic
tab underneath which needs to be physically snapped off. I presume Nintendo got sick of kids discovering
the expansion slot and ramming stuff in, potentially causing short circuits and the like. Because once you get in... *click* *banging* *fumble* *snap* *doink!* *thud* *crackle* (and pop, the knock off Rice Crispie characters) you reveal this wonder. [Music plods on like a feverish camel] Now, a rumour, which likely started in the
Master System flooded shores of Europe was that this port was a secret connection, designed
to accept Master System cartridges. So NES owners didn't have to miss out on all
those incredible Sega releases. Well, it doesn't take many IQ points to assume
that is indeed a pile of utter shash. The NES doesn't contain nearly the right hardware
to facilitate that, let alone all the legal, marketing and really, common sense issues
that this would produce. But the edge connector itself is roughly the right size, so you can see where this story came from. What makes more sense is foresight. A powerful skill that can be far more useful
than hindsight. You see, the Famicom released several years
prior in Japan was not too dissimilar. Although lacking joypad connections, on account
of them being permanently wired in, it did have a male 15 pin port on the front. This port was used for peripherals such as
light guns, 3D glasses and additional controllers. Of course the Famicom had other expansions
such as a modem and disk system, but these connected directly via the cartridge slot. This was both practical, and in any case,
the expansion connector wasn't geared up to accept them. -Will you be the one to witness the birth of the incredible Nintendo Entertainment System?- So along comes the NES onto American shores
in 1985, and, as we know, it was a very different beast. With the American video game crash of 1983,
Nintendo had a lot riding on the NES. They also had a lot of fear. Both Atari and Coleco had tried to move their
consoles away from being toys, so they could be established as a necessary part of your
home entertainment setup. But Nintendo went one further, by actually
making their appropriately named Entertainment System resemble a Video Cassette Recorder;
which was a booming product at the time. Of course, this meant that it would be far
more difficult to add things like a Disk System or Modem if required in the future, and so
the solution was a much more capable, 48 pin expansion port, this time located on the bottom. These cut-out chunks, are of course, for securing
any peripherals securely to the base, or for running wires out of the side. And when I say capable, this thing really
was wired up to take over Joystick connections, audio lines, direct CPU connections and even
had direct connections to cartridge pins. At the time of it's creation, the idea by
Nintendo President Minoru Arakawa was to introduce as many peripherals for the NES and they had,
and were still intending to, for the Famicom. So, all we need now are those peripherals.... /Tumbleweed/
/Tumbleweed/ Yes, there doesn't seem to be, well, any peripherals
which were made to take advantage of this capable slot, except maybe for one.... [Funky 80s music appropriate(?!) for golf] In 1987, Nintendo held a tournament based
around the Famicom Disk game, Mario Open Golf. To compete, you'd simply take your disk to
a "Disk Fax Machine" and submit scores directly to Nintendo. This not only introduced a lot of people to
to concept of online gaming, but it set the seed for creating the Famicom Network System
the following year. By purchasing a Famicom Modem, users could
access a server providing game cheats, jokes, weather forecasts, stock trading and even
horse betting. Although novel, it wasn't a great success,
particularly the services designed for adults, with only 130,000 modems sold. But Yamauchi didn't see this as a failure. Instead he saw America as the true testing
ground. A testing ground which had an NES in about
30% of homes, leading Yamauchi to predict a connection rate of 10 million homes by the
end of 1991. To assist with this Jerry Ruttenbur, Vice
President at HBO was brought in by Nintendo of America to setup a network, and working
with AT&T. developed a data terminal cartridge for the
NES based on a Super Mario Bros style interface, however the idea fell through, and it was
for pretty much the same reasons of adults unwilling to conduct online business on what
was essentially, their kid's toy. But, this wasn't the final attempt. Building on the existing hardware, Control
Data Corporation enlisted Nintendo to setup an online lottery test. 10,000 residents of Minnesota received free
kit to test this modem with their NES. You can see where it slots directly into the
expansion port, and would sit almost seamlessly under the console. The idea was, for $10 a month, you could connect
up to the Minnesota Lottery, buy your tickets and even check your winnings. But this time the problems weren't with use,
they were with the State Attorney General laying siege to gambling being conducted on
a device designed primarily for kids. The safeguards in place to prevent minors
from gambling were seen as easy to circumnavigate, and the idea of an NES modem was almost put
to rest. I say almost, because Keith Rupp and Nolan
Bushnell would try one last time with the Teleplay Modem, under the company name Baton
Technologies. The premise here was a cross platform gaming
network between Sega and Nintendo Systems, and maybe this is where the original "being
able to play Sega games on your NES console" myth originated from. In any case, Sega and Nintendo both refused
to licence the technology and the dream quickly died away. Leaving us with our vacant expansion slot. *sponsor segement*
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*sponsor segement* [Slight fantasy land music plays] Having foresight is incredible. But sometimes, it's just not needed. Although, arguably, it's still always far
better to put something in, than keep it out. But, fast forward to 2015, and we get this. Now this may look like a perfectly innocuous
tweet. But, it was actually sent direct from an NES. This fine gent, Trapper McFerron actually
made use of the expansion port to connect up with my favourite social network. I suggest you go and check out his video if
you want to find out more. There's also a nice little hack, where if
you solder a resistor between pins 3 and 9 of the connector, you can reclaim the expansion
audio found in the Famicom, but which was removed from the NES. This was a feature where some Famicom games
actually contained audio circuity and added it into the Famicoms standard audio mix. So, not really useful for NES games, but handy
if you're running any Famicom games through your NES Back in 2012, there was actually a mod created
for the NES, known as the ENIO EXP Board, that did this for you, and converted the NES
expansion port to the same as the Famicom. Allowing you to use accessories such as those
3D glasses or keyboard. Pretty neat, although quite hard to get hold
of these days. And of course, it should be noted that the
Top Loader NES, does not feature the expansion. By the time it was created, Nintendo of America
realised it was now redundant. But that wasn't the end for Nintendo's expansion
dreams. Of course, this is a legacy that would continue
with future Nintendo consoles, from the EXT ports found on the the SNES and N64, to the
serial and high speed connectors found on the GameCube. Nintendo always made sure there were enough
upgrade options on their consoles. Unlike Sega's consoles, which tended to also
employ edge connector expansion capabilities, sadly, we didn't get to see most of the fruits
of Nintendos expansion dreams, especially in the West, but it's still nice to think
of what could have been. Anyway, thanks for watching and have a great
evening. [DAT 80S FUNK IS BACK]
