The Family Computer Disk System (ファミリーコンピュータ ディスクシステム, Famirī Konpyūta Disuku Shisutemu?, sometimes called the Famicom Disk System, the Disk System, or simply the FDS) was released on February 21, 1986 by Nintendo as a peripheral for the Famicom console in Japan. It was a unit that used proprietary floppy disks (called "Disk Cards") for data storage. It was announced, but not released, for the North American/PAL Nintendo Entertainment System. Through its entire production span, 1986–2003, 4.44 million units were sold.
The device was connected to the Famicom deck by plugging a modified cartridge known as the RAM Adapter into the system's cartridge port, which attached via a supplied cable to the disk drive. The RAM adapter contained 32 kilobytes (KB) of RAM for temporary program storage, 8 KB of RAM for tile and sprite data storage, and an ASIC known as the 2C33. The ASIC acted as a disk controller for the floppy drive, and also included additional sound hardware featuring primitive wavetable synthesis and FM synthesis capabilities. The Disk Cards used were double-sided, with a total capacity of 112 KB per disk. Many games spanned both sides of a disk, requiring the user to switch sides at some point during gameplay. A few games used two full disks (four sides). The Disk System was capable of running on six C-cell batteries or the supplied AC adapter. Batteries would usually last five months with daily game play. The battery option was included due to the likelihood of a standard set of AC plugs already being occupied by a Famicom and a television.
Read more about Family Computer Disk System: History, Technology, Games, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words family, computer, disk and/or system:
“Providing for one’s family as a good husband and father is a water-tight excuse for making money hand over fist. Greed may be a sin, exploitation of other people might, on the face of it, look rather nasty, but who can blame a man for “doing the best” for his children?”
—Eva Figes (b. 1932)
“The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)
“Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air;”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“New York is more now than the sum of its people and buildings. It makes sense only as a mechanical intelligence, a transporter system for the daily absorbing and nightly redeploying of the human multitudes whose services it requires.”
—Peter Conrad (b. 1948)