FM Towns Marty and FM Towns Marty 2 questions I'm toying with the idea of buying an FM Towns Marty console, ideally plumping for a Marty over a Towns II computer because of the shipping costs involved. I was wondering what the difference between the two Marty consoles is? Is one better than the other? I've also read a bit about some games not working on the Marty, is there a list of games that don't work on it? Also, is it easy to replace the floppy drive belt as I've heard these are unreliable. Are spares in general, whether official or workaround parts easy enough to source and fit? Thanks.
The only two types of marty consoles I'd make a distinction between are the Car Marty and the normal FM Towns Marty. The Marty 1 and Marty 2 are identical in regard to the software they play and any compatibility matters (for example, Chase HQ has a glitchy band of inverted colors in the sky on all models). The Car Marty lacks a floppy drive but you can buy an external one if you see one. The only notable limitation of the consoles is that they do not play any games that exceed the 2MB limitation. There are some exeption with 2MB games but they are rare. Most games don't require the floppy, it is optional for saving. I have read that you can map a PCMCIA card to save games to in place of the Floppy Drive. This is unlikely to work for games that actually read from a floppy drive but it might help with games like Infestation and Mega Spectre that allow you to write to a floppy drive for save purposes.
Thanks a lot, very useful info. I thought the Marty and Marty 2 were different internally making the Marty 2 compatible with more Towns games overall? Im still pondering if it's a good idea purchasing a Marty, mainly due to the cost of games and rumors that the consoles themselves are unreliable. That said, shipping a Marty over, say, a Towns II or an X68000, is a much more appealing proposition from a shipping cost perspective!
I'd go for an actual Towns unit if you want to play more than arcade ports (the majority of which you can get the arcade boards for about the same or lower price than the Towns ports).
You pose an interesting thought there, it sounds like the arcade boards are really the way to go. I'd really only be after a handful of games, all of which are ridiculously expensive. I think if I went for an actual Towns unit I'd be absolutely crushed by the shipping cost too!
