Now your probably going "non gaming consoles? What are you talking about?" Well let me explain, there are a number of consoles released in Japan since the 80s which where aimed at a specific market or at an edutainment market. So I'm talking of such delights as... Casio Loopy Sega Pico Koei Pasogo Tomy Kiss To name a few, I want to get a more definate list of what odds and sods are out there. I've seen a number of smallish Konami cartridges for a console but as it was a blurred photo I've got no idea what it was for but they were not Famicom or Gameboy.
Pico isn't, it was aimed at young kids. Not the kind of thing I'd buy, but Sonic completists have to pick it up for the mascots. The smallish Konami carts... sure they weren't Bandai? They released their own cart system for the Super Famicom. It was called the Sufami Turbo as I recall.
sufami turbo was just a cheaper way of making games, plus it had the ability to mix and match , like drop characters from one game into another.
Yes I know some of them will be (in fact quite a lot of them....) will be girls toys but at the end of the day if it's a machine that has a display or plugs into a TV and uses Cartridges or CDs (or other optical media) for a fun(ish) application then it is a console in my book and that's what I am intrested in. Re : Konami Carts, no they were not Sufami Cartridges, the boxes were smaller and the graphics were rather basic (but colourful) to say the least, they were not MSX cartridges either.
I'm assuming that it has to have media that can be removed/changed? You might want to take a look at Gakken which released educational consoles. I have one called the....hmm...I forgot. I call it "the one that wouldn't sell on eBay for $5." It has a keyboard type layout which is actually used with an overlay and a CD tray. I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting from Gakken. Ah, maybe it was the Manabu-ken? You might also want to check out the business software from Nintendo. They play on Famicom & Super Famicom consoles but if you're looking for non-entertainment consoles then it might be similar to what you're looking for in the end. The Study Box, a Famicom add-on, had cassette tapes with education lessons on them. The Tomy KISSITE is just a karaoke machine. I wasn't away it did anything else. The Casio Loopy is a game console. That's what I'd call it if I had to choose a name for it. It's not for education. The life simulation games are similar to any other life simulation games available from other makers. In the end you might want to define your search a little more.
Basically a stand alone unit that allows seperately bought cartridges or other media to do something either via a dot matrix screen or the TV.
