I haven't dumped any games, I have no soldering skills. I do have an eprom programmer/reader that supports 8/16 bit eproms.
... In case anyone still cares about the A'Can [?], I've made some corrections and additions to its Wikipedia entry. The most interesting bits, of course, come directly from talks with the company that made the A'Can, UMC: "In fact, the A'Can did so very poorly on the market during its short appearance there that it lost its company over USD$6M (6 million US dollars). In the end, the company destroyed all development and production materials related to the machine, and sold off the remaining systems to the United States as scrap parts. It is their worst loss to date, and the very mention of the system to anyone related to its production and development seems to stir up feelings of agitation."
Mr. Sound-About > Interesting read. A real shame thought they destroyed all that material.. would have been interesting to look at
That is interesting, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the information on there removed. Wikipedia has strict rules about individual research, and very little of what's on there can be verified externally. There are probably more suitable places for your (fascinating!) research.
Nothing like beating a dead thread... But, if anyone's interested in obtaining a Super A'Can, there's one on Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/TG-Taiwan-Funtech-Game-of-Acan-Acan-Player-Console_W0QQitemZ300112022957QQihZ020QQcategoryZ11321QQcmdZViewItem I bought a system and three games from this guy without any problems.
Too expensive in my opinion, some months ago I found one for $100, too bad I didn't bid. Edit: Oops, I thought it was USD. I'm in for it ;p
Bugger missed it, somehow I get the feeling I'm never going to be able to get one just to show in an exhibition.
Seeing as this topic has been risin back from the dead again I'd like to bring up something.. This is a quote from cahaz from 03-31-2005. I don't think I've heard anymore about this since then. If you're reading this cahaz, any chance you can see if you still can get these? ;-) If we could find these that would surely relieve us of the curiosity of this system, especially since it costs more than it's worth apparently. And on the topic, I'd like to ask if anyone knows what those stickers on a'can game boxes mean? They all look to have a sticker that indicate a direction, like North West Soudh and East(chinese characters of course). Any have a clue what those are supposed to mean?
If you need a 10mp dSLR photo of the board tell me, I would like to help when I receive the system. I would also like to thank My. Sound-About for waking up the topic ;p
... They're talking about my absolute favorite game system once again!! Out of sight, Gerizak! Their 'security mechanism' is a joke, much like their karate. Not really, because the PC versions of these games use the AdLib sound card rather than the custom sound hardware of the A'can, and in addition are programmed differently to function as PC games, rather than as poop A'can refuse. Meaning, basically, that the PC games would be fun and exciting and partially decent to play, and with nice FM music rather than poorly digitized MODule music. So, it would get one EXCITED to play them on the A'can. Then, when all the $500,000 was spent collecting all of the A'can games, the system, a glow-in-the-dark A'can polishing cloth and some aspirin for the headaches to come, all that would rise out of the owner's mouth before they died of heartbreak would be a morose, "D'oh!". Believe me. I've been there. Example: Sango Fighter on PC is one of the greatest fighting games ever. Sango Fighter on A'can is an unholy beast that should be sealed in carbonite forevermore. They are region markings. Apparently, not all of the 12 A'can games were released to all areas. One collector in Taiwan, for example, believed REBEL STAR (F-012) to be an unreleased game, and was very surprised when I showed him some photos of my copy, new in the box. "HOW DOES THE AMERICAN HAVE IT?", he likely grunted thereafter, "WHILE I ACTUALLY LIVE IN TAIWAN?!" Well, I guess I'm just more serious about collecting stupid game systems, that's why. Which is sad, when you think about it (cue morose "D'oh"). *snore* Wha...? Did someone say A'can? Oh, shnitzel, I've got to shake some sense into them before they make a terrible mistake!! For great justice.
From the sounds of it, the hardware is comparable to game systems costing a hell of a lot more. The x68000 and Amiga 1200 come to mind. The x68000 was even expensive to own in Japan. The games are the weak area of the system. I guess you can blame the failure of the system on Funtech, for trying to release pirate games on their own system.
... Indeed. Unfortunately, it's potential that shall remain untapped for all time. I don't quite understand that comment, as none of the games released on the A'can were pirates; in fact, the A'can created a short-lived cooperation between the biggest entertainment software houses in Taiwan: C&E Inc., Panda Entertainment, AV Artisan, etc. Some of the games (aka Boomzoo) may be watered-down knock-offs of popular established titles, but they all use original (not borrowed) materials.
Which is a huge shame... if only the development and production materials hadn't been completely destroyed. The sad part about it is, the most impressive thing I've seen the system output is the startup sequence, which is actually pretty nice if I do say so myself. Then you see the games... oh the horror! I really don't know why I'm drawn back to the A'can's games, especially Sonic Flying Dragon and, to a lesser extent, C.U.G.
... I'm still keeping at it, and hoping for the best. Somebody, somewhere, must certainly have something. "Come on, kid! You know you want to buy an A'can. Just check out this amazing, 3d startup sequence! Now look at the startup sequence of the Sega CD. DOESN'T EVEN COMPARE!" I don't know why, either. Then again, I only have two game systems hooked up at the moment: A Sega Genesis and an A'can, so I'm not one to criticize.
If something is out there it would be mighty rare. That would be some hardcore stuff too, and seeing as you have the best contacts as far as anything A'can is concerned and something still hasn't turned up for you... it's almost like there's no hope at all. lol, that's like those commercials for the Pro200 handheld that showed "real customers" throwing away Playstaions and N64s in exchange for the crummy handheld. I can only imagine some grandma somewhere seeing that, and the disappointed grandson/granddaughter who wanted a DS for their birthday. It's like a virus, once infected by the A'can you're hooked for life.
... Oh God, no... there's no way! Wait a minute, this may help deter some people from actually buying an A'can. ALL RIGHT, I'LL DO IT!!! However, before you bitch about the video's quality (or lack thereof), please keep these points in mind: ** This video was recorded using a Nokia 3230, from the display of a Commodore 1080 monitor. You'll have to excuse that; I'd probably buy some more sophisticated equipment if I wasn't wasting all my money on A'can games. ** You'll have to crank your volume control UP to hear the music and sound effects, because the Nokia's microphone doesn't actually pick up any useful background noise, and because I have neighbors that probably don't feel like being woken up right now, especially to the ear-grating sounds of the A'can. ** After recording the video, which looked bad enough already, I uploaded it to YouTube so their processing routine could further reduce the quality. I'm on a 56k connection, meaning the upload took approximately 86 hours. Only after the upload was completed did I realize that YouTube doesn't seem to support the particular audio compression used in the Nokia 3230 variant of the .3GP video format. No audio means less pain, and we can't have that. ** I then wasted more time uploading, this time to my own private webspace. ** The video will only be on my webspace for, at most, a week. So run, coward. I am Sinistar. However, there's a plus point too: ** In order to ensure that my suffering equaled yours, I decided to pop in and listen to Chicago XIV whilst the video uploaded. Eeehhh... Unfortunately the video doesn't adequately demonstrate the horrible control, hit detection, graphics glitches, etc. etc. "featured" in the Super A'can version of Sango Fighter. But hey, you asked for a video - you didn't ask for a good or even useful one. The lesson? Be more specific in the future. So... enjoy [?]. Use QuickTime to play the video. --- Badly produced A'can video ---
“…get another character in the mix… Ca’man! Stupid Chinese programming…” I fully stand by Pandas high coding standards! Huang Zhong is obviously the most popular fighter, so naturally any exhibition matches should show him! Not only that, the A’can is such a powerful computer simulator, what if it showed a virtual match between Huang Zhong and himself? Finally, the epic battle we all want to see! Heh, ok ok… Thanks for the video! I have no idea if the choppiness is due to your low video frame rate, or the games frame rate, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s the game. But from what I saw, it doesn’t look too bad. Do all the characters like Cao Cao become unlocked at the beginning for VS play, or do you have to beat them first yourself? I noted (if I heard correctly) that some music was different compared to the PC (I’m comparing it to the Taiwanese PC version), but in exchange it contained more PCM voices, such as the match introductions and character selects. I’m guessing they never produced Sango Fighter 2 for the A’can. Or Panda Dodge ball. I don’t know how the English editions stack up, but the Taiwanese versions were pretty darn fun to play.
