Ryan's SepTandy Spectacular! Part #2 - The TRS-80

Welcome back to part 2 of my SepTandy Spectacular. In the last post I went over the history of Radio Shack with how they started and met their demise. In this post I'm going to jump back to 1977 and talk about their first computer, The TRS-80.

The Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1 (1977).

When it comes to the history of personal computers, Tandy Radio Shack is one of those companies that doesn't get much credit for the role they played. So in this post we'll be diving in to this humble machine and see what made it different as well as what it contributed to in in the history of computers. 

It all began in 1975 when Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (or MITS), introduced what is considered by many to be the world's first personal computer the Altair 8800.

The Altair 8800 (1975).

The Altair was a very simple machine; There was no display or keyboard, programs had to be entered in binary with the toggle switches on the front. It came with no memory and extra memory was expensive. It was also mostly sold in a kit that the user would have to assemble themselves. 

Despite these setbacks, it became very popular with hobbyists. From Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to Apple Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. One of the buyers of the Altair 8800 was Don French.

Don French.

French had joined Tandy in 1973 as a product buyer and already had various kit computers in his office for managing product lines. Seeing the potential for selling a computer of their own, he pitched the idea to John Roach, The vice president of manufacturing, Who was intrigued with the idea. After a visit to National Semiconductor in 1976, The two men learned about Homebrew Computer Club member Steve Leininger and his expertise on the SC/MP microprocessor.

Steve Leininger.

The two met Leininger working part-time at Byte Shop and hired him for his technical and retail experience, in June 1976. Originally, the company wanted it in a kit, but Leininger persuaded the others that a preassembled computer would be better since it could be approachable to everyone.

While French, Roach, and Leininger saw the potential, the other employees in the company did not. By that point, Radio Shack had 11 million customers at over 3,000 stores, it had a large base of potential customers who would consider buying a computer. However, Any computer would have to be priced in the hundreds of dollars compared to the $29.95 median price of an item sold at Radio Shack. Not only that, but Radio Shack was very conservative when it came to selecting products. They rarely took big risks that resulted big losses. Taking the chance to sell a computer would definitely qualify as a risk. 

But Charles Tandy, the head of Tandy Corporation, thought that Radio Shack needed to develop some new products. After hearing about French’s idea, he gave his approval for it to be further developed in In December, 1976.

The first design had several cost saving measures; such as only uppercase character generation, a membrane keyboard, and no video monitor which would sell for $199, But Leininger persuaded Roach and French to include a better keyboard; it, a monitor, data cassette storage, and other features.

After another couple months of development, The TRS-80 (an abbreviation for Tandy Radio Shack, Z80), was released on August 3, 1977 at a price of US$399 for just the base computer itself, or US$599 with a 12" monitor and a Radio Shack tape recorder. 

Initially Tandy weren't expecting sharp sales and only made 3500 machines enough so the computer could be used in the stores for inventory if none were sold. However customers proved Tandy wrong as over 10,000 units were sold in the first month and a half on sale and by 1980, Tandy had beat the sales of the Apple II and the Commodore PET combined.

Along with the Apple II and the Commodore PET, The TRS-80 became part of the so-called 1977 Trinity of computers.

The machine itself is very simple. Its an all in one unit where the mainboard and keyboard are combined into one, which became a design trend in the 8-bit microcomputer era, although the TRS-80 does have a separate power supply.

The TRS-80 base computer itself.

The early units where referred to as Level I units, which refers to the type of BAISC built into the machine. These only came with 4K of RAM and a 4K ROM containing the OS and the BASIC programing language itself. Later on, there was a Level II basic sold both as an upgrade and as pre installed units with a numeric keypad and 16K of RAM.

Comparison of the Level I and II TRS-80s: Level I unit on the top & Level II unit on the bottom.

On the back there are sockets for a tape recorder, monochrome video out, the power plug, the power button and on the very end the expansion interface.

The back of the TRS-80.

The latter did cause grief for some users as the pins on the expansion interface card edge could oxidize and cause a spontaneous reboot. As a result later on there were gold plated contacts that you could solder on to fix this issue. This was one of many hardware flaws with the TRS-80, We'll get into some more of them later.

As for video output, The TRS-80 had the optional 12 inch monitor, Which was really a rebadged RCA KCS 172 tv set. It displayed text in Black and white, with the standard P4 phosphor used in black-and white televisions, which gave the white a faint blue color. Many people complained about the video quality, so Third Party green and amber filters and replacement tubes to reduce eye fatigue were popular aftermarket items, and later monitors came with a green-on-black display. 

The original TRS-80 Monitor.

Powering up the machine, you get dropped into Level 1 basic where you're greeted with a READY prompt. here you can type in various BASIC programs of various complexity levels. In this example i'll type in the obligatory HELLO WORLD! program.

As previously mentioned The original TRS-80 came with Level 1 BASIC which is pretty...well...basic. The dialect was based on “Palo Alto Tiny BASIC”, a 2K version of Tiny BASIC written by Dr. Li-Chen Wang in the May 1976 issue of Dr. Dobb’s Journal.

The first page for the listing of Palo Alto Tiny BASIC in the May 1976 issue of Dr. Dobb’s Journal.

Because Dr. Li Chen-Wang placed his BASIC in the public domain, Steve Leininger, was able to use it as a starting point. He added floating point math, cassette, keyboard, and video routines, doubling the size of the original code to 4K. 

A funny story during development of the TRS-80, When French, Roach, and Leininger showed their prototype, running a simple tax-accounting program, to Charles Tandy in February, 1977, Tandy typed in a $150,000 figure as his salary but the computer's implementation of Tiny BASIC could not handle the number and it crashed! This resulted in the support for floating-point math.

Level I BASIC allowed for three types of variables: 26 numeric variables, labeled A through Z, 2 string variables, labeled A$ and B$, and 1 array variable, labeled A(x) (with x used as the index). The error messages are somewhat unusual, there are three error messages: HOW?, WHAT?, and SORRY. HOW?, is for arithmetic errors such as division by zero, WHAT? is for syntax errors, and "SORRY" for out of memory errors. 

The later Level II BASIC was written by Microsoft and was essentually a stripped down version of extended BASIC. It included new commands such as the IF, THEN, and ELSE statements as well as unique commands such as, such as SET, RESET, POINT, and INKEY$. 

This did lead to a problem with compatibility between BASICs on other computers because the commands and syntax was different that made typing in programs from books and magazines, (The only place you could find software for your computer.), somewhat difficult unless you knew what to change to get it to work (However with Level II this wasn't much of an issue).

Speaking of software, for storage the TRS-80 had cassette port that would allow you to load and save programs on cassette tape. Yes, Cassette tape storage was a thing at the time!

This was mostly due to the low price and you could use any tape recorder or tapes at home. It worked by sending the data as a series of pulses and noise, kind of like a dial up modem, but its on a cassette instead of a modem. The downsides to using cassettes was that they were slow and often unreliable.

Radio Shack added a cassette interface as well, and unlike the Apple II, The TRS-80 had a plug for the remote socket that would allow the computer to control the tone levels for you which made cassette storage much more reliable. As previously mentioned, Radio Shack did provide a cassette recorder as an optional extra. That tape recorder was the CTR-41, which is your typical "shoebox" style tape recorder of the time.

The CTR-41 Tape recorder.

To load programs you type in CLOAD, press play on the tape (or just hit return if you have the remote jack connected), wait for the program to finish loading, then type RUN. Later with Level II BASIC, you could also load in Machine Language programs by typing SYSTEM, typing the first letter of the program on the tape to search for it, wait for the program to finish loading, then type a / and hit return.

Cassettes were really the only storage medium the TRS-80 had at launch. However, it wouldn't be long until floppy disk capability became available. Starting in 1978, with the introduction of the Expansion Interface.

The TRS-80 Expansion Interface.

Unlike other 8080 and Z80-based computers, The TRS-80 didn't use the S-100 bus. Instead, it used the proprietary Expansion Interface box, which fits under the video monitor and served as its base. It offered features such as a slot to install an optional daughterboard for an RS-232 serial interface, an expansion port extension, Centronics parallel port for a printer, a floppy disk controller, an added cassette connector, and a spot to install an extra 16 or 32 KB of RAM. Other peripherals included modems (Which allowed for the access of the MicroNET service (Which eventually became the consumer version of Compuserve), and eventually ARCNET, (The first widely available networking system for microcomputers, from Datapoint Corporation.), speech synthesizers, joystick interfaces, Lightpens, hard drives, and even a device called the VOXBOX which allowed for voice recognition, Probably making the TRS-80 the first personal computer capable of voice recognition!

The TRS-80 connected to the Expansion Interface with various peripherals.

As for the hardware of the computer itself, It uses a Zilog Z80 processor clocked at 1.78 MHz (later models shipped with a Z80A clocked at 4 MHz), 4K of RAM initially and later 16K of RAM as previously said, 1K of video RAM, 4K of ROM (Later 12K with Level II BASIC). 

The TRS-80 motherboard.

Due to the limited video memory, the graphics are displayed at a text resolution of 64 columns by 16 rows. This was somewhat of an unusual choice of text resolution at the time as most machines had 40x25 or 80x25. There is no lowercase characters, (though there are modifications that you could do to get lower case), and no graphics modes, however there are some predefined block characters in the character set that could be used to make pseudo graphics.

This did give the TRS-80 an advantage over its competitors. Because unlike the Apple II and the Commodore PET, which initially had 40 columns of text, The TRS-80's 64 columns of text made working with text based programs much easier and could be used for business applications like spreadsheets or word processing. In fact later models were marketed as business computers and with some modification, the TRS-80 could even run the #1 operating system of its day, Digital Researches CP/M, which was incredibly popular with businesses.

There was no sound for the computer, initially but there were various ways to get sound. one way was that since the machine produced so much radio interference, sound effects could be generated by placing an AM radio near the computer. Another way was to output data to the cassette port and hook up a speaker to the microphone port on the cassette recorder to produce square wave tones. There were even sound cards made such as Orchestra 85.

As for the software you can run on it, Well, The TRS-80 proved to be popular with and had plenty of software to use in schools and some businesses, But when it came to things like games, it was somewhat of a downer. Compared to the Apple II, the TRS-80's blocky graphics and crude sound were widely considered limited. However, that didn't stop programmers from making games for the system, mostly making unlicensed versions of arcade games like Namco's Galaxian, Atari's Asteroids, and Namco/Midway's Pac-Man. The only company to have officially licensed ports for the TRS-80 was Sega, who made ports of Frogger and Zaxxon through Cornsoft. Broderbund software, (known for hit Apple II games like Choplifter, Lode Runner, Karateka, and Prince of Persia), originally began by publishing TRS-80 software. But by 1983, they pulled out of the market because cofounder Doug Carlston realized that the TRS-80 had a terrible market due to the closed distribution networks. One of the most popular types of games for the TRS-80 were text adventures. Adventure International's Scott Adams text adventures began on the TRS-80, and Infocom released games such as Zork and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the system.

While the TRS-80 was a massive success, It did have a lot of criticisms, mostly stemming from the build quality and its various hardware flaws. Along with the previously mentioned expansion interface and rebadged tv monitor, and RF interference, The TRS-80's keyboard originally used Hi-Tek High Profile mechanical switches. Due to the Unsealed nature of the switches; dirt, cigarette smoke, and other types of debris could enter the key switches, causing electrical noise that caused "keyboard bounce", resulting in multiple letters being typed per keystroke.

The keyboard bounce only occurs with the Level II BASIC firmware; Level I BASIC had a "debounce" delay in the keyboard driver to avoid the noisy switch contacts. Tandy's KBFIX utility, later models, the last Model I firmware, and most third-party operating systems also implement the software fix. Tandy eventually changed the keyboards to an Alps Electric design with sealed SKCC Cream switches. The Alps keyboard was also available as an upgrade for the Model I for $79. 

A comparison of Keyboards (The Alps version on the top, and the original Hi-Tek version on the bottom).

All of these criticisms toward the machines poor quality hardware and software eventually led to the system being nicknamed the Trash-80, which TRS-80 fans hate to this day.

The TRS-80 was discontinued in 1981, due to stricter FCC regulations on radio-frequency interference to nearby electronic devices. However the story of the TRS-80 didn't end there, The TRS-80 Model II was launched just 2 years after the first machine in October 1979, and targeted at the small-business market. It was an all-in-one unit with enhanced features such as a Z80a running at 4 MHz, a double-density 8" drive (expandable to up to four drives), 32K of RAM, upgradable to 64K (and later upgradable to 256K), a detachable 76 key keyboard, with HOLD, ESC, BREAK, CTRL, CAPS, REPEAT, F1, and F2 keys, a built in parallel port, two RS-232 ports, a built-in 12" screen, capable of displaying 80 columns by 24 lines, with uppercase, lowercase, and 32 “business graphics” characters and, four plug-in card slots. However, aside from simple BASIC programs, the Model II was incompatible the older model (Retroactively named the Model I). it also lacked cassette interface. 

 

The TRS80 Model 2 (1979).

The Model II was succeeded by the compatible TRS-80 Model 12, Model 16, Model 16B, and the Tandy 6000.

Left to right: The TRS-80 Model 16 (1982), The TRS-80 Model 12 (1983), The TRS-80 Model 16B (1984), and The Tandy 6000 (1985).

The Model III was introduced in 1980, that was not only backwards compatible with the Model I, but also had a number of improvements such as: an enhanced character set with built-in lowercase characters, a better keyboard with repeating keys, a real-time clock, 1500-baud cassette interface, a faster Z80 processor (clocked at 2.03 MHz), and an all-in-one enclosure requiring fewer cables.

The TRS-80 Model III (1980).

The Model III was succeeded by the Model IIII in 1983 and was the last TRS-80 computer produced, being discontinued in 1991. It had a faster Z80A CPU (At 4Mhz), a larger video display 80 columns x 24 rows with reverse video, a larger keyboard, an internal speaker, 64K of RAM that could be upgraded to 128K of bank-switched RAM, and the option for a high resolution graphics card yielding 640 × 240 pixels. The Model 4 is fully compatible with Model III and finally was able to run CP/M software out of the box.

The TRS-80 Model IIII (1983).

There was also a portable version called the Model 4P. It has all the features of the desktop Model 4 except for the ability to add two outboard floppy disk drives and the interface for cassette tape storage (audio sent to the cassette port in Model III mode goes to the internal speaker).

The TRS-80 Model 4P (1983).

The TRS-80 models can be seen in many movies and tv shows such as The A-Team, Airplane 2, and Miami Vice. In fact the TRS-80 Model 1 happens to be the very first personal computer to be shown in a film! In the sports movie North Dallas Forty (1979) B.A. uses team statistics stored on a Tandy TRS-80 to remind himself of Phil's performance tendencies.

The TRS-80 Model 1 in North Dallas Forty (1979).

Also The TRS-80 Model II was the computer General Computer Corporation used to develop their first arcade conversion kits starting with Super Missile Attack and eventually Ms. Pac-Man.

Ms Pac-Man co-designer Steve Golson using a TRS-80 Model II to code Super Missile Attack (1981).

So in conclusion I hope I gave you a good look at The TRS-80 line. An innovative beginner which was not only the the beginning of personal computers for Radio Shack, but for a lot of people who still hold it dear to their hearts to this day. In the next entry we go forward in time to the 80s, where we met Radio Shack's first color computer. 

Ryan's SepTandy Spectacular! Part #1 - The Story of Radio Shack

There are many beloved major retailers that have closed their stores in recent years—Toys "R" Us, Blockbuster Video, Zellers—But there's one retailer that doesn't get as much love as the others. A store with so much to tell that yet most people ignore, A store which I say is the most innovative yet misunderstood companies in the history of American business. With over 8000 stores across across several countries, it was once the biggest electronic store in the world. That chain was Radio Shack. 

Yes, THAT Radio Shack!

Yeah, A lot of those points in that introduction may seem hard to believe now, As Radio Shack was one of those stores that you knew about and maybe had one in your town, but never went to. And when you did go into one, you weren't greeted by rows of TVs stereos, or any other electronics like in most electronics stores, You were greeted with phones, RC toys and electronic components. But there was a time when the chain really thrived, gained a dedicated fanbase, and made several contributions to the tech world along the way.

And that's exactly what I'm going to talk about as this month I'm making my own version of #SepTandy, A celebration of all things Tandy through the month of September. 

There was already a collective YouTube celebration of SepTandy 2 years ago and a month long series of videos by Mr Lurch's Things before that, But as they have not done one since then, I decided to take up the torch and make my own series of blogs I'll be posting throughout September to show my appreciation for their contributions they've made to the tech world. 

But in order to do that, we need to take a little trip back to the beginning. Way back in 1921, two English brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, founded a store in Boston Massachusetts called Radio Shack which sold parts for amateur radio market. 

Theodore and Milton Deutschmann

The name Radio Shack came from the term for a small, wooden structure that housed radio equipment onboard a Navy ship. The new store opened in downtown Boston and was pretty successful selling various parts most of which were left over from World War I. The chain grew even more, opening in a cluster around the northeast United States. 

The inside of the first Radio Shack store

They introduced their first mail order catalog in 1939 to expand their market even more and in 1954 introduced to music based high fidelity sound equipment. However, by the late 50s, the company began to lose money due to a lawsuit by Stereo Realist over their private label Realist, (Changing the brand name to Realistic), and overall efficiency problems. As their debt escalated so much, the company was almost close to filing chapter seven bankruptcy. 

The brand was already facing the end of its life, But all hope was not lost. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in the city of Fort Worth, Texas, The Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company had been growing considerably. Founded in 1919 by two friends, Norton Hinckley and Dave L. Tandy, the company began to diversify outside of the modest profits coming in from the retail and leather mail order businesses after coming out of the Great Depression, and entered the consumer hobby markets. By 1961, the company changed it's name to Tandy Corporation, And Dave Tandy's son, Charles D. Tandy became the president and chairman of the board. Tandy was operating 125 stores in 105 cities throughout the United States and Canada. 

Charles Tandy (center) with his parents David L. Tandy (left), and Carmen Tandy (right) at Municipal Airport, circa 1943. (Charles was a Lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, hence the uniform.)

In 1962 Charles Tandy had learned about the small chain of Radio Shack stores and when he went to the original store in Boston, he saw great potential in the store. Charles was already very interested in consumer electronics, and when he saw the company's financial struggles, he saw an opportunity. So he bought the company for $300,000 which would equal $2,943,139.07 in today’s money. Once in control, Charles came up with a radical new store plan. The idea was to update the chain and primarily target to electronic hobbyists and employ people who were highly educated on the products being sold. 

This strategy ended up working well as the company gained $20 million dollars in annual sales within just 2 years, and by 1969, there were more than 300 Radio Shack stores throughout the United States. The timing for the turnaround could not have been better. Because as the 60's became the 70's, A new era for various prebuilt and do it yourself electronics would arrive that would contribute to big sales such as CB radio, early video game systems, and pocket calculators. 

Left to right: A screenshot from a Radio shack catalog showing various CB radios (1974) Radio Shack TV Scoreboard Pong Console (1976) and the EC-220 Calculator (1976)

But the biggest new emerging technology market that Radio Shack was able to make a huge profit off of, was the hobbyist computer market. In 1973, former Goodyear Aerospace engineer Don Lancaster designed a device called The TV Typewriter, which was a low cost video terminal that could hook up to a standard tv set. The TV Typewriter first appeared in the September 1973 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine in a six-page article explaining how the device worked, as well as an offer to ship out a larger 16-page version with complete layout plans for a mail-in fee of $2.

The September 1973 issue of Radio-Electronics featuring The TV typewriter

By 1976, Don Lancaster had made many design improvements to the original design and published them in a book called the TV Typewriter Cookbook. The book was a guide on how to not only design design a video computer terminal, but also add various features such as serial interfaces, upper and lowercase character generation, and even color graphics. Naturally, a later edition of the book was sold in Radio Shack stores and since most of the components to build a TV Typewriter could also be purchased at a Radio Shack store, Selling the TV Typewriter Cookbook was Radio Shack's first dive into the computer industry.

The Radio Shack edition of The TV Typewriter Cookbook.

By the next year, Radio Shack introduced a computer of their own. A fully preassembled, all in one unit that was aimed at the average consumer instead of hobbyists much like the recently launched Apple II computer. The result was the TRS-80 computer, Launching on August 3, 1977, for $599.95. it proved to by a massive success selling 500,000 units in just 3 years.

The Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1 (1977).

By the 1980's Radio Shack had become the go to store for home electronics offering them at a reasonable prices as well as having a variaty of stock with new emerging products like early cell phones, RCA's ill fated CED videodisc format, and even more computers such as the IBM compatible Tandy 1000.

Left to right: a Radio shack ad showing various cellphones (1989) A screenshot from a Radio shack catalog showing Radio Shacks Realistic CED player (1983) and an ad for the Tandy 1000 (1986) (Yes, That is actor Bill Bixby as their spokesperson.)

In 1986, they formed Intertan to expand into other markets around the world such as Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany, and even Asia and Mexico. In 1990 alone, there were 1400 Radio Shack brands around the world.

As 1996 rolled around, there were over 65,000 stores in the US alone, And with solid in store growth, as well as more stock and services, they were really at their peak.

So if Radio Shack was so successful in the 70s 80s and 90s, Why did they end up going bankrupt in the 21st century? Well, for quite a few reasons. In the late 90s, competing electronics retailers were popping up everywhere from big box stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City, to discount retailers such as Walmart and Kmart which made Radio Shacks once niche market incredibly competitive. Another problem was that Radio Shack had put a large emphasize on cellphones, perhaps a little too much, as they partnered with Sprint and by now almost resembled a phone carrier than an electronics store. And the final big problem was the internet, online retailers like Amazon ate what little remained of Radio Shacks market. Aside from the few enthusiasts that contiued to buy componets for hobby projects, it was just not enough to keep the chain afloat and as a result of all of this, On March 8th, 2017, Radio Shack filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. 

With hundreds of thousands of stores left abandoned and thousands of employees laid off, the brand seemed dead. Until July 2018, when the holdings firm that owned the RadioShack name partnered up with HobbyTown USA to open up stores under the brand and in 2020, The RadioShack brand was bought by Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV), a Florida-based company that also purchased other defunct retailers such as Pier 1 Imports, Dress Barn, Modell's Sporting Goods, and Linens 'n Things, who continue to operate the website to this day.

So this concludes the first entry of my SepTandy Spectacular, Tune in next time where we rewind back to 1977 and talk more about the TRS80.

Lost and Found: The Fairyland Story (Unreleased port for the Nintendo Famicom)

It's video game history time again, but this time it's something a bit different, as the game we're talking about today was never released (As you can probably infer from the title of this post).

But first, let me ask you a question. Have you ever looked around and found something really valuable or interesting in a place you never thought it would be?

Well the game we're talking about today is one of those cases. That game is The Fairyland Story for the Nintendo Famicom. A presumed lost, unreleased port of an arcade title of the same name that was recently rediscovered. 

A photo of the cartridge (Note: I couldn't get a hold of a good photo of the real cart and this is just a Photoshoped mockup, but I'm sure you get the idea.)

But in order to understand this game we need to look at the game its a port of. The game was released in 1985 by Taito. Now Taito were and still are a famous Japanese video game company who created many many classic arcade games such as Jungle Hunt (Also known as Jungle King), Qix (pronounced Kicks), Elevator Action, Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and most notably they made Space Invaders back in the late 70s. 

Some of the many classic games by Taito

However, Taito made thousands of games throughout the 80's and not all of them got the same amount of wide recognition as there more famous works. The Fairyland Story was one of those titles, The Fairyland Story is considered by many gamers to be a predecessor to Taito’s other platforming games like Bubble Bobble and The New Zealand Story and that claim certainly isn't that far off. 

Left to right: The Fairyland Story, Bubble Bobble, and The New Zealand Story.

Despite its name, The game actually has nothing to do with fairies. You play as a young witch named Ptolemy, who's on a quest to find the holy diamond stolen by the evil dragon Dracolisk. The only catch is Ptolemy's still a witch in training, so the only spell she can do is one that can turn enemies into cakes for a limited amount of time. The object of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each level by either repeatedly casting the spell on the enemies until they disappear or push off a ledge in cake form, squashing other enemies below if they happen to be there. 

some footage of gameplay (Source: World of Longplays).

It looks and sounds bizarre, but it's actually a pretty good puzzle platforming game. Though some reviewers have criticized it's simple level designs and gameplay mechanics, and while I can say it is very simple I certainly don't think it's that bad. In fact I think the game's a little underrated, but that's just me.

The game was created by Hiroshi Tsujino (often going by the nickname “Onijust”), a game designer who worked for both Taito in Japan and Taito America. Like many classic Japanese game designers, He had quite humble beginnings. 

Hiroshi Tsujino in 1987

Born in Takaoka City, Toyama Japan in 1965, he grew up on the television watching anime such as Ultraman and Mazinger Z. As a teen of the late-70s, Tsujino witnessed the Space Invaders boom and became enamored with video games. He spent hours playing Space Invaders at a local supermarket, often hung out at nearby arcades and computer stores, and he even won several game design contests in high school. 

The various game design documents from when Tsujino was applying to game contests.

He began his career at Taito in 1983 in their home division, doing ports of arcade games like Elevator Action and Chack’n Pop for the MSX computer. 

The MSX ports of Elevator Action (left) and Chack’n Pop (right).

Shortly after the release of an original title called XYZOLOG, Taito decided to slow down MSX production in favor of the newly-released Nintendo Famicom (also known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System), and Tsujino got transferred to their arcade division in Yokohama. While working there, Tsujino drafted an idea for a game where the player had to defeat enemies by crushing them under large cakes.

According to Tsujino, he claims the concept was inspired by his addiction to Namco's Dig Dug, and looking at how the mechanics in the game work, I can certainly see the resemblance. The way how you can kill an enemy by squashing it with cake does resemble the way how you can kill enemies in Dig Dug with the rocks in each level. 

Not only that, but one of the enemies is a dragon-like creature that can breathe fire called a Salamander, which does look and act like the Fygar enemy in Dig Dug. 

He also took inspiration from Broderbund's Lode Runner for the Apple II, giving the game a larger emphasis on strategy and memorization as well as reworked stage designs and a mechanic where you can stand on top of enemies rather than them just killing you like they would touching them on the ground. 

As previously mentioned The Fairyland Story is not generally regarded as a great game to critics and it seems that it wasn't even considered a popular game when it was released back in 1985, So it never got many ports to the various video game console and home computers prevalent at the time.

However, it did get a few ports only released in Japan for the Sharp X68000 and the MSX. With Hot-B publishing the MSX port under the GA夢 brand in 1987, and with the company SPS publishing the X68000 port in 1991. 

The two ports of  The Fairyland Story released back in its day (Sharp X68000 port on the left and the MSX port on the right).

The Nintendo Famicom port was announced in 1986 as a forthcoming title for the system, and had a preview shown in Family Computer Magazine in March of that year alongside ports of Great Swordsman and Pitstop II, which were also never released. 

The preview from the March 1986 issue of  Family Computer Magazine

The port was thought to be lost or, at best, in the hands of a Japanese collector until 2022, when avid console modder FenrisWolfRetro found a copy of the in an eBay lot of untested Famicom games. So he bought it, alerted the folks at the Forest of Illusion group, dumped the rom, and spread the info to other video game historians. 

A photo of the prototype cartridge from the original eBay listing.

The cart itself is dated April 25th, 1986, and seems to be a debug build. The level layouts only rarely resemble the arcade game (even when they match, the enemies are often swapped). It also has less levels then the arcade version, with 50 levels instead of Level 101 with a boss fight. The Famicom port is also never-ending, looping after Level 50. You can skip levels by Pressing Select (though if overused, can result in breaking the game).

Who developed the Famicom port of The Fairyland Story is unknown. Nobody knows if it was Taito, Hot-B, or even an unknown contractor. In 2003, there was a claim from an anonymous user going by “kiwi” on the 2chan imageboard, claiming to be one of the people behind both the Famicom and MSX conversions and that the Famicom port of The Fairyland Story was scrapped due to quality concerns and that the team moved on to the MSX version shortly after. While this cannot be verified, if that's true then that means that either Taito or Hot-B handled the conversion.

Further evidence is in the the games ROM. Comparing title screens, both ports have an identical font, copyrights, HUDs, and sound drivers, the game bares resemblance to the Famicom port of Chack’n Pop by TOSE. Although not a perfect match, both reference the same RAM addresses when writing to sound registers for SFX. So it's very possible that the developer that converted Chack’n Pop to the Famicom is the same developer that would would have done The Fairyland Story. 

The Famicom ports of Taito’s Chack’n Pop and The Fairyland Story side by side.

So it's very possible that the developer that converted Chack’n Pop to the Famicom is the same developer that would have done The Fairyland Story. So, with the history and explanation out of the way, why don't we have a quick look at the game shall we?

While the game may not be complete, it is still playable. Everything runs as expected without crashing, at least from my brief playthrough and every feature implemented works, Even the 2 player mode!

Judging from the facts stated above, this build of the game appears to be about 80% done. If this build had a more exact layout to the arcade game, some tweaks to some of the gameplay code, the color, graphics and sound, and had the select button skip replaced with a password system or a continue feature after a game over or something like that, You would probably have a pretty good port of the arcade game. but as it stands, its more or less as playable as its arcade counter part. Will a full build of the game ever be discovered? We may never know.

But until then, This prototype build of The Fairyland Story for the Famicom is a reminder that sometimes the greatest discoveries can be found hidden in the most unlikely of places.