Sharp was one of the few companies lucky enough to get Nintendo licenses for special hardware. That partnership produced unusual platforms like the Twin Famicom, the My Computer TV hybrid and the Super Famicom Naizou TV SF1, but the list also includes a console you may not know: the Famicom Titler. Built specifically for capturing gameplay, generating subtitles, and recording voices, the Famicom Titler is a sought-after collector's item because of its technical capabilities. The folks at Long Island Retro Gaming received a non-working Titler and recently shared its repair...
The Famicom Titler (also known as the Famicom Editor) hit the Japanese market in 1989. With an official price of 43,000 yen (about 345 dollars in today's money, adjusted for inflation), the console was built to satisfy a need: capturing and editing gaming sessions. It includes a touchpad, a keyboard, and a microphone for recording narration, and most importantly, internal RGB video generation (the only Famicom to do this) and S-Video output.
That made it popular among enthusiasts, but with more than 35 years on its shoulders, some things are bound to fail. That's where Long Island Retro Gaming comes in. They received a Famicom Titler with a video fault that doesn't reveal too many details...
How to repair a Famicom Titler from 1989
The only thing on screen is a gray image, with no glitches and no background audio. Looking inside the console, its components are neatly separated: on one side you have the “Famicom board”, and on the other, everything that belongs to the “Titler functions”. A quick voltage check confirms the system is receiving the 5 volts it needs, and that's when the diagnosis takes one of the oldest tricks in the book: testing the Famicom board in another Titler that works correctly.
That made it possible to confirm that the fault is indeed on the Famicom board. NES/Famicom systems generally concentrate their problems in four chips: the CPU, the PPU, and the two RAM chips. Seeing any color on the screen suggests the PPU is working, which makes the CPU the first suspect. When the Titler's processor was tested in another console, it produced exactly the same gray screen. From one point of view, that's very good news: processors are not that hard to come by, and the Titler can accept CPUs from Famicom or US NES systems without any trouble.
The reinstallation process went smoothly, despite the incredible number of “factory corrections” on the back of the PCB. Unfortunately, installing a socket for the CPU is not possible because it would interfere with the ejection mechanism. However, everything else responded perfectly, and the Titler came back from the dead. The video ends with a short demo using S-Video with a scaler (it looks great) and some of the editing functions.
