Rare 8-bit computer from China review! [SB-2000]

Hello guys!

Today, I would like to propose a special video about a rare Chinese 8-bit computer from 1998, I bought in brand new condition!
Half-famiclone, half-8-bit computer, is it any good in both?

00:00 Unboxing
00:50 SUBOR company presentation
01:44 SB-2000 in details
03:52 Boot up and disks review
06:11 F-BASIC
07:46 Famicom/NES mode
09:16 Conclusion

Links used in this video:

Music:
Operatic 3 - Vibe Mountain

[aqualung]

Interesting find! I guess that CPU has the exact same opcodes as the 6502. They turned a famicom into an _actual_ computer! :)

[AndersAstrand]

You should make some videos trying to figure out how this machine works! I agree that the Famiclone stuff must mostly be a compatibility mode, but as you showed some things are still the same.

It'd be very cool to figure out how much of the Famicom stuff could be used in conjunction with the better graphics modes shown for example.

[ninjazhu]

good video, i also have a couple of these and another branded similar to Amiga 500 that is an NES clone. I wonder if there is a technical person happy to pull them apart carefully to dump the roms. i will check in fb to see if there is a NES group that might shed some light

[Defianthuman]

The fact that they achieved a copy of windows 98 on an 8 bit system is pretty impressive. Those graphics were really good. Although yes at the time 32 bit was the current architecture this seems to be really good and something that could be made great. Especially for someone wanting to experience 8 bit this seems like a cheat code. I would love to be apart of or see a new computer develop from this hardware.

[Curt_Sampson]

If you dumped the ROMs and made them available, you might be able to convince someone to do a little disassembly on them to get more information about the machine.

[samshort]

The reason that this computer was not documented was more than likely to allow the company to pass it off as an 8 bit PC rather than an actual game console. It may also have been a requirement to do so in order for the item to be sold under the Chinese restrictions. Either way, the engineers really did an amazing job with the operating system and GUI. It reminds me of the 8 bit multitasking operating system SymbOS, with its Windows like interface. Back in the day I would have gladly used this system. In the 80s I was using a VAX mainframe running Unix, an Exidy Sorcerer Mk II with CPM and much later a Sharp MSX II with MSX Dos, which was essentially MS Dos.

[francescosacco]

It would be great if you open the machine and show the electronic board.

[penganzhou]

SB2000 is designed as a true home computer uses MS-DOS compatible FAT12 floppies, and its word processing software is compatible with the DOS version of Kingsoft WPS.
The lack of a full SDK for the SB2000 was a real problem, but Chinese enthusiasts reverse-engineered it to run some NES ROMs without the need for a programmable cassette.
Another machine similar to it, the BBK Floppy Model1, had complete BIOS and DOS call manuals, as well as the macro assembly toolset. There is a "Chinese Famiclone Home Computer" archive on the Internet Archive with a large amount of unorganised material, including the NES-SB2000 ROM conversion tool SB2000NES.exe and BBK documentation BBG.pdf.

[TheUtuber]

Looks like I'm not the only fan of Dr. Mario. I still play that game almost every day. 😄

[plankalkulcompiler]

Interesting. I wonder if it can run Family Basic cartridge and recognize keyboard on Famicom side.

[yoymate]

god this is SUCH a missed opportunity; if they had marketed it as a programming learning tool for older kids and teens, shipped it with relatively extensive documentation on their flavour of BASIC and included a rudimentary SDK, this could’ve been a small revival of the 80s bedroom coder era

[rfinalarm]

hope you guys to find a way to mod this console，its CPU should have more powerful hardware than normal famicom's cpu.and maybe a ntsc TV mode？

[vxl]

i think you can try running binary executables from basic with peek and poke by modifying the call stack or sth. It should have the same instr set as the regular nes.

[Nullx]

Atleast you can use the keyboard of this famiclone on a actual computer with some adapters
I would fo everything for a keyboard like that lol

[ThalassTKynn]

@6:01 is that the logo from Command & Conquer?

[zaxxon]

15 years earlier, and it would have been competitive, 20 years and it would have made every consumer computer look bad. It was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As for reverse engineering, that's made tougher by the fact that most of the chips are in epoxy blobs on the motherboard. It is unlikely to have any chips that are unique to it though, so it may be possible to identify which chips they used by comparing how they work.

[andrewdunbar]

小霸王 "little despot". Aww I thought you were going to make a start at reverse engineering it...

[GeorgiaRidgerunner]

Seeing this was a real treat im no computer expert but i heard about these a few years back and have actually been searching for one theres other versions of this out there theres one thats just a keyboard controllers mouse and famicom cartridge slot and has some weird 8 bit windows 98 clone on it
But it seems this version never made it to america
So i probably wont get one

[stevendobbins]

I understand that in '90s China it'd be a tall order for your Average Joe to afford a full-on (then) modern Wintel machine, but it seems like it'd be easier just to clone an older platform like the Amiga or ST than to try and kludge NES hardware into a proper computer.

[eekee]

When I saw the box opened, I felt a sort of false nostalgia. I want one! :) But I have more than enough computer things to play with.

I wonder if the mouse port is full RS-232 serial? But it seems strange to use a modem and not a mouse with this machine.

Boot "screen"? That's a boot *video!* :D I grew up with computers which could do fun things immediately at power-on. The PC's lack of sound initialization at boot makes me a little bit sad.

The lack of architecture documentation would, years ago, have made me dislike this machine. ;) Having started out with 80s 8-bits, I expected to have full knowlege of the machine and the control which came with it. But I developed this attitude because I could afford very little hardware in the 80s. Things were different in 1998, and now we live in a computing paradise.