Fujitsu FM Towns

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The FM Towns is a 32-bit Japanese home computer, manufactured and released in 1989 by Fujitsu, only in Japan. It was capable of running Microsoft Windows 3.0 through its own custom OS named Towns OS, as well as the ability to run MS-DOS inside its own hidden hard drive disk. It was also the first computer to run CD-ROM software aside from games. A console version of the computer, named FM Towns Marty, was released in 1993, but quickly discontinued in 1995. Support for the entire FM Towns line was made until 1997.

In terms of hardware, the FM Towns shares many capabilities with the Mega Drive, as well as the Mega-CD: It can accept DE-9 controllers (as long it supports the "Sega standard" of electrical pinouts) and for the sound, it uses the Yamaha YM3438 FM sound chip, a variant of YM2612 used in several Sega Arcade boards (Sega System 18 and 32, respectively) and in the second models of Mega Drive across the world, as well the Ricoh RF5C68 PCM sound chip, which was used in several Sega Arcade boards (again, System 18 and 32) as well on the Mega-CD under the Ricoh RF51C64 name. In addition, it also allows CDDA tracks to be played in games, just like many Mega-CD games do.

Sega support

Due to their focus on Mega Drive getting just started, Sega did not support directly the FM Towns. However, Sega allowed his former parent company, CRI, to port several Arcade games of theirs to the system. Some of them are also compatible with the FM Towns Marty as well.

In addition, Ving ported Sammy's Viewpoint to the computer in 1993, before Sammy merged their consumer department with Sega in 2005.

List of Sega games featured on Fujitsu FM Towns

All games are developed and published by CRI unless otherwise stated.

• After Burner (1989, launch title, based on After Burner II)
• Turbo OutRun (1989)
• Columns (1990, developed by Compile and published by Telenet Japan)
• Galaxy Force II (1990)
• Last Survivor (1990)
• After Burner III (1992, based on Strike Fighter)
• Viewpoint (1993, developed and published by Ving, game rights owned by Sega since 2005)
• Puyo Puyo (1994, game rights owned by Sega since 2001)
• 5-kan Pack (199?, compilation)

List of Sega-compatible hardware shared with Fujitsu FM Towns

• Micomsoft XE-1 AP (analog controller)
• Micomsoft XE-1 ST2 (controller)