Famicom World

Family Computer => Famicom / Disk System => Topic started by: Nintega on July 10, 2007, 02:33:51 pm

Title: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Nintega on July 10, 2007, 02:33:51 pm
I am clueless.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: kite200 on July 10, 2007, 02:56:03 pm
certain games use it. in kid icarus you can yell into the mic while in the shop to make the guy lower prices.

it's also fun to hear your voice through the tv.


Are you a goemon fan btw?
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: djdac on July 10, 2007, 06:00:46 pm
you can also use it to talk sh*t when ur playing a game against someone  :D
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: JC on July 10, 2007, 06:41:31 pm
Unfortunately, too few games used the mic.

Atlantis no Nazo
Takeshi no Chousenjou
Hikari Shinwa: Palutena no Kagami

At least those are the ones I've heard about.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: vealchop on July 10, 2007, 07:11:36 pm
"Raid on Bungeling Bay" used it. Players were urged to yell "NAMCO" when playing against an opponent to generate more attack helicopters.

Also "Legend of Zelda" used it as well. Remember even in the american version you would find an old man that said the pols voice hates noise. Most would say he meant the magic flute, but supposedly you could yell into the mic on controller 2 to get the same effect against them.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: 133MHz on July 10, 2007, 07:15:35 pm
Sorry for shamelessly plugging into your question, but does anybody know the technical aspects about the Famicom microphone? How does the Famicom 'hear' ? Never used one, but if today with very powerful computers and complicated software speech recognition isn't anywhere near perfect, an 8 bit 1.79MHz console which could only address 64KB of storage directly released in the 80s is waaaay off it.

Maybe it just detects the sound level? So the Famicom doesn't care what you are actually saying/singing, just if any sound is loud enough to trigger it. Or maybe it is something a little bit more complicated like a bandpass filter calibrated at about 1kHz rigged to something like an 8 bit ADC connected to some CPU register so it can detect some simple sounds?

Of course, I'm talking out of my ass here since I've never seen in person (let alone used or owned) a Famicom in my entire life, so those are just hypotheses on how it may work. It would be really cool if someone could shine some light into the subject ;D
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Jedi Master Baiter on July 10, 2007, 10:40:12 pm
Quote from: vealchop on July 10, 2007, 07:11:36 pm
Also "Legend of Zelda" used it as well. Remember even in the american version you would find an old man that said the pols voice hates noise. Most would say he meant the magic flute, but supposedly you could yell into the mic on controller 2 to get the same effect against them.

I think the recorder (flute) does nothing.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: madman on July 10, 2007, 11:56:42 pm
It's a simple level detector, it obviously doesn't do voice recognition of any sort.  The results of the input are written to a single bit in a register.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: manuel on July 11, 2007, 03:19:30 am
Quote from: vealchop on July 10, 2007, 07:11:36 pm
Also "Legend of Zelda" used it as well. Remember even in the american version you would find an old man that said the pols voice hates noise. Most would say he meant the magic flute, but supposedly you could yell into the mic on controller 2 to get the same effect against them.


Voice is used in Phantom Hourglass, too. The last day I encountered an enemy I had to yell at to defeat it.  ;D Nice idea, unless you're not on a train or something. ;)
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: satoshi_matrix on July 11, 2007, 01:57:51 pm
The Famicom Mic was used in too few games and in every case the effects of whatever use it served could've been obtained in another way, so I'm kind of jaded you dont have the Start and Select buttons on the second controller for two player second player pausing-for-no-reason shinanagins. That's one reason I prefer the AV Famicom to the original.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Nintega on July 11, 2007, 03:11:55 pm
Quote from: kite200 on July 10, 2007, 02:56:03 pm
certain games use it. in kid icarus you can yell into the mic while in the shop to make the guy lower prices.

it's also fun to hear your voice through the tv.


Are you a goemon fan btw?


Very cool. Shows that the system was way ahead of its time.

And yes I love Goemon. I only have Goemon 1 Famicom and  Mystical Ninja SNES though.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: kite200 on July 11, 2007, 05:21:22 pm
pick up the 2 n64 games, and the ds one. those are my favs
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: JC on July 11, 2007, 06:19:33 pm
Quote from: vealchop on July 10, 2007, 07:11:36 pm
Also "Legend of Zelda" used it as well.


Both the cart and disk?
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: satoshi_matrix on July 11, 2007, 09:54:12 pm
the disk version anyway. I dont have the cartridge re-release. I'd be interested in knowing if the cart has it too or if it was esstintally a Japanese version of the NES game.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: FamicomFreak on July 12, 2007, 07:26:06 am
man that's awesome I'm going to try it with some of those games now.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Nintega on July 12, 2007, 11:50:32 am
Quote from: satoshi_matrix on July 11, 2007, 09:54:12 pm
the disk version anyway. I dont have the cartridge re-release. I'd be interested in knowing if the cart has it too or if it was esstintally a Japanese version of the NES game.


I do have an original Famicom, an NES-to-Famicom adapter, and the US cartridge versions of these games. I'll let you all know if the voice recognition works in these versions as well.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Nintega on July 12, 2007, 07:19:56 pm
Crap. The mike won't work with my US Kid Icarus cart. I guess the haggling only works in the Japanese disk version.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: keiffer01 on July 12, 2007, 08:07:45 pm
That sucks...I really wonder why Nintendo ever decided to take the microphone option off when they released the NES over here. ???
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Doc on July 12, 2007, 08:20:11 pm
Quote from: Nintega on July 12, 2007, 07:19:56 pm
Crap. The mike won't work with my US Kid Icarus cart. I guess the haggling only works in the Japanese disk version.


Yup, that's how it was set up unfortunately.

I can confirm that yelling kills the Pol's Voice in Legend of Zelda. I went "OMGOMGOMG" and it did the trick, WAY back... ;)
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: vealchop on July 12, 2007, 09:44:57 pm
you can still do the kid icarus trick by some button combination on controller 2. Maybe it was A and B at the same time? I forget exactly but I definitely remember doing it.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Jedi Master Baiter on July 12, 2007, 10:49:28 pm
I think Nintendo was hoping for someone to see the high prices in the shop & yell What, MF? really loud & have it work. :P

The prices can go up, too, right?
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Doc on July 13, 2007, 06:46:36 am
Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on July 12, 2007, 10:49:28 pm
I think Nintendo was hoping for someone to see the high prices in the shop & yell What, MF? really loud & have it work. :P


Hell, that's what I'd do. :P
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: keiffer01 on July 13, 2007, 08:04:39 am
Quote from: vealchop on July 12, 2007, 09:44:57 pm
you can still do the kid icarus trick by some button combination on controller 2. Maybe it was A and B at the same time? I forget exactly but I definitely remember doing it.
Yeah it's A and B at the same time, but it's just not as original as in the japanese version.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: satoshi_matrix on July 13, 2007, 04:19:20 pm
I think the mic is what makes the Famicom unique. As unimportant as it is though I'm still glad its there.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: JC on June 15, 2008, 02:24:04 pm
I was playing my Famicom on my PC and noticed that I can talk through the mic into the PC speakers. I should record podcasts with my Famicom mic, nuh? :)
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: xyzzy32 on June 15, 2008, 07:17:33 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2UtC_SwAfY
For those who don't own the zelda famicom disk.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: son_ov_hades on June 15, 2008, 08:25:19 pm
Haha that's awsome.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Sirdjorgo on June 28, 2008, 08:30:17 pm
Also there was a project for a game that was going to be called "Donkey Kong Karaoke" that was planned to be released for the Fc. Just like it sounds it was a Karaokegame with Donkey kong that had the function that you could sing songs with that monkey.

More information about that besides that it was planned to have use by the second controllers microphone i do not have. It was an early project and there is almost no information about it...

Anyone else heard about this thing?
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: RR1980 on June 29, 2008, 07:47:36 pm
I had a SD Kamen Rider game and one of the mini games in it is you have to blow air into the mirocphpne on the second control to get a windmill to spin.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: JC on June 29, 2008, 07:54:31 pm
Hey, that's a great use of the mic. The rest have an auditory effect on the screen, that one's a physical effect.
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: JC on July 03, 2008, 02:56:39 pm
Do any of the NES counterparts of Famicom microphone games have this feature enabled? Or was it entirely eliminated for the NES releases, which would make sense?
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: 133MHz on July 03, 2008, 03:03:42 pm
Hey that would be a good test... Maybe they didn't bother to remove the Microphone functionality since on a NES there's no way to trigger it anyways! Somebody with a Famicom and a 72-60 pin converter could do the honors ;D
Title: Re: What's the Purpose of Controller II's Microphone?
Post by: Sensei on July 15, 2008, 11:01:34 pm
Quote from: vealchop on July 10, 2007, 07:11:36 pm
"Raid on Bungeling Bay" used it. Players were urged to yell "NAMCO" when playing against an opponent to generate more attack helicopters.


Wasn't "Raid on Bungeling Bay" made by Bourderbund and released by Hudson?