How many famiclones have ever been produced? This is the second article dedicated to this great mystery. On the previous article I considered about the famous Micro Genius. This time I'll focus on another Taiwanese giant of clone consoles: Dar Yar Electronics.
Major players other than TXC
The heyday of famiclones in Taiwan was around 1987~1993, and during that time an extremely large number of manufacturers/suppliers were competing with each other. The number of manufacturers/suppliers exceeds 50 as far as we can confirm. TXC, mentioned in the previous article, is the largest among them, but there were several other companies that could be considered “major players”. We will consider companies that meet the following conditions to be “major”.
Product lineup includes at least 5 models (excluding minor revisions).
Products are distributed in more than 5 countries/regions.
Products are still readily available in second-hand markets.
The following seven companies meet the above criteria (The numbers are the year of establishment).
Bit Corporation, 1980
Dar Yar Electronics, 1980
Ramar International (aka Rinco), 1980
Nintendo Electronics (aka NTDEC), 1986
Sonling Enterprise (aka Songtly), 1986
Zonic Electronic (aka Aaronix), 1987
Lingli Corporation (aka Nasa), 1989
Of course, there should be considerable gaps in the scale of production among the companies. In terms of penetration and the size of their supply networks, I guess only a few of them could be as large as TXC, and the only one currently I can conclude with certainty to be in that range is Dar Yar Electronics.
Dar Yar Electronics
Dar Yar was a famous famiclone manufacturer mainly pushing "DAR YAR", "SUPER VISION" and "CREATION" brands. Those brands are often found in some parts of the Middle East, South East Asia and South America. However, their products didn’t always have those trademarks. Dar Yar also focused on OEM production. The DY-616, 636, 656, and other "DY" model numbers manufactured (or licensed) by Dar Yar have spread all over the world under various brands.
Despite such a presence, Dar Yar's origins have rarely been discussed. Surprisingly, the company's roots can be traced back to a long-established paint manufacturer, named Yung Koo Paint and Varnish Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (台灣永固造漆股份有限公司). For some reason the company decided to invest in high-tech related businesses in the early 1980s, thus Dar Yar was established as a subsidiary for this purpose in 1980.
Initially Dar Yar’s main products were apparently telephones and other communication devices, and occasionally manufactured some video game Joysticks. In 1987 the company turned its attention to video game consoles. By that time, Dar Yar has already entered the Middle Eastern and South-East Asian markets.
It's not easy to determine which one was truly first console from Dar Yar. For now this Super Vision branded Atari 2600 clone found in Indonesia is the earliest one I can confirm. The serial number suggests it was manufactured in 1987.
As far as I can trace, Dar Yar as a video game console manufacturer was first mentioned in an article on United Daily News (November 28, 1987). The article reported the startup of a new factory capable of producing 40,000 video game consoles per month. Following this, another new factory also with a monthly production capacity of 40,000 units was ready in 1989 (United Daily News, December 1, 1989).
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