How many famiclones have ever been produced? I have looked into this great mystery by separating to each famous company. The sixth article of the series will focus on Songtly Enterprise. They were like a famiclone-ninja. As one of the earliest famiclone manufacturers they released famous SY-700, but details more than that has never been told until today.
Songtly: A Little-known Famiclone Legend
If you're familiar with the history of famiclones, you have probably heard of the manufacturers I've previously mentioned, such as TXC, Dar Yar Electronics, NTDEC, Zonic, and Bit Corp. However, I'm sure most of you have never heard of Songtly even though they were also one of famiclone pioneers.
Songtly Enterprise Co., Ltd., also known as Sonling Enterprise Co.,Ltd. (松玲企業有限公司), was actually one of major players in the industry. However, it is an enigmatic manufacturer that has left almost no footprint as a company. Their products and achievements has been little known until recently -- Probably I was the first to point out their importance in the history of famiclones.
Founded in 1986, Songtly soon became one of the early clone console manufacturers in Taiwan, distributing both Atari VCS/2600 clones and famiclones as early as 1987. A man named Fan Fangcheng (范房城) was in charge of developing those products. That's the only background information I can tell related to the company so far.
Fan is one of very rare famiclone pioneers who is still traceable today. Before getting involved in video games he used to design audio equipment. Then, his former classmate called 宋 (Song) asked him for leading their famiclone development. He may have belonged there for a while, but all the related patents were registered by his name -- later the right of the patents moved to Songtly though.
Mr. Fan Fangcheng. In later years he also established famiclone manufacturer in South Africa. [Image Source: 客委會委託左右設計出版《遠颺築夢》歐非洲海外客家人物故事－專訪南非范房城]
Songtly/Funfair Brands
Songtly's main products in the early years were the SY-600 (Atari VCS clone) and the SY-700 (famiclone). The majority of the SY-600s bore either "Songtly" or "Funfair", two of their centric brands at that time, while the overwhelming majority of the SY-700s were not, released under various brands or even no brand in many cases.
Funfair Home Computer Game. Typical package for the SY-600.
It is not clear what the reason for this difference was, but as the SY-700 was much more widely available than the SY-600, there were probably more opportunities to change the brand to match the client's needs -- Songtly was the earliest ever famiclone manufacturer to take the approach of developing its own products on an OEM basis. For example, the earliest SY-700 ever confirmed was released in limited quantities by the Taiwanese TV station CTS.
Advertisement for the CTS' model (from 華視綜合週刊第823期, 1987). This model looks mostly identical to the original Famicom but also shows typical SY-700 features not shown on the original: The eject lever is omitted (a label is attached instead).
Songtly's rare advertisement (from Asian Sources Electronics Dec.1987). It also shows another typical feature of the SY-700: detachable controllers using DE-9 connector. The de-facto standard of famiclone controllers started from here.
The SY-700 was one of the most common models among early Famicom imitations, along with the Dar Yar's and NTDEC's consoles, and was widely distributed around the world, especially in Latin America. For many years, however, the manufacturer was considered unknown, as little information indicating the manufacturer was found on the package. It is only recently that Songtly as the manufacturer has become known.
There are many variations of the SY-700, including products manufactured by other companies. Among them, those manufactured by Dar Yar Electronics and Megawise Investment (曉奇投資有限公司) may have been more conspicuous than the original SY-700, but it is not certain whether they were licensed products or not (Megawise's products are pretty possible though. See the next section for details). Anyway, one feature that suggests Songtly group's product is the back label "HVC-003 ©VIDEO GAME"*. If the label is metallic like the photo below it's highly possible that one was an early product manufactured by Songtly themselves.
*Thanks for @AlfaroOrueta for pointing this out.
Rare SY-700 released directly from Songtly. Some SY-700 are more closer to the original Famicom like this one. The "AUTO/NOR" turbo switch is also distinctive. It's only seen on Songtly's Famicom imitation models.
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