I have looked into this great mystery by separating each famous company. The seventh article in the series focuses on Lingli, also known as NASA. They took the Spanish famiclone market by storm and even started a trend of Super Famicom-shaped famiclones.
The Mysterious Background of NASA
If you browse through European famiclones, you will often see the "NASA" branded ones with the NES imitation shell. They were all the rage in the Spanish speaking world, especially in Spain. NASA became popular there at a rate unrivaled by other branded famiclones, even threatening the sales of the official NES. Spain was a rare country in Western Europe where famiclones were widespread, and NASA was a representative famiclone of the region.
Later, NASA introduced famiclones with Super Famicom imitation cases, which also became popular products worldwide. For these models, NASA began using the "GAME CITY" brand in parallel. The amount of NASA and GAME CITY machines, including OEM products, is so large that they are definitely one of the major players in the industry. However, no one had any idea who was behind it before Unauthorizon started.
The Unknown Roots: Deli Co., Ltd. (德利有限公司)
In recent years I discovered two companies behind NASA/GAME CITY brands that no one had ever heard of before: Deka Electronics (菱洋電子有限公司) and Lingli Co., Ltd (菱立有限公司). Although there is little official data on these two companies, I also found a fairly detailed paper on their precursor called Deli Co., Ltd. (德利有限公司), written by Ming-Hong Tsai*.
Established in 1983, Deli began as a company whose main business was the manufacture and sale of pirated Japanese arcade video games. It was a bold experiment, as Taiwan had banned video games the year before. Gao somebody (full name unknown), the founder of the company, graduated with honours from a university with a degree in electronic engineering, and after a short stint in the military, he noticed the rise of arcade video games. He saw that there were some legal loopholes in the ban and that the underground demand for arcade video games remained strong. His plan to produce video games as a high-risk/high-reward business brought an early success, and within three months of its founding, the company had quickly paid off its 1 million TWD in start-up capital. However, due to the underground nature of the company, I am unable to find any documents other than Tsai's paper.
*蔡明宏, “企業策略1 德利有限公司”, in “臺灣中小企業之發展個案硏究曁論文發表會” (1994)
A video game arcade continues to operate quietly underground, immediately after the ban comes into force. Source: ‘不再來『電』--輿論聲浪高，電玩終被禁’ (台灣光華雜誌, April 1982).
Connection with Deka Electronics
At the time, there were only five companies in Taipei involved in the underground production of video games like Deli, according to Gao. The company's high level of technology and ability to respond quickly to newer products soon earned it a good reputation. Starting in a small 1000-square-foot empty house with six employees, Deli grew rapidly, with sales peaking in 1985-1986. In 1987, however, the government reintroduced stricter controls on video games, resulting in a serious decline in sales.
At the time, the company had 12 employees and a 3500-square-foot factory, but more than 60% of its production was outsourced. They kept the business simple. Because of the nature of the products they sold, they basically could not advertise to the public, and in fact most of their customers were acquired by word of mouth. Gao understood that this style of business could not overcome the decline, so he considered diversifying their business. At first, the company invested heavily in overseas advertising in an effort to develop international markets. However, this soon proved to be a disaster for the company. Gao realized that his company was not internationally competitive.
Eventually, Deli was able to diversify its business in an unexpected way. In 1985, when the company was still growing steadily, Deli had once invested in a home video game console. A friend of Gao's had made a mold for an Atari VCS-compatible console and wanted to market it, so he provided the funds to manufacture it. There is no mention of who this friend was, but after checking various documents, I found out that it was Deka Electronics.Deka Electronics was founded in 1982 by Zongyi Lu (呂宗儀) and Xu Mi-bon (徐美盆), but further details are unknown. Deka Electronic's Atari-compatible console was released under the trade name "孫悟空" (Sun Wukong), but since it was quite rare, I assume it did not sell very well. In any case, at that time, Deli had only made an investment in the home video game console and did not try to go any deeper.
DK-2528 "孫悟空" (Sun Wukong). Neither its existence nor the fact that it is a Deka Electronics product was widely known until recently.
Warranty card with both the Chinese and English names of Deka Electronics.
Deka Electronics later expanded their business to famiclones (probably around 1989) and released a Famicom imitation model (NS-70N) and a NES imitation model (NS-80). They started using the "NASA" brand around this time, but since there are very few "NASA" products that can be clearly identified as being made by Deka Electronics, I assumed that the company's business was still not very successful.
Famicom imitation model (NS-70N). Mainly distributed in mainland China. You see very old specifications as a famiclone, such as the RF only video output and 2P's microphone input. I think this was produced around 1988~1989. Thanks to @AlfaroOrueta for pointing out that it's a NASA product, even though there's no trace on it.
The yellow rapid fire button and "TurboCard" logo on the controller are unique to the NS-70N.
NES imitation model (NS-80). This is the only Deka-Lingly famiclone showing the manufacturer's name (DEKA ELECTRONICS INC.).
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