How many famiclones have ever been produced? I have investigated this great mystery by separating each famous company. The eighth article in the series focuses on Ramar International. Their RINCO brand was the most popular in the Middle East famiclone markets, especially in the Gulf States.
Famiclones in the Middle East
Famiclones are widely spread also in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and Ramar International Ltd. (駱瑪有限公司) was the most prominent famiclone supplier in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. In the 1990s, when the Famicom/famiclones became popular in that region, at least 70-80% of the products distributed in the market were made by Ramar (and related manufacturers). The company also distributed a large number of Atari VCS clones in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, which also accounted for a significant share of the market.
The company was founded in 1980 by Larry Wu (吳美欽), but it is not known how it was founded or how it came to deal in video game consoles. The company applied for the RINCO trademark in 1990, and I guess they started selling famiclones and Atari VCS clones after that time (the oldest product I identified is from 1992). The company's other video game related trademark applications from the same period include Arabic, indicating that the Middle East was the company's primary market from the beginning.
“RINCO” and “AL SAGR”
Alongside RINCO, AL SAGR is another well-known brand in the Gulf. Not only are the two brands very similar in terms of product content and direction, but they also appear to have had a close relationship, as some products often have both brands listed together. Furthermore, Ramar also owned the AL SAGR trademark, which was limited to "magnetic disk media or ROM cartridges".
The trademark AL SAGR, with the same design, but registered for a game console, was applied for and registered around the same time by a similarly named company, Rahham Corporation (駱漢股份有限公司). Originally, the AL SAGR trademark with the same design was first registered by an appliance manufacturer called Haishan Co., Ltd. (海山有限公司) in 1987, and then it was shared by several companies. I assume that the trademark has been sublicensed by Haishan to others.
As mentioned above, the RINCO/AL SAGR famiclones have a lot in common. However, there are some models that were clearly designed by Ramar, but released under the AL SAGR brand. This means that Ramar and Rahham must have had a cooperative relationship. They may have produced each other's products on an OEM basis.
Ramar/Rahham famiclones
Despite being a latecomer to the famiclone industry, Ramar/Rahham's main product was nothing special, typical Famicom knock-offs that could be found everywhere. The three controller ports on the front are reminiscent of Songtly's SY-700, but the internal circuit board is a proprietary design (except for some AL SAGR products manufactured by Dar Yar Electronics). They produced many, many variations of the Famicom knock-offs with built-in game cartridges ranging from some dozens to 1000000000 in 1.
Most RINCO/AL SAGR products are Famicom imitations, but not all. The AS-270, which looks like an MSX computer but for some reason has no keys, and the "Talkman", which has its own 12-bit speech synthesiser, are extremely unique, although they are very rare. Neither model is known to have been distributed outside the Gulf States.
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