Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System

Known in Japan as the Famicom, it originally came with 2 hardwired controllers attached to the console, with the second controller featuring a microphone, but no start or select buttons.

Due to South Korea banning Japanese cultural imports at the end of World War II, the NES was distributed by South Korean company Hyundai, and was named the Comboy.

Many consoles in South Korea were released under alternate names and published by various Korean companies, including the Game Boy, Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, SNES and Nintendo 64.

The Minnesota state lottery was considering using the NES to let people play the lottery. The player would use a game cartridge made by the company to play the lottery, and a modem that would allow them to communicate with the central computer. The plan eventually fell through due to concerns that minors would illegally purchase tickets.

Nintendo once planned to release a knitting add-on for the NES. The slogan was 'Now you're knitting with power.'

The Famicom Disk System was an early attempt at expanding the capability of the Famicom, which was the original Japanese version of the NES. This new add-on used discs rather than cartridges, which were cheaper to produce and held more data. Unfortunately the technology at the time was faulty; so much so that Nintendo of Japan continued servicing them until their patents expired in 2003. Interestingly enough, NES has an expansion port located on the bottom of the console. This is because Nintendo planned to release a version of the Famicom Disk System for international markets. This expansion port is absent on the original Famicom, and the Famicom Disk System connects to the Famicom by the cartridge slot. However, the international version of the Famicom Disk System never saw the light of day, and the NES expansion port went unused.

Nintendo was originally going to release a home computer in place of the NES. Known as the Advanced Video System, or the AVS, it was going to be a home computer with a heavy gaming twist.

The Famicom's final design incorporated this red color because of an order from Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo at the time. Yamuchi often wore a scarf of a similar color and decided to include this favorite of his in the system as well.

It should also be noted that at the time of manufacturing, red and white plastics were the cheapest color of plastic to produce.

According to the Masayuki Uemura, one of Nintendo's hardware designers who oversaw the design of the Famicom, the reason the console was named the "Family Computer" was because during the '80s, words like "personal computer" and "home computer" became widespread in Japan, and the word 'Family' hadn't been used yet. Uemura also wanted to call it "Famicom" for short, after having it suggested to him by his wife, but the idea was rejected by Nintendo's then boss, believing "Family Computer" to be easier to understand, although the moniker was still colloquially used by many.

The first production builds of the Famicom had different controllers. The original controllers featured rubber squares buttons. These controllers were reworked due to their weak lockout and soft buttons that could be worn down. Future Famicom controllers had buttons that were round and hard, instead of square and rubbery.

Nintendo had strict licensing policies for the NES as a way to encourage quality over quantity, in hopes of avoiding the fate of Atari during the video game crash of 1983. Third parties were limited to releasing 5 titles per year for the NES, all titles had to be reviewed by Nintendo before they would be licensed, and the console had a system to lock out unauthorized games that did not contain the necessary patented chip as a way to enforce Nintendo's control.

A combination of third-party developer pushback, legal challenges, and competition from other console manufacturers such as Sega eventually forced them to relax their policies.

Actor and martial artist Jackie Chan had once endorsed a Chinese Famicom (NES) clone console called the "Little Tyrant", produced by the company of the same name (known in English as Subor). The console was marketed as a "learning machine" to avoid China's ban on video game consoles at the time.

In the film Ghostbusters II, the Ghostbusters used a modified NES Advantage controller to guide the Statue of Liberty through New York.

The NES light zapper used a complex program in order to detect a hit. First, the screen would go black. If the zapper's light sensor didn't detect any light, it went onto the next step. The screen then displayed a white square where the target was. If the gun detected the square, then it was registered as a hit. If it failed one of the tests, it was a miss.

The Famicom comes built in with the 2A03 chip, and has five audio channels: two square waves, one triangle wave, one noise generator, and one digital sample (DPCM) channel. On top of this, six expansions were created by both Nintendo and third parties. They are:

• Famicom Disk System sound: adds an extra channel with custom wavetable capabilities. (Example: Zelda, Metroid, etc. Most but not all Disk System games)
• Nintendo MMC5: Adds two square waves identical to the 2A03 square waves and a PCM channel. This is the only expansion that the international NES could use. (Example: US/European Castlevania III)
• Konami VRC6: Adds two square waves but has 8 duty cycles (voices) instead of the standard 4. Also adds a sawtooth wave. (Example: Akumajou Densetsu (Japanese Castlevania III)
• Konami VRC7: Adds six FM channels with 15 built-in patches (instruments) and the ability to create 64 unique patches. (Example: Langrage Point)
• Namco 163: Adds up to eight channels with definable waves. (Example: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II)
• Sunsoft 5B: Adds 3 50% pulse waves (stuck on one voice). Can be manipulated to generate noise, sawtooth, or triangle waves. (Example: Gimmick!)

For creating the animation for the show Robot Chicken, Dillon Markey, one of the show's stop-motion animators, uses a modified NES Power Glove to operate the stop-motion equipment to create the sketches.

When the NES was first released in North America in 1985, it was only possible to purchase it from a few stores in New York and Los Angeles. This came soon after the great video game crash of 1983.

People expressing interest in the console wrote to Nintendo of America who provided them with information packs about the console, the games and peripherals that were available, and the then only three stores in North America which offered mail orders for the console.

Nintendo created a hands-free controller for the NES, which was intended for quadriplegic or others with physically-debilitating conditions. The controller would be strapped to the person's chest and the user would use a straw and joystick for the controls; For D-Pad movement, the player would use their chin to move a cupped joystick, and for the A and B buttons, the player would "blow" or "suck" through the straw piece.
The development of the controller was sparked by a letter from a mother of a handicapped girl requesting a controller that her daughter could use to "play the video games she loved." The development project took two years until it was finally released in April 1989, selling more than 100 units since then.
A number of the controllers were also present during the first Nintendo World Championship, for players that required it.

Nintendo released the Famicom Titler, a Famicom variant console manufactured by Sharp, exclusively in Japan, which could record gameplay footage. The console could edit the footage, add subtitles and record narration using an in-built microphone. The console also featured S-Video instead of RF Output which the normal Famicom had, produce footage in RGB color, and connect to other recording devices.

The light gun was called "The Gun" or "Beam Gun" and looks like a revolver gun in Japan. Outside of Japan, it was renamed "NES Zapper" and redesigned to look like a futuristic gun, rather than a real gun. Then later, another futuristic gun called "Zapper" was dyed orange to tone down the gun look for all versions.

In the mid 1980's, Nintendo began producing Famicom Disk Writer Kiosks in Japan where a customer could pay ¥500 yen (roughly $5 US dollars) as opposed to ¥2600 yen (roughly $26) for a game and have the game's data written onto a blank cartridge, and replace that game with another game whenever they wanted for ¥500, as an alternative to renting video games which is prohibited in Japan. The Kiosk played a 6 minute demo reel featuring three original music tracks and a short remix of the "Ground Theme" from Super Mario Bros., and cutscenes primarily featuring Mario and Luigi (and a brief appearance by two unknown characters) demonstrating the transfer process using updated assets from Super Mario Bros.