Turbo File II

Description

The Turbo File II is the successor to ASCII’s original Turbo File, serving as an external SRAM bank for players who needed more save capacity than a standard cartridge could provide. In an era before memory cards became common, these acted as a proprietary storage system for the Famicom. Improving on the first model, which offered a fixed 8KB of SRAM, the “II” revision significantly expanded storage to 32KB, organised into four distinct 8KB banks. It was developed to serve the Japanese market’s growing demand for deep simulation and role-playing games, where the ability to maintain multiple save states or transfer data between sequels was a major selling point. The device is a distinct, wedge-shaped peripheral that connects directly to the Famicom’s 15-pin expansion port (DA-15) located on the front of the original console or the side of the Sharp Twin Famicom.

The device operates using internal battery-backed SRAM, powered by two AA batteries. It features a physical four-position sliding switch on the front panel, allowing players to manually toggle between memory banks labelled A, B, C, and D. This mechanical bank-switching provided a tactile solution to data management, effectively allowing a single device to act as four separate memory cards. Additionally, the Turbo File II includes a Write Protect switch to prevent accidental data loss and a proprietary “Data ROM” slot on the top, which was used for specialised expansion packs that added functionality to specific games, such as adding new horse data to Derby Stallion.

The Turbo File II was the backbone for ASCII’s infrastructure games and several prominent third-party titles. Its most famous application was in the Wizardry series, where it allowed players to migrate their carefully levelled party data from Wizardry I through to Wizardry III. Other notable supported titles included:

• Best Play Pro Yakyuu: For managing complex baseball league statistics and custom teams.
• Zenkoku Ban (Derby Stallion): Essential for saving massive stables of breeding data.
• Fleet Commander: Used for saving progress in large-scale naval simulations.
• Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom): Allowing for the retention of character stats and items.

The Turbo File II was a Famicom-bound piece of engineering, reliant on the 15-pin expansion port that was omitted from the Western NES. Later support was brought to the Super Famicom with the Turbo File Adapter. This saw a number of Super Famicom games supporting it, including Ardy Lightfoot, the Derby Stallion series, Tactics Ogre, and Wizardry V. Most later SFC titles however required the Turbo File Twin that was specific to the console with even more memory and newer transfer mode.