Yahel over at Wrestling With Gaming has dug up some interesting information regarding a banking system product set that was intended for use on the Super Nintendo. In his video Yahel breaks down the cartridge and possible peripheral hardware as well as a promo video from the company behind the device, TranDirect. It is rather interesting to think that anyone would want to use a banking application on a gaming system, but as Yahel explains. Many computers at the time were incredibly expensive compared to a relatively cheap video game console. That at the time of this products development, was already a generation obsolete. Furthermore many households did not even have a computer let alone using an internet connection. The complete banking package would have had contained some kinda of modem connection to the cart and interface with a special keyboard controller for the S.N.E.S. All of which seems crazy, but this same company had a similar device already on the market for another system, the Amiga CD32. That system’s banking product came with a modem and T.V. style remote control.
It is funny to think what might have been with some of these non gaming products. Even if they do seem odd when viewed with today’s eyes. However thinking back to that time, there was plenty software out there doing non gaming task. The Game Boy for example had actual carts for calculators, spell checkers, and dictionaries, etc. So using gaming systems for non gaming purposes was not out of the norm. Hopefully the awareness of this video might help track down some of the hardware prototypes or even a ROM of the software. Thank you Yahel for another great investigative work, and be sure to check out his channel. Links below.
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