The F stands for fun....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Channel_F
Background
The Fairchild Channel F (or Video Entertainment System (VES) as it was initially branded) was released in 1976 and was the first microprocessor-powered home console to use proper ROM cartridges that allowed the end user to purchase and play different games. It marked the '2nd Generation' of home videogame consoles, was initially successful, but quickly overshadowed by the more successful (and better) Atari VCS/2600.
The console was licensed in Europe with a handful of clones being produced by companies including Grandstand, Luxor, Saba, Ingelen, Normende and Barco.
Fairchild sold the rights to the system to Zircon in 1979 and they released a few more games.
27 'Videocarts' were released between by Fairchild and Zircon (the company that Fairchild sold the technology to in 1979) between 1976 and 1981, some of them containing multiple games. A chess game was released for the German 'SABA Videoplay' clone.
Many homebrew games have been released in subsequent years, most of them based on the Chess (Schach) cart electronics.
Why ChannelFHawk?
The official games released for the console are very basic (some might say poor) even by the standards set by the Atari 2600 a year later. But as a moment in history, the console is pretty unique. It is built around the Fairchild F8 microprocessor system and I thought this might be fairly interesting to try to emulate. From a development perspective, is was for me. From a gaming perspective as an end-user..well, that's your call. Some of the homebrew releases are broadly impressive for the hardware. The pacman homebrew especially.
I started work on the core maybe 5 years ago. CPU emulation was complete, but it was missing some cart mapper stuff and audio wasn't working correctly (amongst other things). After a hiatus, everything should now be good to go.
BizHawk Core
You can find a list of currently defined games here:
https://github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk/blob/master/Assets/gamedb/gamedb_channelf.txt
Software not in that list is probably homebrew of some description I haven't played yet, and will likely load correctly once you tell BizHawk which core to use (the core defaults to the SCHACH mapper which seems to be the standard for all modern releases).
The core allows you to emulate both the Channel F and Channel F II, both in either NTSC or PAL. This covers off all the possible clones and configurations out there. All software will run in all configurations.
The system has 2 'BIOS' ROMs on board, PSU1 and PSU2. Channel F II requires a different PSU1 ROM to be present and these need to be sucked in via BizHawks Firmwares dialog for the core to boot:
AC9804D4C0E9D07E33472E3726ED15C3 Fairchild VES & Channel F BIOS [PSU1] (1976)(Fairchild)[SL31253]
DA98F4BB3242AB80D76629021BB27585 Fairchild VES & Channel F BIOS [PSU2](1976)(Fairchild)[SL31254]
95D339631D867C8F1D15A5F2EC26069D Fairchild VES & Channel F II BIOS [PSU1] (1976)(Fairchild)[SL90025]
The BIOSes mostly consist of 2 on-board games - Hockey and Tennis. These were never officially released separately (why would they be?), so as a kludge if you pass any of the BIOS roms to the core as a game ROM, ChannelFHawk will automatically load the onboard games.
The control system is a little weird. Right controller is player 1, Left controller is player 2.
The controller allows you to move the knob on the top Forward, Backwards, Left and Right. You can also twist the knob Clockwise and Counter-clockwise. Pull the knob up, and Push the knob down. I feel like i've said knob too many times.
There are also buttons on the console - Time, Mode, Hold, Start, Reset.
As of BizHawk 2.10 RC1, ChannelFHawk has been marked as
IsReleased. It is expected to stay this way into the full 2.10 release.
Please test away and let us know if you come across any problems - ideally via
https://github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk/issues as per usual.
GLHF!