What it is: A backup unit backups [well, naturally] video game software carts and/or let's a person play the games by loading them back into the Nintendo64 [N64] unit. This is not a new idea. There have been such units for the Nintendo NES, Super Nes, Genesis, Etc, around for years.

What Models are there? I have seen at least five models--The Doctor64, The Doctor V64, The Cerebus, The Cyberator and one other model along this line that I can't remember the name, plus the Magicom64 if it should make it to market.. The C* models seem to have disappeared. There are NO emulators, well not yet anyway.

Pricing: Around $350-450 USA dollars depending on who you buy it from and how many you buy. Hong Kong pricing slightly less. Expect prices to fall later in the year as it is with most computer related items. No idea how the Hong Kong-China merger is going to effect sales; but even by the time the merger comes, there should be several thousand units in the USA.

How they work: This leaves only the Doctor units. The Doctor64 and V64 are basically the same except the D64 does not backup but only re-plays games. As you can see from the pictures, the unit connects to the bottom of the N64 piggyback style. Drop in a cart in the N64 turn it all on and from the menus you can select to backup or replay games. You can save the games to your computer using a parallel cable and also reload from the computer to the Doctor. The CD-ROM unit, 8 speed, READ only, is for loading games that have been written to CD-ROM disks. One or multiple games can be loaded from a CD-ROM disk. Games are anywhere from around 8 megs to 16 megs [80 megabits and 160 megabits respectively]. Therefore a CD-ROM should be able to store 40-60 N64 games. Not that there are that many around, yet. For further information, visit one of the sites listed on the pictures.

Here are some pictures off the net [used with permission] of the Doctor V64, which seems to be the most common, reliable and soon to be in the USA [Actually, it already is for a select few, as these pictures can testify to]..