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Whirlwind Manu was a company and brand label (?) that distributed unauthorized copies of Nintendo games throughout the late 80s and early 90s. They are notable for organizing their catalog under one line of product bearing "Lx00" IDs. Notably, several conversions of Famicom Disk System games were released on cartridge by Whirlwind Manu, as well as at least one pirate original (Mi Hun Che) and a hack of Galaxian titled Night Arrow.
Cartridges under Whirlwind Manu's labels and IDs were produced and sold by multiple companies; the most prolific being Co Tung Enterprise, NTDEC, and Kaiser. As such, it is believed that Whirlwind Manu - through unclear means - would "license" their pirated game catalogue to other manufacturers. Some companies' variants would differ in ROM code, often relating to altering copyright notices.[1]
Whirlwind Manu titles were attributed a unique numerical ID in a given branch that was chosen depending of the total memory they required. The identifiers are as follows:
"LA[xx]" indicates an NROM game with 16k PRG and 8k CHR (e.g. LA01, Mario Bros.)
"LB[xx]" indicates an NROM game with 32k PRG and 8k CHR (e.g. LB01, Onyanko Town).
"LC[xx]" indicates a CNROM game with 32k PRG and 16k CHR (e.g. LC01, The Goonies).
"LD[xx]" appears to be used for multiple, larger cartridge mappers. It is most commonly used for CNROM games with 32k PRG and 32k CHR (e.g. LD01, Gradius), though is also used for 128k UxROM games (e.g. LD22, Spelunker 2) and a few MMC1 games (e.g. LD38, A Week of Garfield).
"LE[xx]" is also used for multiple formats, though was mainly used for Namcot-118/"mapper 206" games (e.g. LE01, Super Chinese) and Disk System ports (e.g. LE10, Super Mario Bros. 2).
"LF[xx]" is used for games with 128k PRG (with no CHR), seemingly across multiple mappers (e.g. LF01, Ghosts’n Goblins).
"LG[xx]" appears to be used for games with 128k PRG and 32k CHR, seemingly across multiple mappers (e.g. LG03, Doraemon).
"LH[xx]" games do not seem to have any clear order; being a wide mixture of different formats. The "LH" ID appears to have been used for all releases from approximately 1987 to 1990.
Few, if any, Whirlwind Manu IDs appear to feature MMC3 (or "mapper 4") games. It appears that Whirlwind Manu-affiliated MMC3 games were produced (such as Super Mario Bros. 2 bootlegs), though such releases were not given a proper ID.
The digits following the "L[x]" code reflect Whirlwind Manu's release order, though otherwise have no relevance to the game's PCB/mapper.
Gallery[]
Distribution of the games according to their total sizes. Generic box, distributed by Kangnam model (?) in Korea.
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