You are right in saying that Casio's PV-2000, also released in 1983, used the exact same Zilog Z-80A CPU, Texas Instruments VDP (TMS9928A) and sound (SN76489) chips as such consoles as the ColecoVision and Sega's SG-1000.
I like how the watch calculator commercial boasts its "Jingle Bells" and "Happy Birthday" playing capabilities. It's hard to imagine now, but the idea of being at a Christmas party and impressing everyone with your musical calculator watch was a legitimate selling point. Now it just seems kind of stupid.
The PC Engine graphics hardware is split into two chips, a tile and sprite generator chip that outputs pixel data to a second chip which handles the color pallets and generates the video output. What they did with the Supergrafx was to add a second tile /sprite chip identical to the first and designed a new version of the color pallet chip that could receive the pixel data from two tile and sprite chips and combine them into a single display. So the Supergrafx has two playfields and twice as many sprites but is otherwise a PC engine. It you already kow how to program the Pc Engine you know how to use the Supergrafix, it's just a Pc engine with a second tile and sprite layer. The PC Engine uses 9 bit color and 4 bit per pixel color pallets with 16 pallets for sprites and 16 pallets for background tiles (each pallet defines 16 colors)
Despite the disappointing number of initial Supergrafx sales, it would have cost NEC next to nothing to continue supporting the system. As Darius Plus demonstrated, it was a trivial matter to include Supergrafx compatibility with any HuCard or CD-ROM release. If they would have went with this approach, for instance, the Arcade Card release of Strider for the PC-Engine -- a dismal port that betrayed the system's weaknesses more than demonstrating its graphical strengths -- could have easily had an enhanced setting upon detecting the Supergrafx hardware with the extra background layer and all. This could have been easily implemented, given how Supergrafx Strider was by all accounts nearly completed. When it came to defining how "powerful" or "arcade-like" a home console was not how many sprites it could field at once or even how large they could be (which is one of the few things the PC-Engine does better than its competition) but how many sprite pixels it could display on a scanline at a time. The Supergrafx's duplicate PC-Engine video chipset finally gave the system the second background layer it so desperately needed, but it also came with _another_ sprite layer with 256 more pixels of scanline for sprites to play on (for a total of 512) before things became a flickering mess. This capability far exceeds what the Megadrive (320) or even the Super Famicom (a disappointing 256, like the PC Engine), and puts the Supergrafx only second to the Neo-Geo in this regard (which could field 1,536 sprite pixels per scanline.) Including the capability to take advantage of Supergrafx hardware in regards to sprites would have been, again, a trivial matter costing next to nothing for any latter PC-Engine release.
IMO they did the same mistake Nintendo did with the WiiU. "Upgrade consoles" (or computers, like the C128) tend to not be successful: most people stick with the cheaper option and most software publishers want their software to be compatible with the more popular hardware, thus making the newer model redundant.
Despite their obscurity, I managed to at least know of 3 of the systems here; Casio P1000, Bandai Supervision 8000 and the Turbo SuperGrafx. Still, it was interesting to learn knew stuff about the first two and particularly learn of systems I'd never heard of such as the My Vision and Compact Vision TV Boy. It's rather funny how, whilst Sega and Nintendo were battling it out with the SG1000 and the Famcion, there was a second console war going on with Gakken vs Epoch. Gosh, I'd love to learn more of the Epoch Cassette Vision and Super Cassette Vision.
Very obscure,I have always loved and collected video games but can't see the point in paying big money for stuff like that,rare or not,keep it up man love your channel
I'd love to see a video about mildly Successful Consoles that never made it to North America. I know Sega had a console that was released before the Master System that was similar in specs to a Colecovision but never released here. I bought the Sega Saturn game that had a bunch of old Sega Games from different consoles on a disc and some were from that console.
@@TheLairdsLair TY, Sega SG-1000 is what it was called. Epoch Cassette Vision was another banger console. I just checked and Epochs followup console the Epoch Super Cassette Vision sold 300K units which isn't bad. Funny Nintendo copied their naming scheme a few years later with the Super Famicom. While each of these console deserve their own video's, I think telling the story about how Japan made some very successful consoles that never made it to our shores is a cool story many gamers would love to see. Cheers!
Looking forward to a video on the Loopy from you. There was a time I owned a SuperGrafx and would have tried to get these consoles, but I significantly narrowed my retro focus over the past few years. That said, I have a Loopy collection that is nearly complete, only missing one game and a few boxes.
@@TheLairdsLair thought you would know. Damn. Seems like a good guess though. I was thinking software version maybe. Like the Tootsie roll commercial says....the world may never know......keep up the good work
Casio best known for cheap watches? Maybe a regional thing but I think they’re more known for cheap musical keyboards or even scientific calculators than watches.
Impressive stuff,but i still could hardly imagine that the super turbo grafix a thing and that it also directly compeated with the sega genesis, it felt more like being a turbo grafix 2.0,but even so nec eventually decided to just recontinue on with their turbo grfix 16 to not only compeat against the famicom but also against the sega genesis and superfamicom later on. Reminds me a little bit of the atari 5200 story.
Qhy do they make Japanese systems but write in english....epoch cassette vision ruler Japan pre sg1000/Famicom years even the compact vision was pretty good
I actually saw a really good video about this the other day. Apparently its called "Decorative English", the Japanese have a fascination with the way English words/letters look and consider them very cool, even though very few Japanese people actually understand them. So it's not unusual to see all sorts of products use English on the packaging, or advertising in English etc. This is also the reason you often get really bad Engrish that doesn't make sense, because they don't actually care if its correct, just how it looks.
More like shovelware. I'm sure these game devs would have been trying to release their own consoles too like back in the day. It's just a bazillion dollar market now, not a growing niche anymore. Thanks to smart phones everyone plays games of some sort if they have one.
Wow, other than the SuperGrafX, the rest looked like trash, even for the time. The 2600 destroys them in terms of smoothness and graphics. The libraries for some look like they should have been bigger at launch. This just puts into perspective how good the Famicom really was.
=YUP,IT'S HARD TO ADMIT BUT NINTENDO DID A FANTASTIC JOB BACK THEN,AS THEY REALLY MADE LOTS OF REVOLUTIONS =EVEN THOUGH IT DIDNT END WELL FOR THEM..........IF ABOUT PS1.....
You are right in saying that Casio's PV-2000, also released in 1983, used the exact same Zilog Z-80A CPU, Texas Instruments VDP (TMS9928A) and sound (SN76489) chips as such consoles as the ColecoVision and Sega's SG-1000.
MyVision, Compact Vision, Super Vision... The naming department really was on a roll
Yep! Bandai should have kept the TV Jack name, at least it sounded original!
I like how the watch calculator commercial boasts its "Jingle Bells" and "Happy Birthday" playing capabilities. It's hard to imagine now, but the idea of being at a Christmas party and impressing everyone with your musical calculator watch was a legitimate selling point. Now it just seems kind of stupid.
Hahaha, indeed. I still remember being excited about my first scientific calculator.
And the opera singer singing "Digital is Casio!" at the end.
The PC Engine graphics hardware is split into two chips, a tile and sprite generator chip that outputs pixel data to a second chip which handles the color pallets and generates the video output. What they did with the Supergrafx was to add a second tile /sprite chip identical to the first and designed a new version of the color pallet chip that could receive the pixel data from two tile and sprite chips and combine them into a single display. So the Supergrafx has two playfields and twice as many sprites but is otherwise a PC engine. It you already kow how to program the Pc Engine you know how to use the Supergrafix, it's just a Pc engine with a second tile and sprite layer.
The PC Engine uses 9 bit color and 4 bit per pixel color pallets with 16 pallets for sprites and 16 pallets for background tiles (each pallet defines 16 colors)
Yep, I've covered it in more depth in other videos.
Despite the disappointing number of initial Supergrafx sales, it would have cost NEC next to nothing to continue supporting the system. As Darius Plus demonstrated, it was a trivial matter to include Supergrafx compatibility with any HuCard or CD-ROM release. If they would have went with this approach, for instance, the Arcade Card release of Strider for the PC-Engine -- a dismal port that betrayed the system's weaknesses more than demonstrating its graphical strengths -- could have easily had an enhanced setting upon detecting the Supergrafx hardware with the extra background layer and all. This could have been easily implemented, given how Supergrafx Strider was by all accounts nearly completed.
When it came to defining how "powerful" or "arcade-like" a home console was not how many sprites it could field at once or even how large they could be (which is one of the few things the PC-Engine does better than its competition) but how many sprite pixels it could display on a scanline at a time. The Supergrafx's duplicate PC-Engine video chipset finally gave the system the second background layer it so desperately needed, but it also came with _another_ sprite layer with 256 more pixels of scanline for sprites to play on (for a total of 512) before things became a flickering mess. This capability far exceeds what the Megadrive (320) or even the Super Famicom (a disappointing 256, like the PC Engine), and puts the Supergrafx only second to the Neo-Geo in this regard (which could field 1,536 sprite pixels per scanline.) Including the capability to take advantage of Supergrafx hardware in regards to sprites would have been, again, a trivial matter costing next to nothing for any latter PC-Engine release.
Totally, it was quite similar to games with home computers where they would auto detect what model you had and play accordingly.
The cpu really needed to be upgraded as well by a few megahertz to refresh the additional ram.
Nec really dropped the ball after the success of the pc engine the less said about the Pc fx the better.
wow, the Casio board looks like a prototype simply pushed into production.
Nice video! I don't think any of these were a loss really. The SuperGrafx maybe, but it really should have been a bigger upgrade.
IMO they did the same mistake Nintendo did with the WiiU. "Upgrade consoles" (or computers, like the C128) tend to not be successful: most people stick with the cheaper option and most software publishers want their software to be compatible with the more popular hardware, thus making the newer model redundant.
Great Video! please keep doing videos about obscure consoles and computers!
Thanks! Will do!
Despite their obscurity, I managed to at least know of 3 of the systems here; Casio P1000, Bandai Supervision 8000 and the Turbo SuperGrafx. Still, it was interesting to learn knew stuff about the first two and particularly learn of systems I'd never heard of such as the My Vision and Compact Vision TV Boy.
It's rather funny how, whilst Sega and Nintendo were battling it out with the SG1000 and the Famcion, there was a second console war going on with Gakken vs Epoch. Gosh, I'd love to learn more of the Epoch Cassette Vision and Super Cassette Vision.
I need to come back and finish this tonight.
Very obscure,I have always loved and collected video games but can't see the point in paying big money for stuff like that,rare or not,keep it up man love your channel
I'd love to see a video about mildly Successful Consoles that never made it to North America. I know Sega had a console that was released before the Master System that was similar in specs to a Colecovision but never released here. I bought the Sega Saturn game that had a bunch of old Sega Games from different consoles on a disc and some were from that console.
You might be on to something there - Sega SG-1000, Interton VC-4000, Epoch Cassette Vision etc.
@@TheLairdsLair TY, Sega SG-1000 is what it was called. Epoch Cassette Vision was another banger console. I just checked and Epochs followup console the Epoch Super Cassette Vision sold 300K units which isn't bad. Funny Nintendo copied their naming scheme a few years later with the Super Famicom.
While each of these console deserve their own video's, I think telling the story about how Japan made some very successful consoles that never made it to our shores is a cool story many gamers would love to see. Cheers!
Looking forward to a video on the Loopy from you. There was a time I owned a SuperGrafx and would have tried to get these consoles, but I significantly narrowed my retro focus over the past few years. That said, I have a Loopy collection that is nearly complete, only missing one game and a few boxes.
I'm sure I'll cover it at some point, I very nearly put it in this video, but didn't want to have 2 Casio consoles.
What about Loopy My Seal?
Honestly, what system is the "Loopy"?
3:27 whats the type b for? Survey says?
Perhaps PAL-B? That's all I can think of.
@@TheLairdsLair thought you would know. Damn. Seems like a good guess though. I was thinking software version maybe. Like the Tootsie roll commercial says....the world may never know......keep up the good work
Nichi-BUTT-su? I laughed my butt off on that!!!
Should be "BOOTS," if the final "u" is silent.
Casio best known for cheap watches? Maybe a regional thing but I think they’re more known for cheap musical keyboards or even scientific calculators than watches.
Definitely watches in the UK!
Both keyboards and watches in the USA. I mean G-Shock watches have stuck around for a looooong time.
@@TheLairdsLair In US they are well known for their Musical Keyboards today but their digital watches were a big deal in 80s and 90s.
10:18 The Supervision 8000 looks suspiciously like an Intellivision!
FYI, mahjongg is actually a Chinese game, not Japanese, but it is popular all over East Asia.
Now i wonder, were there any failed consoles that never made it out of *North America?*
Yeah, I wonder . . . . .
Well I'll be gundamn'ed.
Impressive stuff,but i still could hardly imagine that the super turbo grafix a thing and that it also directly compeated with the sega genesis, it felt more like being a turbo grafix 2.0,but even so nec eventually decided to just recontinue on with their turbo grfix 16 to not only compeat against the famicom but also against the sega genesis and superfamicom later on.
Reminds me a little bit of the atari 5200 story.
Man, the more I watch these videos the more I feel weird for having a real pc-fx.
What's the name of the last game you show at the end
That's Strider by Capcom.
Ah yes the classic shooter Dirty Chameleon !!
Qhy do they make Japanese systems but write in english....epoch cassette vision ruler Japan pre sg1000/Famicom years even the compact vision was pretty good
I actually saw a really good video about this the other day. Apparently its called "Decorative English", the Japanese have a fascination with the way English words/letters look and consider them very cool, even though very few Japanese people actually understand them. So it's not unusual to see all sorts of products use English on the packaging, or advertising in English etc. This is also the reason you often get really bad Engrish that doesn't make sense, because they don't actually care if its correct, just how it looks.
Back then,the market was flooded with knock offs counsels till the game market crash.Than now,the market is flooded with emulators lol.
More like shovelware. I'm sure these game devs would have been trying to release their own consoles too like back in the day. It's just a bazillion dollar market now, not a growing niche anymore. Thanks to smart phones everyone plays games of some sort if they have one.
I have the SuperGraFx & Super CD -Rom 2
What i like is u could save money and buy diy computer kits
My buddy had a TurboGraphix 16 and it never worked properly
Wow, other than the SuperGrafX, the rest looked like trash, even for the time. The 2600 destroys them in terms of smoothness and graphics. The libraries for some look like they should have been bigger at launch. This just puts into perspective how good the Famicom really was.
Dragon dragon. Rock the dragon. DRAGON BALL-ZED!
It was for the best that my vision should not come to USA.
=YUP,IT'S HARD TO ADMIT BUT NINTENDO DID A FANTASTIC JOB BACK THEN,AS THEY REALLY MADE LOTS OF REVOLUTIONS
=EVEN THOUGH IT DIDNT END WELL FOR THEM..........IF ABOUT PS1.....
Too bad you didn't cover a proposed game console made by Taito that used CD-ROMS.
The Taito WoWow was never released, so it doesn't qualify. That's for another video.
Dragon Ball "Zed"?
So, is the rapper Jay "Zed"?
Is the band "Zed" "Zed" Top?
Is it Zee Ex Spectrum?
Or what about the Zee Ex 81?
@@TheLairdsLair
Dragon Ball "Zee"
Jay "Zee"
"Zee" "Zee" Top
"Zed" "Ex" Spectrum
"Zed" "Ex" 80
"Zed" "Ex" 81
@@LordJudgernaut It's Dragon Ball "Zed" (ドラゴンボールゼット) here in Japan. He's correct, as this is a video about Japan, not the US.
@@ndeso_yo_ben actually it's Doragon Bōru Zetto (ドラゴンボールゼット) in Japanese
@@LordJudgernaut it depends on the country
Top quality machinery❤