Performa
Member
This is a weird one! First, some context!
Back in January of this year, we were at Evercon, and were intermingled with a huge array of other exhibitors. Some of them had Turbo Grafx 16 video game consoles, and their imported counterparts, NEC PC Engines. I had quite a bit of fun with them, and thought it might be neat to have one in the WCC fleet.
But what even is the PC Engine? Wikipedia article HERE, but I'll paraphrase.
The PC Engine was a joint venture between Japanese tech giants Hudson Soft and Nippon Electric Company (NEC) to create what was the first "4th Generation" video game system. Released in 1987, it beat the Nintendo Super Famicom and SEGA Mega Drive to the market in Japan, and they sold piles of them. Rather than traditional cartridges as we know them, they used "HuCards" which are roughly the size of credit cards, with a single PCB sandwiched inside with the various ROMS to run the game- similar to the cards used by the SEGA Master System, for those more familiar with those.
The PC Engine was also the first to market with a CD Rom add on, albeit as a kinda clunky add-on that makes the SEGA CD look elegant by comparison.
Further, they had an absolutely dizzying array of variations, including the "Core Grafx" (which has a slightly different, cost-reduced CPU), the various "Super" and "Turbo" iterations that feature differing RAM and ROM combinations to play increasingly more demanding games.
After doing some homework on it, I determined that I wanted one with the CD drive built in, the latest variation of the ROM and RAM combinations I could get, and for $100 or less. No easy task, but I figured I'd eventually find a deal- and I did!
Back in January of this year, we were at Evercon, and were intermingled with a huge array of other exhibitors. Some of them had Turbo Grafx 16 video game consoles, and their imported counterparts, NEC PC Engines. I had quite a bit of fun with them, and thought it might be neat to have one in the WCC fleet.
But what even is the PC Engine? Wikipedia article HERE, but I'll paraphrase.
The PC Engine was a joint venture between Japanese tech giants Hudson Soft and Nippon Electric Company (NEC) to create what was the first "4th Generation" video game system. Released in 1987, it beat the Nintendo Super Famicom and SEGA Mega Drive to the market in Japan, and they sold piles of them. Rather than traditional cartridges as we know them, they used "HuCards" which are roughly the size of credit cards, with a single PCB sandwiched inside with the various ROMS to run the game- similar to the cards used by the SEGA Master System, for those more familiar with those.
The PC Engine was also the first to market with a CD Rom add on, albeit as a kinda clunky add-on that makes the SEGA CD look elegant by comparison.
Further, they had an absolutely dizzying array of variations, including the "Core Grafx" (which has a slightly different, cost-reduced CPU), the various "Super" and "Turbo" iterations that feature differing RAM and ROM combinations to play increasingly more demanding games.
After doing some homework on it, I determined that I wanted one with the CD drive built in, the latest variation of the ROM and RAM combinations I could get, and for $100 or less. No easy task, but I figured I'd eventually find a deal- and I did!
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