sprazzi Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 So I'm very happy because I finally managed to acquire a Super Cassette Vision! European yeno version, vith SCART video cable by default! With 3 games, no less: astro wars battle in galaxy elevator fight. As a neophite I'm enthusiastic about it. I wish it had a bit more of luck in its days, but nintendo's famicom apparently blew it away in 1984... Look at those bright colors; lots of sprites; nice design... too bad had only 33 games... It definitely deserves more love nowadays, like a "multi-rom cart" - hey! even the Arcadia 2001 has one!!! :) I wish I had th technical skill to produce one - but I think there could be market for one ?!? Anyway here's some pics: Cheers from happy me. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 If you keep your eyes open, many loose carts can be had from Japan cheap, at least if can combine shipping. Sometimes cheap from Europe too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 Paging Dr. Stupus... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 The system had a lot of shortcomings, but yeah, it ould have done better. I think, ultimately, what nailed it was that Nintendo and Sega were hogging the market. Epoch only had experience in LCD games and ITMC/Yeno was merely rebranding hardware so there was little help from them other than opening the French market for Epoch. Most SCV games are very basic and you can see how programmers were mostly inspired by arcade and LCD type of games of the era. It could have done wonders tho, if the claim of "128 sprites" is true. It would still probably have been calling for a second vresion or an upgrade before 1990 : hardwired controllers and no expansion port; limited sound chip (equal or inferior to the Master System one). Still got some fun games and the graphisms and colors are crisp and vibrant. Plus it got an epic 8 bits F-Zero game sorta, so what's not to like? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprazzi Posted December 19, 2017 Author Share Posted December 19, 2017 Paging Dr. Stupus... Sorry this entirely eludes me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Sorry this entirely eludes me... Oh, forum member Stupus has a bit of a Super/Cassette Vision collection, as I recall. Thought he might be interested in this topic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriel Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Plus it got an epic 8 bits F-Zero game sorta, so what's not to like? The sound is a pretty easy thing to say is horrible. But I guess some SMS sounds are just as grating. It looks like Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom Super Game and Night Driver had a baby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fandenivoldsk Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 I like the system. It had some good games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stupus Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Oh, forum member Stupus has a bit of a Super/Cassette Vision collection, as I recall. Thought he might be interested in this topic. wish I had spares to sell you but got rid of all my spares quite a while back. And only needing 2 manuals now I probably won't aquire much more. Good luck collecting for this fun system! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 The Super Cassette Vision is awesome. I love the two I have, one NTSC and PAL. The games need to be found in Japanese sites and they can get expensive on Ebay. The games themselves are full of charm. I love the bright colors and straight forward gameplay. The games remind me of 1st generation NES Black label games and are really interesting and give me the early 80's arcade feel for many of them. I know there is at least one Japanese homebrew developer that is making amazing things on this system, as I have heard that you can add lots of RAM to each cart and that carts can be used to add necessary chips to the system so its really flexible to program for. I do however believe that the sound in its one channel is very weak, but the game play and graphics are great. Here is a link to a shooter that homebrew was working on.. He also appears to have made an awesome Super Mario Bros clone as well.. I would love to see some more development or information on developing this fascinating little system. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Wow, the shooter is impressive. I guess it prove that the system can manage some nice graphical tricks based on sprites - if the system can deal with 128 hardware sprites, it can make parallax scroling easy to handle. It's interesting to see how "poor" SMB looks compared to the shooter. The sound chip is very weak indeed, if it's oen channel, it's worst than the Master System (it was 3 channels I think?). It's merely a beeper, in fact. I wonder id it would be possible to add a DSP in the carts to improve the sound output, to at least play BG music and sound effects at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 (edited) Watch out, if you add extra chips in the cartridge soon you'll be building a brand new system which only uses the controllers and A/V output. If I understand the video title correctly, the shooter would have a 68K CPU so bypassing the built-in custom NEC (not Z80 compatible, but similar IIRC). Perhaps it also has its own video generation in case it can be overlaid, which soon would make it a PC Engine or Genesis in a cartridge, just happening to use the SCV as the host console. Memory expansions are OK, but once you rely on far more powerful chips you're not working with the original system anymore. Edit: Ok, it seems the 68K refers to the look and feel, not that an actual 68K CPU is involved. However it says it is only tested in emulation, so not certain that it works on real hardware. Here is a test program running: Edited December 23, 2017 by carlsson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Adding chips in a cart was always part of a cart based system life. The limit is hard to set but extra RAM and DSP doesn't seems too out of place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 I would consider the extra chips in a cart to be like the Nintendo mappers and special chips added to SNES games like the FX chip. I would welcome new games that extend this interesting console. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprazzi Posted December 27, 2017 Author Share Posted December 27, 2017 I would consider the extra chips in a cart to be like the Nintendo mappers and special chips added to SNES games like the FX chip. I would welcome new games that extend this interesting console. Let's start with multi-rom cart! It shouldn't heard to manifacture right? (I have no clue) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 I don't even have a Super Cassette Vision but I would be all over a multicart for whenever I do make that leap! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 A multicart on this system would be amazing, it took me a while to gather up most of the games, but a multi cart would allow more people to experience more games on what I think is one of the most charming systems I have ever owned. In addition I would love to see a multicart that would allow game developers to try their hand on the system in an easy fashion. I have looked around for a long time and have not found too many resources for budding programmers, but I know some Japanese people are doing it , so it must be workable somehow!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 I wasn't aware that the SCV had any particular following in Japan, but I suppose it makes sense that if any people care, it will be those in its native (*) country. From what I read before, it has a NEC CPU that is similar to a Z80, though not identical like the NEC D780C is. Japan seems to have some strong regulations against selling multicarts even for retired systems, so in case a design origins there it probably will only be on paper and DIY basis, before someone abroad puts together a manufacture process. Unfortunately I also get the feeling that Japanese users are not too keen of sharing documentation and technical specs, and if they do most of us will have a hard time reading it in Japanese. (*) Sorry everyone in France, I don't consider the SCV a genuinely French console despite Yeno released it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 There's a video game preservation society in Japan with an English speaker as its leader - they might be willing to help on such a project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 That Astro Wars logo reminds me of something... can't quite put my finger on it... Congrats on getting one! I always loved the graphics on these. Is there an emulator for it out there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 (edited) (*) Sorry everyone in France, I don't consider the SCV a genuinely French console despite Yeno released it. No one I know in France consider the Yeno SCV remotely French. Tho, it would be interesting to know how deep Yeno and Epoch collaborated. Because there was collaboration between the two : the Yeno system have most writing serigraphied in French, including the branding on the case; also, the Yeno is RGB only, and so the case is slightly different, lacking the hole for the RF output. At the very least, the inclusion of an RGB output is most likely a demand from Yeno, as it made the system easier to market in France. I noticed that in fact, the Epoch model have all the writing on the glossy plate, even the brand. Odd. Maybe it was too costly to have two different manufacturing lines printing Epoch and Yeno, or they planned to release the machine under other names in other markets so they left it "blank"? At the very least, it's quite (for the time) a rather expensive "adaptation". ON the console, the Yeno labelling is not a sticker, but "serigraphied" which doesn't look cheap and is very durable. Inside shot : Well, that's a neatly compact design. Edited December 30, 2017 by CatPix 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 I happily noticed the Epoch SCV uses the exact same RGB output as the Yeno SCV so if you've got both, you can use the same video cable. If Yeno was influencial in that design decision, it means they must've been onboard in 1983 or very early 1984 before it was released in Japan. I'm unsure how common it was with RGB in Japan at the time, perhaps seen on the computer side more than the consoles. I know that Yeno also released the Sega SC-3000, probably more models. I never figured out if that was just for the French (speaking) market(s) or if they had presence in the rest of Europe as well. Based on what I know about other brands however, it seems each European country had their own importers and agents of foreign systems, unless the foreign company opened their own branch of course which was fully possible for Sega but perhaps not that much for Epoch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 Yeno was originally ITMC in France, a large importer of Epoch LCD games. You can see the link here as the "guarantee" enveloppe is ITMC. So ITMC and Epoch probably knew each other quite a bit. Again, everything translated in French, which denote a relationship a bit more close than just "I buy your stuff" level. Yeno imported the SG-3000 indeed, first under the Yeno label, later simply Sega. (the computer first had a Yeno label, then simply Sega with the packaging still bearing the Yeno logo) Rumors says Yeno imported the SC-1000 but aside from testimonies not backed up with pictures or actual systems, It's not quite proved. For "international" Yeno seems to have been sold in the later years in Germany, and from mail-order was probably available in Belgium and Switzerland, tho not "officially". At some point around 1990, Yeno was acquired by V-Tech. The brand was ressurected recently to sell tablets, but that's about it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 I gathered up a few resources for anyone who can understand a more deep developer level than I could. Here is a page with a great diagram of the RGB pinout I used to make a cable for my units. ( These pages are in Japanese but the Chrome browser can translate the pages for you) http://dempa.jp/rgb/heaven/g_scv.html Here is a really good webpage that has the schematics and a lot more about the registers of the system and the wiring diagrams. This is good for anyone to learn more about the system and the internals and the chip registers. http://www43.tok2.com/home/cmpslv/Scv/EnrScv.htm As far as emulation I hear there is a dedicated emulator, but may not be complete. I have also hears that MAME / MESS can emulate the SCV if you have the SCV.ZIP library files for it. I hope this helps anyone who is looking for any information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 It reminds me someone mailed me 1-2 years ago asking if I could build him a RGB cable for the SCV. Unfortunately I forgot to reply and get to do it... :-( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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