PC Engine

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(Redirected from PC-Engine)

For more information on the North American version of this system, see TurboGrafx 16.

The PC Engine is a video game console released by NEC, a Japanese company, in 1987.

The PC Engine was a collaborative effort between Japanese software maker Hudson Soft (which maintains a chip-making division) and NEC. Hudson was looking for financial backing for a game console they had designed, and NEC was looking to get into the lucrative game market. The PC Engine was and is a very small video game console, due primarily to a very efficient three-chip architecture and its use of HuCards, credit-card sized data cartridges. It featured an enhanced MOS Technology 65C02 processor and a custom 16-bit graphics processor, as well as a custom video encoder chip, all designed by Hudson.

The PC Engine was extremely popular in Japan, beating Nintendo's Famicom in sales soon after its release, with no fewer than twelve systems released from 1987 to 1993. It was capable of up to 512 colors at once in several resolutions, and featured very robust sprite handling abilities. The Hudson-designed chroma encoder delivered a video signal more vibrant and colourful than both the Famicom and the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and is largely regarded as the equal to Nintendo's Super Famicom, although that system was not released until 1990.

As graphics technology improved, gamers continued to stick to the PC Engine despite its shortcomings. Erotic games were a key factor in making the PC Engine popular, and this popularity was maintained far past the lifespan of a regular video game console. New games were released for the PC Engine up until 1999.

It was the first console to have an optional CD module, allowing the standard benefits of the CD medium: more storage, cheaper media costs, and redbook audio. The efficient design, backing of many of Japan's major software producers, and the additional CD ROM capabilities gave the PC Engine a very wide variety of software, with several hundred games for each the HuCard and CD formats.

1 Technical specifications
2 CD hardware technical specifications and information
3 External links

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Technical specifications

CPU: 8-bit HuC6280A, a modified 65C02 running at 3.58 or 7.16 MHz (switchable by software). Features integrated bankswitching hardware (driving a 21-bit external address bus from a 6502-compatible 16-bit address bus), an integrated general-purpose I/O port, a timer, block transfer instructions, and dedicated move instructions for communicating with the HuC6270A VDC.
GPU: A dual graphics processor setup. One 16-bit HuC6260 Video Color Encoder (VCE), and one 16-bit HuC6270A Video Display Controller (VDC). The HuC6270A featured Port-based I/O similar to the TMS99xx VDP family.
Resolution:
- X (Horizontal) Resolution: variable, maximum of 512 (programmable in increments of 8 pixels)
- Y (Vertical) Resolution: variable, maximum of 240 (programmable in increments of 8 pixels)
- The vast majority of PC-Engine games use 256×224, though some games, such as Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective did use 512×224. Chris Covell's "High-Resolution Slideshow" uses 512×240.
Color:
- Depth: 9 bit
- Colors available: 512
- Colors onscreen: Maximum of 482 (241 background, 241 sprite)
- Palettes: Maximum of 32 (16 for background tiles, 16 for sprites)
- Colors per palette: Maximum of 16
Sprites:
- Simultaneously displayable: 64
- Sizes: 16×16, 16×32, 32×16, 32×32, 32×64
- Palette: Each sprite can use up to 15 unique colors (one color must be reserved as transparent) via one of the 16 available sprite palettes.
- Layers: The HuC6270A VDC is capable of displaying one sprite layer. Sprites could be placed either in front of or behind background tiles.
- Colision detection: The HuC6270A VDC can detect if there has been a colision between sprite #0 and any other sprites.
Tiles:
- Size: 8×8
- Palette: Each background tile can use up to 16 unique colors via one of the 16 available background palettes. The first color entry of each background palette must be the same across all background palettes.
- Layers: The HuC6270A VDC was capable of displaying one background layer.
Memory:
- Work RAM: 8KB
- Video RAM: 64KB
Audio capacity:
- 6 PSG audio channels with 32 bytes of audio RAM each, programmable through the HuC6280 CPU. Two of these PSG channels, 5 and 6, were capable of noise generation (useful for sound effects).
- The addition of the CD-ROM peripheral adds CD-DA sound, and a single ADPCM channel to the existing sound capabilities of the PC-Engine.
Game Media:
- HuCard (TurboChip in North America): A thin, card-like game media. The largest Japanese HuCard games were up to 20Mbit in size.
- CD: The PC-Engine was the first home video game console to offer a CD-ROM accessory.
- Except for the PC Engine GT and PC Engine Shuttle (HuCard only), all PC Engine hardware could play the entire HuCard library and every PCE CD format - with the right hardware and system card. The SuperGrafx can play all of the above with the appropriate hardware, and is the only system capable of playing native SuperGrafx HuCards.

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Hardware variations

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Stand-alone systems

PC Engine (1987)
- White, only RF output
PC Engine Shuttle (1989)
- UFO-shaped system, unique expansion port (no CD option), AV output
PC Engine SuperGrafx (1989)
- The only PC Engine unit to contain enhanced HuCard functionality. Only five games were released for it. (Two regular PC Engine releases, Darius Plus and Darius Alpha, were enhanced to utilize the extra sprite capability of the SuperGrafx.)
PC Engine CoreGrafx (1989)
- Dark grey, blue label, AV output
PC Engine CoreGrafx II (1991)
- Light grey, orange label, AV output, Identical in function to the CoreGrafx

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CD-ROM accessories

PC Engine CD-ROM² (1988)
- Designed for the original PC Engine
PC Engine Super CD-ROM² (1991)
- Designed for the CoreGrafx II

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Portable systems

PC Engine GT (1990)
- Portable system, identical in shape and function to the US-released TG Express
PC Engine LT (1991)
- Semi-portable system (no battery option) similar in size to a normal PC Engine or CoreGrafx. Uses a very large attached screen, and folds up like a laptop (hence the LT moniker)

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Duo systems

PC Engine Duo (1991)
- Combination PC Engine + CD ROM system, dark grey, has a CD door lock and headphone port
PC Engine Duo R (1993)
- Same as the Duo, but white/beige, shaped differently, and lacks the lock and headphone port.
PC Engine Duo RX (1994)
- Same as the Duo R, slightly blue in colour. The only PCE packaged with a six-button pad.

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Others

X1 Twin
- Combination of Sharp X1 computer and PC Engine. Only played HuCards.
LaserActive
- Pioneer + NEC released a Laserdisc player with video game modules. One module allowed the use of PC Engine games.

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Other region variations

TurboGrafx 16 - North American version of PC Engine
TurboGrafx CD - North American version of CD-ROM 2
Turbo Express - North American version of PC Engine GT
TurboDuo - North American version of PC Engine Duo
Vistar 16 (Korean)
Several clones
TurboGrafx 16 - European (PAL) variant. Slightly different PCB layout to accommodate additional circuitry for PAL display, otherwise is identical to the NTSC TurboGrafx 16.

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Unofficial variations

Various PC Engine Shuttle clones exist, with varying levels of compatibility with original PC-Engine games. One of the more common types is the "PC Boy".
New Tai Sang Corporation released bootleg HuCards which were sometimes patched to add features like invincibility. Unlike most bootlegs these closely resembled the original games in terms of packaging, even with color labels and manuals.
The PC Engine was never officially released in France, but one chain of videogame stores imported them and made SCART conversions on a moderate scale.

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Unreleased and rumoured hardware

A modem was developed but never released.
A SCSI interface for the Duo CD-ROM drive to be used by a PC existed in prototype form only. (it was featured in a TTi-published TurboGrafx 16 oriented magazine in the US)

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Peripheral compatibility

All PC Engine systems support the same controller peripherals, including pads, joysticks and multitaps. Except for the Vistar, Shuttle, X1, GT and systems with built-in CD ROM drives all PC Engine units shared the same expansion connector, which allowed for the use of devices such as the CD ROM unit, game saves and AV output. See the External Links (bottom) for details on this connector.

The TurboGrafx and Vistar units use a different controller port than the PC Engines, but adaptors are available and the protocol is the same. The TurboGrafx offers the same expansion connector pinout as the PC Engine, but has a slightly different shape so peripherals must be modified to fit.

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Video formats

All PC Engine hardware is natively NTSC, including the European version which creates PAL-compatible video with the use of a chroma encoder chip not found in any other system in the series.

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CD hardware technical specifications and information

Drive unit:
- Single-speed CD-ROM drive, managed by a NEC microcontroller and using the SCSI-I interface.
- Transfer rate of 150KB/sec.
ADPCM chip with variable speed input clock, and 64K DRAM for audio sample storage. Only one channel of 4-bit audio was supported.
The PC-Engine CD-ROM peripheral had no built in RAM for storage of program code and data loaded from the CD. With the exception of the Duo hardware series, all RAM for the PC-Engine CD-ROM was contained on a ‘System Card’. A System Card was a HuCard, which contained not only RAM, but also BIOS software for the PC-Engine CD-ROM unit.
The list of known CD-ROM BIOS revisions are:
- v1.00 - First release (HuCard, came with the PC-Engine CD-ROM interface unit)
- v2.00 - Upgrade (HuCard, sold separately)
- v2.10 - Upgrade (HuCard, sold separately) - bug fix?
- v3.00 - Final release (built into several products and available as a HuCard - see below)
The list of known System Card releases are:
- System Card, v1.00 – .5Mbit RAM (64KB) - First release. Came packaged with the original PC-Engine CD-ROM² System. Also available as a standalone purchase, in case you lost or damaged the pack-in System Card.
- System Card, v2.00 – .5Mbit RAM (64KB) – BIOS update. The only difference between this and the original System Card is the BIOS code update to v2.00. Otherwise, it is the same.
- System, Card, v.2.10 – .5Mbit RAM (64KB) – BIOS update. This may have been a bug fix for the System Card v2.00 BIOS code.
- Super System Card - 2Mbit RAM (256KB) – RAM upgrade and BIOS update. This expands the RAM available for the CD-ROM unit to 256KB. It also offers a final BIOS update to v3.00. The PC-Engine Duo (Turbo Duo in North America) had 256KB of RAM and the same v3.00 BIOS built into the system. Games developed for this System Card bore the title ‘Super CD’, and could not be played using an older System Card.
- Arcade Card Pro - 18Mbit RAM (2304KB) – RAM upgrade. This greatly expands the RAM available for the CD-ROM unit to 2304KB. The BIOS revision was unchanged from v3.00. Games developed for this System Card bore the title ‘Arcade Card CD’, and could not be played using an older System Card.
- Arcade Card Duo – 16Mbit RAM (2048KB) – RAM upgrade. This greatly expands the RAM available for the PC-Engine Duo system to 2304KB. The BIOS revision was unchanged from v3.00. Games developed for this System Card bore the title ‘Arcade Card CD’, and could not be played using an older System Card. This will only work on the Duo systems, as it does not include the extra memory built into the Duo system. The Arcade Card Pro includes the extra 192k needed by the non Duo CD system.
- Games Express Card - .75Mbit RAM (96KB) – Bootleg system card. This was a bootleg System Card released by Games Express for play of unlicensed Games Express CD games. Only unlicensed Games Express games could be played on this System Card.
The corresponding CD-ROM products were:
- PC-Engine Interface Unit (IFU-30), came with System Card (CD-ROM² System, v1.00)
- System Card (CD-ROM² System, v1.00) (standalone, available as a replacement for the above)
- System Card (CD-ROM² System, v2.00)
- System Card (CD-ROM² System, v2.10)
- Super System Card (Super CD-ROM² System, v3.00)
- Arcade Card Pro (Arcade CD-ROM², v3.00)
- Arcade Card Duo (Arcade CD-ROM², v3.00)
- Super CD-ROM² System (Super CD-ROM² System, v3.00)
- PC-Engine Duo (Super CD-ROM² System, v3.00)
- PC-Engine Duo R (Super CD-ROM² System, v3.00)
- PC-Engine Duo RX (Super CD-ROM² System, v3.00)
- RAU-30 (Extension cable for the SuperGrafx to fit into the IFU-30 tray)

The Super System Card provides 256KB of RAM, replacing the older System Cards’ 64KB of RAM. The PC-Engine Duo/R/RX consoles have the Super System Card’s 256KB of RAM and v3.00 bios software built in, and can play both CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² games without using any additional cards.

The Arcade Card Pro is for the original PC-Engine CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² peripherals, adding the 2304KB of RAM required by Arcade CD-ROM² games. It could, of course, also play standard CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² games.

The Arcade Card Duo is for the PC-Engine Duo/R/RX consoles, which adds 2048KB RAM. Because the PC-Engine Duo series of systems have 256K of RAM built-in, this does not need to be provided and is why the Arcade Card Duo contained less RAM and was less expensive than the Pro version.

Note: Because the aforementioned consoles use the same BIOS revision as the Arcade Card Pro, it is not known (as a cost-saving measure) if the Arcade Card Duo includes the BIOS software itself, or if the existing built-in BIOS is used.

The various CD-ROM game types are:

CD-ROM² (pronounced CD-ROM-ROM) : Standard CD-ROM game.
Super CD-ROM² : Requires a compatible system or upgrade card.
Arcade CD-ROM² : Requires an upgrade card.

While the standard CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² had RAM for data storage which was accessed directly, the Arcade CD-ROM² cards accessed the RAM in a slightly different way.

Both the Pro and Duo versions of the Arcade Card worked in the same way. Just as with the Super CD-ROM², up to 256KB of the RAM was able to be accessed directly by the CPU. The other 2048KB was accessed indirectly by transferring data to the other 256KB of RAM on the fly. This was done rather seamlessly, so that even though the CPU could only use up to 256KB of RAM at once, data could be swapped to and from the other 2048KB of RAM at any time. This technique of swapping data from RAM to RAM was much faster than loading the data directly from the CD into RAM, and offered developers a significant advantage over the previous System Card formats, as is evidenced by the many conversions of well-animated Neo Geo fighting games to the Arcade CD-ROM².

One technique that was used by games pre-dating the Arcade Card upgrade was to store graphics data in the 64K audio RAM (used for ADPCM samples) that was present. This RAM could be directly populated by the CD-ROM hardware (it had a direct DMA channel from the CD controller) without CPU intervention, and the memory could be accessed in an indirect fashion, similar to the Arcade Card, allowing data stored in it to appear as a 64K stream of linear data that could be easily transferred to the system RAM.

Other facts:

NEC manufactured a very large line of personal computers, one of which featured a single-speed CD ROM drive identical to the PC Engine version. They were designed to be interchangeable, which is why the PC Engine's IFU-30 CD ROM interface could be purchased without a CD ROM drive.
NEC developed a prototype adaptor that connected a PC through the HuCard slot, allowing the PC to control the PC Engine's CD ROM as it would any normal SCSI drive. Due to falling CD drive prices and the increasing undesirability of a single-speed SCSI drive, it was never released. It was however previewed in NEC's official US TurboDuo magazine.

Despite the system's initial success, it soon lost ground to the Super Famicom. NEC made one final effort to resuscitate the system with the release of the Arcade Card expansion, bringing the total amount of RAM up to a then-massive 2048K; many Arcade Card games were conversions of popular Neo-Geo titles. The additional memory even allowed the system to display pre-rendered 3D polygon graphics well beyond what the competing Super Famicom and Megadrive/Mega-CD could offer. By this time, however, it was too late -- only a relative handful of Arcade Card games were ever produced, and the expansion was never released in the U.S.

In 1994 NEC released a new console, the Japan-only PC-FX, a 32-bit system with a tower-like design; it enjoyed a small but steady stream of games until 1998, when NEC finally abandoned the video games industry.

The PC Engine GT is a portable version of the PC Engine. It had a very crisp screen and an optional TV tuner was available. It could play all of the PC Engine HuCard games, yet had low battery life.

Another variation of the hardware is the SuperGrafx. This system is very nearly the same as the original PCE, except it has a duplicate set of video chips (and an extra chip to coordinate the two) and four times as much RAM. Since the CPU was not upgraded most developers were unable to utilize the extra graphics capability, the CPU just could not keep up. Only five SuperGrafx games (and one hybrid game - Darius) were released, and the system fell into obscurity.

Other members of the PC Engine family include the Shuttle, the LT (a laptop version similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, but considerably larger), the CoreGrafx I and II, the Duo R and the Duo RX. Contrary to popular belief the CoreGrafx is not a European version of the PC Engine. It is simply a reengineered version of the original (white) PC Engine with an AV output instead of the original model's RF output. The PC Engine and its derivatives were never officially sold in Europe, although many systems and most accessories and games were available as imports. The PC Engine and its games had been extensively covered by most major European video game magazines and were surprisingly popular.

On March 23, 2006, at the GDC Conference in California, it was announced by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata that Nintendo will offer virtual backwards compatability of the PC-Engine with their upcoming game console, the Nintendo Revolution.

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