TurboExpress

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(Redirected from PC Engine GT)

Image:Turbo express.jpg The TurboExpress or (PC Engine GT in Japan) was a portable version of the TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine, released in 1990 for $249.99 (the price was briefly raised to $299.99, soon dropped back to $249.99, and by 1992 it was $199.99).

It was the most advanced handheld of its time and could play all the TurboGrafx-16's games (which were on a small, credit-card sized media called HuCards). It had a 66 mm (2.6 in.) screen, the same as the original Game Boy, and could display 64 sprites at once, 16 per scanline, in 482 colors from a palette of 512. It had 64 kilobytes of RAM. The Turbo ran its two 6820 CPUs at 3.58 MHz in parallel, for a total of 7.16 MHz.

The optional TurboVision TV tuner included RCA audio/video input, allowing you to use TurboExpress as a video monitor. The TurboLink allowed two-player play. Falcon, a flight simulator, included a "head-to-head" dogfight mode that could only be accessed via TurboLink. However, very few TG-16 games offered co-op play modes especially designed with the TurboExpress in mind.
Template:Dedicated video game handheld consoles

1 Hardware problems
2 Reaction
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

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Hardware problems

While the system was technologically superior to the other handhelds of its era, it still had its problems. Due to a problem with cheap capicitors, sound failure was a frequent problem with the TurboExpress (NOTE: Actually, this is a problem that developed years later when the capacitors "dried out"). Another issue was burned out pixels; due to the quality of LCD technology at the time, the rate of pixel failure was very high. Brand-new TurboExpress systems often had several bad pixels. (Again, this problem may have become more pronounced many years after-the-fact: the timeline of these "problems" needs to be verified. Furthermore, to put this into conext, it should be noted that even "contemporary" handhelds -- such as Sony's PSP and Nintendo's GBA and DS -- have suffered from "burned out pixels" in certain production runs). TurboGrafx-16 HuCards saved game data to the internal RAM memory of the TurboGrafx-CD unit, TurboDuo, or TurboBooster Plus (a peripheral for the core TG-16 console). The TurboExpress lacked this internal RAM memory, and as a result it was not capable of saving. (Actually, this is misleading. Nearly all HuCard games provided the option for using manual passwords). Text was also difficult or impossible to read in certain circumstances, as many times fonts were written to be seen on a television screen, not on a small LCD screen. As a result, certain RPGs and adventure games could be tedious to play on the unit. Another serious problem was that the battery life only lasted about three hours, which was also a problem in other handhelds of its time, such as the Game Gear and Atari Lynx.

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Reaction

Despite its technical advantages, the Turbo Express was not very popular or known with gamers. In addition to NEC's disastrous marketing, the fact that the handheld was initally released for $299.99 (because of this, it was labelled as the Rolls Royce of handhelds) didn't help matters. Since there were other affordable handhelds and the TG-16 wasn't a popular console enough to be accessible for the great majority of players, the Turbo Express was targeted mainly to the relatively small number of fans of NEC's systems. The system finally was quietly discontinued around the time the Turbo Duo was also in its twilight.

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