The TurboDuo is a fourth-generation

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

developed by NEC Home Electronics and

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...

for the North American market. The TurboDuo was test-marketed in Los Angeles in October 1992, before a nationwide rollout in May 1993. It is the North American version of the Japanese PC Engine Duo game console which was released in September 1991. In the United States, the TurboDuo was marketed by Turbo Technologies, Inc. (or TTI) of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

, a joint venture of NEC Home Electronics and

. It was established to market NEC consoles in North America after NEC Home Electronics USA failed to effectively market the platform. The TurboDuo integrates the capabilities of the

TurboGrafx-16 The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though ...

and its CD-ROM drive (the TurboGrafx-CD) into a single, redesigned unit with an updated

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

and 192 KB of additional RAM. TTI also offered the Super System Card via mail order, which provided the original TurboGrafx-CD with the 192 KB RAM upgrade. The RAM increase and BIOS update afford the TurboDuo and PC Engine Duo compatibility with all CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² titles (Japanese and North American). Like the TurboGrafx-CD, the TurboDuo can read

Compact Disc Digital Audio Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Red Book'', one of a series of Rainbow Books (named ...

and CD+G discs. The TurboDuo, however, cannot read PC Engine HuCards without modification or an adapter. With a HuCard adapter and an Arcade Card Duo, the TurboDuo can also read Arcade CD-ROM² games (which were sold only in Japan).

Marketing

Japan

When the PC Engine Duo launched in Japan on September 21, 1991, it retailed for ¥59,800. The product garnered a Good Design Award. PC-Engine-Duo-R

NEC later revised the design of the console to reduce both manufacturing costs and the sale price. This new version, the , went to market on March 25, 1993 with a retail price of ¥39,800. The Duo R omits the 3.5 mm phone connector for

headphone Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an ...

s, and the locking switch for the lid of the Duo's top-loading CD-ROM drive. The Duo R has an differently shaped, off-white casing. NEC released its final variation of the PC Engine Duo on June 25, 1994. The has a bluer case, and was bundled with the Arcade Pad 6, a six-button controller, instead of the standard Turbo Pad controller.

North America

TTI released the TurboDuo to consumers in North America in October 1992, at a retail price of US$299.99. The price was, in part, a consequence of the relatively high cost of CD-ROM drive manufacturing. Since TTI understood that the price was too high for many people in their

target market A target market, also known as serviceable obtainable market (SOM), is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total ...

, they included a booklet of

coupon In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in re ...

s for TurboDuo games and accessories, plus several

pack-in game This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players. 0–9 A ...

s on two CD-ROMs: '' Ys Book I & II'' (1990) and a Super CD compilation of four of Hudson Soft's more popular TurboGrafx-16 titles: '' Bonk's Adventure'' (1989), '' Bonk's Revenge'' (1991), '' Gate of Thunder'' (1992), and ''

Bomberman is a video game franchise originally developed by Hudson Soft and currently owned by Konami. The original game, also known as ''Bakudan Otoko'' (''爆弾男''), was released in Japan in July 1983 and has since spawned multiple sequels and ...

'' (1983). (''Bomberman'' was hidden in an

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest trad ...

.) The package also included one TurboChip game: '' Dungeon Explorer'' (Hudson Soft 1989). Later, TTI replaced ''Dungeon Explorer'' with one of a variety of TurboChip titles, such as '' Ninja Spirit'' ( Irem 1988) and '' Final Lap Twin'' (

Namco was a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Na ...

1989). With the release of the TurboDuo, TTI reduced the retail price of the TurboGrafx-CD peripheral for the TurboGrafx-16 to $150.00, and began marketing the Super System Card, which enabled the TurboGrafx-CD to play the new Super CD games. The Super System Card is programmed with the updated v3.0 BIOS, and increases the TurboGrafx-16's RAM by 192 kilobytes. The TurboGrafx-CD requires the updated BIOS to read Super CD discs, and the additional RAM to run the software capably. The Super System Card retailed for US$65 or, when bundled with the TurboDuo's Super CD compilation disc, US$95. For the TurboDuo marketing campaign, TTI used a character called "Johnny Turbo". In 1998, Jonathan J. Burtenshaw of GameSpy described the advertising campaign as "petty" and "overly confrontational," and conjectured that the campaign hurt TurboDuo sales.

Technical specification

; CPU : The Hudson Soft HuC6280 is a modified 65C02 with an effective

clock rate In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the ...

of 1.79 or 7.16 MHz (switchable by software). The integrated components of this 8-bit processor include a timer, general-purpose I/O port, and bankswitching hardware (which drives a 21-bit external address bus from a 6502-compatible 16-bit address bus). It is capable of block transfer instructions, as well as dedicated move instructions for communicating with the TurboDuo's

video display controller A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computin ...

, the HuC6270A. ; Video processing :* One 16-bit HuC6260 video color encoder (VCE) :* One 16-bit HuC6270A video display controller (VDC). Like the TMS99xx family of video display processors, it has port-based I/O. ; Display resolution :* Horizontal lines: Maximum of 512, programmable in 8-pixel increments :* Vertical lines: Maximum of 240, programmable in 8-pixel increments NEC-TurboDuo-Controller-Adapter

; Color :*

Color depth Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring ...

: 9-bit :* 512-color palette (maximum of 481 colors on-screen: 241 for background tiles, 240 for sprites) :* Up to 32 palettes (16 for background tiles, 16 for sprites) :* Up to 16 colors per palette (15 colors + transparency) ; Sprites :* Sizes: 16×16, 16×32, 32×16, 32×32, 32×64 :* Simultaneously displayable: 64 (maximum of 8–16 per line, depending on sprite width) :* Each sprite can use up to 15 unique colors (one color must be reserved as transparent) via one of the 16 available sprite palettes. :* The HuC6270A VDC can display one sprite layer. Sprites could be placed either in front of or behind background tiles. ; Tiles : Each 8×8-pixel 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. The HuC6270A VDC can display one background layer. ;Memory :* Work RAM: 8 KB :* Video RAM: 64 KB :* Additional 192 KB of built in Memory (System 3.0) ; Sound :* Six wavetable synthesis audio channels, programmable through the CPU :* One ADPCM channel :*

; Software media :* TurboChip (called ''HuCard'' in Japan), a thin, card-like

ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electron ...

. Published games consumed up to 20 Mb (2.5 MB). :* CD-ROM² (pronounced "CD-ROM-ROM" in Japan), a proprietary CD-ROM-based media. Unlike the TurboGrafx-CD add-on, the TurboDuo could play standard CD-ROM² discs, as well Super CD-ROM² discs, without the need of a System Card. Early CD-ROM² games released in North America were branded as TurboGrafx-CD discs, but this relabeling fell into disuse after the launch of the TurboDuo in favor of keeping the CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² labeling used in Japan.

References

External links