The TurboDuo is a fourth-generation

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...

developed by

NEC Home Electronics is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solut ...

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 world' ...

, a joint venture of

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, NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth genera ...

and its

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

drive Drive or The Drive may refer to: Motoring * Driving, the act of controlling a vehicle * Road trip, a journey on roads Roadways Roadways called "drives" may include: * Driveway, a private road for local access to structures, abbreviated "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 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, thoug ...

, 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 CD+G (also known as CD-G, CD+Graphics and TV-Graphics) is an extension of the compact disc standard that can present low-resolution graphics alongside the audio data on the disc when played on a compatible device. CD+G discs are often used for k ...

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 In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

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 au ...

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 ma ...

, 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 r ...

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 ''Bonk's Revenge'', known as in Japan and ''PC Kid 2'' in Europe, is a 2D platformer set in prehistory, originally for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 console, created in 1991 by the Red Company for Hudson Soft, and licensed by NEC. This is the sec ...

'' (1991), ''

Gate of Thunder is a 1992 scrolling shooter video game developed by Red Company and published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-CD. It was the first game released in North America to support the Super CD-ROM² format and served as one of the pack-in games for ...

'' (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 sp ...

'' (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 tr ...

.) 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 is a Japanese video game console developer and publisher, and formerly a developer and manufacturer of arcade games as well. The company has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The full name of the company that uses the brand is Irem Softwar ...

1988) and ''

Final Lap Twin is a hybrid Racing video game#Racing role playing games, racing/role-playing game released for the PC Engine in 1989 and the TurboGrafx-16 in 1990, as a spin-off to the 1987 arcade game ''Final Lap''. The story mode featured in the game revolve ...

'' (

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 GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

described the advertising campaign as "petty" and "overly confrontational," and conjectured that the campaign hurt TurboDuo sales.

Technical specification

; CPU : The

Hudson Soft HuC6280 The HuC6280 8-bit microprocessor is Japanese company Hudson Soft's improved version of the WDC 65C02 CPU, an upgraded CMOS version of the popular NMOS-based MOS Technology 6502 8-bit CPU manufactured for Hudson by Seiko Epson and NEC. The most n ...

is a modified

65C02 The Western Design Center (WDC) 65C02 microprocessor is an enhanced CMOS version of the popular nMOS-based 8-bit MOS Technology 6502. The 65C02 fixed several problems in the original 6502 and added some new instructions, but its main feature ...

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 pr ...

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 computing ...

, 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 to ...

: 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, electroni ...

. Published games consumed up to 20 Mb (2.5 MB). :* CD-ROM² (pronounced "CD-ROM-ROM" in Japan), a proprietary

-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