The Bandai RX-78 is a Japanese
8-bit microcomputer manufactured by
Bandai
is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...
. Its name comes from the
RX-78-2 Gundam
The is a fictional manned robot (mecha), introduced in 1979 in Yoshiyuki Tomino's and Sunrise (company), Sunrise's anime series ''Mobile Suit Gundam''. In the series, it is a prototype weapon for the Earth Federation when it falls into the hands ...
. It was released in July 1983,
and employed a SHARP LH0080A (
Zilog Z80A clone)
CPU. It ran at a
clock speed
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 pro ...
of 4.1 MHz,
and shipped with 30 KB of
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
and 8KB of ROM.
It had two joystick ports in a proprietary format using 8-pin
DIN connector
The DIN connector is an electrical connector that was standardized by the ' (DIN), the German Institute for Standards, in the early 1970s. The male DIN connectors (plugs) feature a 13.2 mm diameter metal shield with a notch that limits the ...
s.
The computer can generate 27 colors, created from 3 levels of intensity of each RGB channel, arranged into VRAM video planes, with a maximum resolution of 192×184 pixels, and is capable of displaying 30 x 23 text characters using a 6x8 pixel font.
Sound was generated by the
Texas Instruments SN76489
The SN76489 Digital Complex Sound Generator (DCSG) is a TTL-compatible programmable sound generator chip from Texas Instruments. Its main application was the generation of music and sound effects in game consoles, arcade games and home compute ...
chip, providing 3 voices in four octaves and noise generator. Software was available on cartridges or cassettes.
The RX-78 had a release cost of 59,800 yen,
and was sold with a dozen of games and software, including a
BASIC interpreter cartridge featuring a cassette tape interface .
Games
The Bandai RX-78 was primarily a gaming machine, with two joysticks included.
Software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
was released on ROM cartridges ("Sen'you Soft Cartridge") and compact cassettes ("Sen'you Tape Cassette").
20 games for the Bandai RX-78 were released, along with a smaller number of non-gaming titles.
*Cannon Ball (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Card World (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Challenge Golf (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Champion Racer (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Donjara (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Excite Baseball (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Excite Tennis (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Hamburger Shop (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Hitsuji Yaai (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Mobile Suit Gundam: Luna Two no Tatakai (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Perfect Mah-jongg (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*The Pro-Wrestling (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Rengo Kantai (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Sekigahara (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Space Capsule (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Space Enemy (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Super Motocross (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Tatakae! Ultraman (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Yellow Cab (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Zerosen (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Educational (Education Series)
*ABC Tangou Game (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Graphic Sugaku (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Keisan Enshuu Drill (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Sansu Tsuma Zuki
Applications (Culture Series)
*3-Dimension Graphics (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Animation Graphics (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*BS BASIC Ver.1.0 (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Creative Graphics (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Healthy Life Plan (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
*Kanji Word Processor
*Music Master (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
*Z80 Assembler
References
External links
Old Computers Museum1000BiT
Muuseo
Bandai consoles
Computer-related introductions in 1983
Z80-based home computers
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