TurboDuo

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The TurboDuo (also called Turbo Duo) is a video game console released in the United States on October 10, 1992 by Turbo Technologies Incorporated (a Los Angeles-based corporation consisting of NEC and Hudson Soft employees, established to market NEC consoles in North America after NEC Home Electronics USA failed to effectively market the platform.) The Duo was codeveloped by Hudson Soft and NEC. The Japanese counterpart was the PC Engine Duo game console, which was released over a year earlier.

The TurboDuo is essentially a combination of TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD hardware, plus the Super System BIOS + extra 192k RAM built-in to the motherboard. The TurboDuo was capable of playing standard audio CDs, CD+Gs, TurboGrafx TurboChips, Japanese and North American CD-ROM² (TurboGrafx-CD) and Super CD-ROM² titles. The system is able to play Japanese PC Engine HuCARDs with a third party HuCARD converter or modification. With a HuCARD converter plus a Japanese Arcade Card Duo, the system can also play Japanese Arcade CD-ROM² games.

TurboChip is simply the North American name for the HuCARD.

1 The package
2 Sales
3 Technical specifications
4 See also
5 External links

The package

The system was released in October 1992 for $299.99. Realizing that the price was too steep for many consumers (the system's price was driven up by the then-high costs involved in CD-ROM drive production), TTI included a lavish set of pack-ins to add value to the console, which they valued at the cost of the unit. The original pack-ins for the Turbo Duo included the system, one control pad, an AC adapter, RCA cables, Ys book I & II (a TurboGrafx-CD title), a SuperCD disc including Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Gate of Thunder and a secret version of Bomberman accessible via an easter egg and finally a coupon book to save money on TurboDuo games and accessories. The system was also packaged with one random TurboChip game which varied from system to system (note: Actually, Dungeon Explorer was the original TurboChip pack-in for TurboDuo, although many titles were eventually used, such as IREM's Ninja Spirit and NAMCO's Final Lap Twin and then, eventually, a random pick).

At the same time, the TurboGrafx-CD attachment for the TurboGrafx-16 was reduced in price to $150.00, and TTI offered the Super System Card (3.0 BIOS with 192k RAM, as found in the Duo) in order for existing TG-16+TGCD owners to play the new SuperCD games. The Super System Card was sold for $65 as a standalone product, or $95 as a bundle including the previously-mentioned multi-case CD. It did not come with Ys Book I and II as the Duo did, nor did it come with a bonus TurboChip game.

Sales

The Sega CD system was released in North America that same Holiday season and with Sega's superior marketing money and advertising quickly became a more popular platform in North America. While the Duo did decently it was quickly relegated to the realm of a niche platform. By late 1993 many discount retailers and large chain stores no longer carried the TurboDuo. Still software continued to be released to be bought via the growing number of video game specialty stores at the time. In December 1995 the last few TurboDuo titles were released marking the end of the life for the platform.

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 TurboGrafx-16 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 481 (241 background, 240 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 was capable of displaying one sprite layer. Sprites could be placed either in front of or behind background tiles.
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, programmable through the HuC6280A CPU.
- CD titles add Redbook CD-DA sound, and a single ADPCM channel to the existing sound capabilities of the TurboDuo.
Game Media:
- TurboChip (HuCARD in Japan): A thin, card-like game media. The largest Japanese HuCard games were up to 20Mbit in size.
- Excluding the TurboExpress (TurboChip only), all TurboGrafx-16 hardware could play the entire TurboChip library, and every CD system could play all the various CD format games - with the right system card and/or HuCARD adaptor.
- Interestingly, Japanese systems cannot play US TurboChips without a required internal modification. Some modifications allow Japanese systems to play US and Japanese cards right from the HuCARD port, other modifications require a HuCARD converter as well.