Atari 7800 VS Epoch Super Cassette Vision

[Crazyace]

There's a text window x/y - you can switch graphics/text on left/right and up/down.

The interesting thing with PP2 is that there's no 'road' - just the side and centre markings made with sprites.. It looks better than the 8 bit version though - but that's not hard, it should be possible to make the 8 bit version look more like the 7800 one.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Well, I did some more research after I read that there also was a predecessor of the "Super Cassette Vision", the "Cassette Vision". Of course that one has even inferior graphics and sound, but nonetheless seems to be an interesting platform (just as the Atari 2600 is). I've found the most complete game description and the highest quality screenshots of that system here:

 

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/cvs/odyssey/hyperli...cv_yosaku1.html

 

(from there on click on "Nextsoft" to advance to the next game)

 

Interestingly, this system seems to have a pretty low resolution, but still seems to be bitmapped. And I haven't seen any restrictions in which colors are allowed to appear where (though there probably are only 8 colors in total). What's also interesting about that system is that each pixel seems to be able to contain a diagonal. But there seems to be something strange going on about those diagonals... on those objects that are made out of diagonals, like the pigs, snakes and birds in "Kikori no Yosaku", you can see black triangles on the left side, but not on the right side. I really would like to know how that system works and what kind of games could have been made on it if it would have become more popular.

[Crazyace]

Well, I did some more research after I read that there also was a predecessor of the "Super Cassette Vision", the "Cassette Vision". Of course that one has even inferior graphics and sound, but nonetheless seems to be an interesting platform (just as the Atari 2600 is). I've found the most complete game description and the highest quality screenshots of that system here:

 

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/cvs/odyssey/hyperli...cv_yosaku1.html

 

(from there on click on "Nextsoft" to advance to the next game)

 

Interestingly, this system seems to have a pretty low resolution, but still seems to be bitmapped. And I haven't seen any restrictions in which colors are allowed to appear where (though there probably are only 8 colors in total). What's also interesting about that system is that each pixel seems to be able to contain a diagonal. But there seems to be something strange going on about those diagonals... on those objects that are made out of diagonals, like the pigs, snakes and birds in "Kikori no Yosaku", you can see black triangles on the left side, but not on the right side. I really would like to know how that system works and what kind of games could have been made on it if it would have become more popular.

 

Maybe it's a character based system.. a 'colour' version of the original trs80 graphics - on the pictures, the block resolution seems quite coarse - but the lines in baseball and the pacman are pretty high res in comparision

[S1500]

The Cassette Vision games look laughably low-res. Looks like something Videlectrix would make.

 

While it's hard to get solid media data on the Super Cassette Vision, it looks like the games are much more fun than the 7800 ever had.

[sd32]

Thank you Takeda-san, for giving us such indepth info on this console, its really hard (imposible?) to find information about it on american websites. In your opinion, what are the 10 best games for the SCV?, the "killer apps", so to speak.

[sd32]

Takeda-san, are your videos taken from the emulator or the game console?, do you have any more?. After watching them, i think i will have to buy all those games, especially Y2 Monster Land!

[phonedork]

Vigo, judging by the specs, would you say its weaker than 7800?

 

"Stronger or weaker" and "Less powerful or More Powerful" are simplistic conclusions to a complicated question.

 

 

I think you kow what they mean. The question is not complicated, you are just being hard headed because you know deep down inside what anybody means by more power. The term more pwerful comes up even when comparing cars. It seems like everytime somebody compares the Atari 7800 to another system you stay out until somebody says something like the Sega Master System is more powerful then the 7800. Or NES... and so on. Then there is the speech about how the 7800 was not pushed like the NES or well technically the 7800 does this better. Well I am sorry but Super Mario Brothers is one of the very first games on the NES and I dont recall a game on the 7800 that could touch it in terms of graphics.

[Crazyace]

The SCV is definitely weaker than the 7800 - all of it's sprites are single colour.

 

Super Mario Bros would be a great game on any platform though - maybe one day there'll be a version for the 7800

[Vicman]

Hi Guy's,

sorry for "pushing up" this old thread.

But the Super Cassette Vision looks really great

 

Does someone knows, where i can find some dumps for this console, to use in the emulator.

I've allready looked arround the Internet...but it seems, they are hard to find / or doesn't exists....

 

can you help here ?

[sd32]

Hi Guy's,

sorry for "pushing up" this old thread.

But the Super Cassette Vision looks really great

 

Does someone knows, where i can find some dumps for this console, to use in the emulator.

I've allready looked arround the Internet...but it seems, they are hard to find / or doesn't exists....

 

can you help here ?

 

Sorry Vicman, i dont know were you can find any games. But here are some youtube videos for those interesteed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8i6y1s6YB0&feature=related

[OldAtarian]

How about this one, the 7800 Vs the original competition for the NES in Japan, i am talking about the Epoch Super Cassettevision. I guess most people here dont know much about it so here are some links with info, screenshots:

http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~kiden/supakase.htm

http://homepage3.nifty.com/doritomo/game/Scv/SCV-3.htm

http://www.game-nostalgia.net/scv/scv.htm

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~haf09260/Scv/EnrScv.htm

http://www1.interq.or.jp/~t-takeda/top.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cassette_Vision

I dont know much about interpreting specs so reading them on Wiki doesnt do much for me, but from the games i have played i would say that it is similar to the 7800 in that it appears to me, to be better at moving many objects on a single screen, rather than at doing games that are heavy on scrolling (NES type).

In the games i have, scrolling is sometimes a bit jerkier than what you would usually see on NES but quiet better than say, MSX. But on the other hand, the Galaga clone called Astro Wars: Battle in Galaxy, is really fast with some pretty interesting enemy patterns, its really good. Also, the into the screen racer Star Speeder is very impresive with very fast action, but has little background detail.Another thing in wich it its similar to the 7800 in that it uses the same sound chip from its predecesor, the original Cassettevision just as the 7800 uses the one from the 2600. So both are quite inferior to the NES when it comes to sound. One final caracteristic that it shares with 7800 is that usually its carts were also smaller than your average NES carts, apparently Epoch also was pretty cheap like Atari, or simply didnt have the resources.

Games that appeared on both the Super Cassette and the NES usually look better on NES. Like Mappy, Pops and Chips, Sky Kid. But the Super Cassette ports are still pretty good, not bad at all.

I think the only game that it shares with 7800 is Pole Position 2, but i havent played the Super Cassette version, nor have i seen decent screenshots of it to do a good comparison.

So can anyone here can talk a bit more in depth about this japanese console?, i am not a coder so i dont know too much about hardware specs.

 

I don't think it looks up to the level of an NES or 7800. I'm not sure I'd even compare it favorably to a 5200 or Colecovision.

Edited September 24, 2010 by OldAtarian

[Bill Loguidice]

Would anyone happen to know if the Super Cassette Vision is backwards compatible with the original Cassette Vision?

[kool kitty89]

EPOCH TV-1 has one Text/BG screen.

We can divide one screen to 2 areas for text and BG.

Considering the VRAM size, the screen size must be 256x256, NOT 309x246.

But the resolution really displayed on the TV monitor seems to be about 192x222.

(In the case Japanese NTSC TV monitor, I dont know PAL case.)

192 dots (and the 4 MHz CPU) sounds like a 4 MHz dot clock (like the Commodore 64 used).

 

Vertical resolution (non-interlaced) is always TV calibration (overscan) dependent and normally limited to about 224 lines, so that sounds about right. (PAL should easily show all 256 lines)

 

In the text screen, the text characters are displayed only by writing the codes to VRAM.

It is same as the old computers' text screen for example Apple][.

The character pattern must be registerd in EPOCH-TV1, no character ROM is on PCB.

The character and backgroud colour can be specifyed only for whole of screen,

we cannot specify different colour for each character.

 

In the BG screen, there are 2 modes:

- 32x32 low resolution/16 colour mode

- 64x64 high resolution/monochrome mode

 

In the low resolution mode, the size of one pixel is 8x8 dot

but the different colour can be specified for each pixel.

This mode is mainly used for the multi color back ground.

(Because only one colour can be specified in the text screen.)

Please refer page 7 in my technical document.

In Lupin 3rd, the sky colour is set to light cyan, the sewer is set to blue.

Can the colors of the BG attributes be applied to text characters, or just blocky BG pixels?

 

 

 

 

It seems that uPD1771C is the sound generator.

I could not find the datasheet, but I heared it is the old signal processor.

It supports at least 3 types of sound, tone, noise and 1bit PCM,

but only one sound can be generated.

So for example Sky Kid, when we shoot and the sound effect BOMB are played,

the back ground music is stopped.

If only one voice can be played, how is Astro Wars managing multiple sounds like this:

 

Tone)

There are at least 8 patterns of wave.

We can specify the wave pattern, frequency, detune and volume parameters.

The patterns are fixed, not programmable? (like with the PC-Engine or similar sound generators with limited wave memory to load a small pattern)

 

1bit PCM)

Yes, to our surprise, this console supports 1bit PCM!

The sound rate is about 9KHz.

It seems that uPD1771C does not have enough PCM buffer,

so CPU must send the PCM data continuously while PCM is playing.

Is it really 1-bit PCM, or 1-bit delta modulation like the NES (or CVSD, which would be much better for speech samples than the NES's fixed-slope DMC and is what the old Williams arcade games used). 1-bit PCM wouldn't really make sense since you can't really no anything with that but square or pulse waves. (and at 9 kHz, you wouldn't get usable PWM samples either)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The SCV is definitely weaker than the 7800 - all of it's sprites are single colour.

That's easily worked around by overlaying more sprites as needed. If indeed there are 30 sprites per line, that's a LOT of flexibiltiy right there.

 

The fixed 16 color palette is a limitation, but the resolution is better than the 7800's most useful mode, but not like the NES or TMS991 either. It may be a 256x256 logical resolution, but you only get about 224 lines on an NTSC TV (with average calibration) and the "192" horizontal comment (and 4 MHz CPU clock) point to a 4 MHz dot clock a la C64 and VIC-20, so moderately higher res than the 7800 (and slightly closer to square pixels), but not a huge margin of difference. (the large amount of overscan area does mean you can have no blank boarder if the designer chooses so, and some added flexibility with that off-screen area -more important with hardware scrolling, but it doesn't seem that's a feature)

 

However, from what I've read on the information gathered above (which is more than anything I read online before ), it's still unclear what sort of sprite system it actually is. If it's a straightforward X/Y register based system (a la 9918, NES, SMS, etc, etc) it would be a lot more friendly to program (and especially port) games than the 7800's MARIA with the unique and "un-friendly" (if not inherently hard to program) display list based sprite/object mechanism.

 

 

Sound definitely seems to be better than the 7800 with TIA, and doesn't seem to be limited to a single voice as mentioned before. (that PCM support gives it an early/mid 80s arcade quality -ie the age of DAC+MCU based sound )

 

 

 

The Cassette Vision games look laughably low-res. Looks like something Videlectrix would make.

 

While it's hard to get solid media data on the Super Cassette Vision, it looks like the games are much more fun than the 7800 ever had.

Note the difference between the 1981 Casette Vision and the 1984 SUPER Casette Vision.

[ozma wars]

http://www.rhod.fr/yeno_epoch.html

 

hello, this is my site.

 

Yeno SCV was sell in Europe, especially in France, imported by ITMC

Games are slow, scrolling are not very good.

 

forget technical specs. for a moment and simply play the games.

7800 have faster games but SCV have amusing and playable games, here "the" difference.

Personally I think SCV better than Sega sg-1000/SC-3000 games.

A must have console for all gamers of the golden era.

MAX

[lucifershalo]

Would anyone happen to know if the Super Cassette Vision is backwards compatible with the original Cassette Vision?

 

I got both

and they are completely different

carts format,techs, etc

 

so no compatible

[Bill Loguidice]

Would anyone happen to know if the Super Cassette Vision is backwards compatible with the original Cassette Vision?

 

I got both

and they are completely different

carts format,techs, etc

 

so no compatible

 

That's what I figured. Thanks for the clarification. I only have the Super Cassette Vision, and have yet to track down the prior model.

[lucifershalo]

my collection for the moment

[ozma wars]

my collection for the moment

this is the Cassette Vision

not the SuperCassetteVision !

it is clear now because you say the 7800 and yr. system completely different.

[high voltage]

That's not even the Cassette Vision, that is the Cassette Vision Jr., a cut down version of the Cassette Vision, think VCS = VCS Jr.

 

I would love their Game Pocket Computer though, next to Palmtex an early 80s programmable handheld

Edited June 30, 2011 by high voltage

[lucifershalo]

I chose the CVjr because I like the controls

and I will post pictures of my SCV collection , once I have received some games

just on the impression of a player, I found the sound of the SCV better than 7800

[sd32]

Check out the crazy parallax going on in the game Nebula in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YouIGLMhCQ&feature=related at about the 9:45 mark. Eat your heart out 7800... haha, just kidding, but it looks like a pretty interesting effect to the uneducated eye such as myself.

The game i would like to know more about for the SCV, is Y2 Monter Land. It seems to be like a cross between Super Mario Bros and Castlevania...

[lucifershalo]

my collection of SCV games

 

[imstarryeyed]

Wanted to bring this thread back from the dead, since I was searching around for more info on the Super Cassette Vision.

 

I hope more people can learn more about this very unique and fun charming system, I fell in love with mine last year and really enjoying playing it every so often.

 

 

 

Hey Luciferhalo, that is a great collection of Super Cassette Vision games. Were those games easier to get in Belgium?

 

I really struggle to find games being in Texas, I love my Super Cassette Visions very much, all of the games have a first gen black box NES graphics feel to them.

 

If you get access to any other carts or have a good buying resource, please PM me as I would love to buy them from you. I have some of the commons but games like Mappy, Skykid , TomTom Ball and Doraemon are very difficult for us in the US, because that game system never came here.

 

In any case I am glad this system is getting some attention now, this system just is overflowing with charm and has quickly become one of my most favorite systems!

Edited May 10, 2017 by imstarryeyed