VCO Object

From Sega Retro

VCO Object arcade hardware was used by Sega for a brief period between 1981 and 1983. It was Sega's earliest attempt at creating hardware specifically designed for sprite scaling, something that would be widely used in the Sega Hang-On, Sega OutRun, Sega X Board and Sega Y Board hardware, and a handful of Sega System boards in between.

The hardware debuted with the release of Turbo, and is often known as "Turbo Hardware" because of this. It is also known as "Sega Z80-3D" system.[1]

All VCO Object games rely on external LED displays for parts of the HUD. This means extra precautions must be taken when attempting to emulate VCO Object games.

Hardware

It was the first system specifically designed for pseudo-3D sprite-scaling graphics, using an analog scaling technique, with Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCOs) generating clock signals controlling the data fetched from the sprite/object ROM; the slower the clock signal, the larger the sprite on screen.[2] In 1982, SubRoc-3D also introduced an active shutter 3D system, jointly developed by Sega with Matsushita (now Panasonic).[3]

Technical Specifications

List of VCO Object Games

Only three games make use of VCO Object hardware:


Sega arcade boards
Originating in arcades









Console-based hardware








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PC-based hardware








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