Sega G80
From Sega Retro
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| Sega G80 | |||||
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| Manufacturer: Sega | |||||
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The Sega G80 is an arcade system produced by Sega in 1981. It can be considered a successor to the Sega VIC Dual system, and was Sega's arcade platform of choice before the release of the Sega System 1.
The G80 was designed to be a more versatile system than those seen in arcade cabinets of the past. Rather than rely on bespoke cabinet designs for each game, Sega opted for a more cost-effective "Convert-a-Game" system (as it was marketed in the US), in which games housed on CPU boards could be easily swapped by arcade operators. It also marks Sega's recognition of the likes of Atari's Asteriods and Lunar Lander, as two variants of the G80 system exist - one which displays raster graphics, and another that displays vector graphics.
The G80 gets its name from its CPU - a modified Z80 processor (which is attached to each game). The G80 is largely identical to the Z80, however the "ld (address),a" instruction (opcode 32h) was modified to mangle the address written to — an early form of copy protection. The mangling system is rather complicated, and differs from game to game.
The raster version of the Sega G80 board is not fondly remembered in the history of video games, however the platform did provide a basis for many reasonably successful vector-based games from the company, some of which, such as Space Fury, Tac/Scan and perhaps most famously, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator, saw home console/computer ports.
Technical Specifications
- Main CPU: Modified Z80 running at 3.86712MHz
- Sound: some combination of the following (depending on the game)
- Pure discrete sound
- Speech board, with Intel 8035 + GI SP0250 speech synthesis chip
- USB board, with Intel 8035 and hacked up tone generation with timers and dacs for volume.
- Video resolution: 256 x 224 (raster version)
- Board composition: one board
List of Games
Raster
- 005 (1981)
- Astro Blaster (1981)
- Monster Bash (1982)
- Pig Newton (1983)
- Sindbad Mystery (1983)
- Space Odyssey (1981)
Vector
- Battle Star (1982)
- Eliminator (1981)
- Space Fury (1981)
- Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1982)
- Tac/Scan (1982)
- Zektor (1982)
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