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The
LT is a lap top PC Engine. About the same size as a normal Engine, the LT has a
fold down 4 inch LCD screen. The quality of the screen is superbly detailed and
sharp. It also has a built in TV tuner (which worked in Japan only) and an
AV port so you can plug in an external source such as a DVD player or even
your Sony PlayStation .
The only drawback is the price, these were very
expensive in Japan when released and even more expensive now, but this is
without doubt the most impressive and the rarest PC Engine ever.
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The
Turbo Graphx 16 is the US version of the standard PC Engine. It was released in
1990 and was not a great success.
This
was due to 3 main factors.
1.
The Sega and Nintendo machines at that time were the market leaders and there
was no way for NEC to break their stronghold.
2.
The design of the machine was not popular.
NEC
re- designed the machine for the American market,
they
assumed the Americans would not want the small
looking Japanese style machine.
3. The library of card titles released was small compared with Japan.
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Turbo
Grafx 16
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CD Rom |
CD Rom and Interface |
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A CD
Rom and interface were also released in the states for this unit.
Cd
games worked from Japan on the Usa system as long as you had the
correct system card.
You
needed a games converter to run Japanese Hu cards on a Turbo Grafx 16
though.
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A Pal European version of the Turbo
Grafx 16 was also released. The
PAL unit was the same as the TG-16, but for the colour which was a light
grey compared to the TurboGrafx's black. It played the same games as the
TG-16, used the same controllers and had the same expansion port. No one
in Europe seems to recall this unit ever being on sale though, and it could be
that it was only released in Spain ?, though the manual is
multi-language, more possible is that it never actually got officially released
at all ! |
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The Pal
version of the Turbo Grafx 16 |
Their was also another
version. . . While the PC Engine was sold in Korea by Daewoo (whether
officially or grey-market ?), another company was
bringing in TurboGrafx-16 systems and selling them as the 'Vistar'. It's
not known if this was an official release, however it was the same
hardware as
the TG-16, the same PCB was used, though the rear expansion connector
was removed, and two additional sub PCBs were added for A/V output, and
as you can see slight difference in looks. As
for the games, take Keith Courage for example, the manual was completely
translated into Korean !
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The Vistar version of the
Turbo Grafx 16
Click
here for more
pictures of the Vista Also take a look
at another rare and unusual Pc Engine from Japan, the 'Laser
Active' Pc Engine.
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The LaserActive LD Pc Engine
Click
here for more
pictures of the Laser Active |
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| PC
FX |
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The
PC FX was the last machine NEC released and it was a flop. Most PC Engine
fanatics distanced themselves from this piece of hardware. The machine looked
more like a PC tower than the classic look of the other PC Engines.
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Most of the software released
was either Japanese text RPG's or comic style
adult games. Despite over 140 games being released, no-one in the UK imported more than 5 or 6
software titles for this machine. Forget games like PC Kid or Gunhed as there was nothing like
these on this machine.
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| Pc Engine Prototypes |
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Below are some Pc
Engine Prototypes that never made it to the final retail stage. Scans are
taken
from the below
Japanese magazine. |
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| Accessories |
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Their
have been many official and 3rd party accessories released for the PC
Engine range of machines. Apart from the common items like auto fire joypads, 6 player
joypads & 5 player taps there's been some unusual items like a magnifier for the GT,
a printer, a photo reader, back up ram cards, and even a Sharp TV with a
built in Pc engine! Also if you had a Super Grafx, an adapter
was made so you could plug your Super Grafx into the CD Rom and interface. And
of course as mentioned earlier more powerful system cards were released which
were required for the later CD Rom games.
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| Infa Red
Joypad |
Turbo Grafx
Joystick |
6 Button
Joypad |
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| Vibrating
Cushion |
Games
Converter |
Link cable
for GT Handheld |
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