Sega System C

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The Sega System C is an arcade board used by Sega between 1989 and 1994 (though it was later used by Atlus for their Print Club series). A slight update called the Sega System C2 was introduced in 1990. The Columns manual claims the hardware was called Sega System 14.

Hardware

The System C hardware is built on top of the Sega Mega Drive with a few differences that make them incompatible:

• The 68000 is clocked at ~9Mhz. The Z80 was removed; the faster 68000 allows it to handle sound without slowdown in games.
• The VDP no longer uses its internal CRAM for palettes. Instead, it relies on external hardware to provide color information. The hardware is capable of producing 4096 possible colors which can be fed to the VDP in a variety of ways.

The System C2 adds a NEC µPD7759 ADPCM sample playback chip and a sample ROM which can be banked (as the chip can only access 128KB of samples at a time). This serves as a replacement for using the YM2612's DAC for samples, and has the extra advantage of not needing to constantly provide sample data to the µPD7759 — the 68000 merely sets the sample ROM bank and writes a sample number to play. However, the µPD7759 can only play one sample at a time.

List of System C Games

• Bloxeed (1989)
• Columns (1990)
• Columns II (1990)

List of System C2 Games

Note: there are a number of other Print Club games omitted from this list because they are undiscovered/undumped/etc.

• Borench (1990)
• PotoPoto (1994)
• Print Club (1995)
• Print Club Vol.2: Winter Version (1995)
• Print Club Vol.4: Summer Version (1996)
• Print Club Vol.5: Autumn Version (1996)
• Puyo Puyo (1992)
• Puyo Puyo Tsu (1994)
• Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R (1994)
• Puzzle & Action: Tant-R (1992)
• Ribbit! (1992)
• SegaSonic Popcorn Shop (1993)
• Stack Columns (1994)
• Thunder Force AC (1990)
• Twin Squash (1991)
• Waku Waku Marine (1992)
• Zunzunkyou No Yabou (1994)

Sega Arcade Boards
Originating in Arcades
8080/Z80-based	Sega Blockade Hardware | Sega VIC Dual | Sega G80 | VCO Object | Sega Zaxxon Hardware | Sega Laserdisc Hardware | Sega System 1 | Sega Appoooh Hardware | Sega System 2 | Sega System E | Sega Gigas Hardware | Sega Sharp Shooter Hardware | Sega Space Position Hardware Sega Shooting Zone System (MAME alias for Sega Sharp Shooter Hardware; which name is correct?) Custom Z80 Boards (TODO the only one left is Bank Panic which needs to be handled differently; it's by Sanritsu and runs on the same hardware as exactly one other game)
68000-based	Pre-System 16 Hardware | Sega Space Harrier Hardware | Sega OutRun Hardware | Sega System 16 | Sega X Board | Sega System 24 | Sega Y Board | Sega System 18
NEC V60/V70-based	Sega System 32 | Sega Model 1
Intel i960-based	Sega Model 2
PowerPC-based	Sega Model 3
SuperH-based	Sega Hikaru
Based on Home Hardware
SG-1000-based	SG-1000-based Arcade Hardware
Mega Drive-based	Mega-Tech | Sega System C/C2 | Mega Play | High Seas Havoc special board
Saturn-based	Sega Titan Video (ST-V)
Dreamcast-based	Sega NAOMI | Sega NAOMI 2 | Sega Aurora | Sammy Atomiswave
XBOX-based	Sega Chihiro
GameCube-based	Triforce
PC-based	Sega Lindbergh | Sega Europa-R | Sega RingEdge | Sega RingWide