Galaxian-based hardware

Galaxian-based hardware
Manufacturer: Namco (variants by Sega)
Release Date RRP Code World 1979 ? ? World 1980 ? ?

Galaxian-based hardware was used for several Sega licensed arcade games in the early 1980s, based on Namco's Galaxian arcade hardware, which debuted in 1979.

Sega's hardware variants were based on the arcade hardware used by the companies it licensed from, such as Konami, Nihon Bussan, and Alpha Denshi, which all used Galaxian-based hardware at the time. Several modifications were made to the hardware, with Super Cobra (and its predecessor Scramble) adding side-scrolling capabilities, and Jump Bug adding multi-directional scrolling and parallax scrolling capabilities.

Technical specifications

The technical specifications for this hardware include:

• Main CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.072 MHz (8-bit & 16-bit instructions @ 0.45 MIPS)
• Sound chipset: Namco Galaxian sound hardware (one programmable 4/8-bit waveform channel, three 4-bit square wave channels, two 17-bit noise channels, one modulated noise pulse channel)
• GPU chipset: Namco Galaxian video hardware
• Display resolution: 256×224 (horizontal), 224×256 (vertical)
• Overscan resolution: 384×264 (horizontal), 264×384 (vertical)
• Refresh rate: 60.60606 Hz (V-sync)
• Color model: RGB

• Color palette: 224 (RGB, PROM)
• Colors on screen: 32 (palette RAM)

• Background planes:

• Tilemap plane: 8×8 tile sizes, scrolling
• Bitmap plane: Star generator, scrolling

• Sprite plane: Line buffer, sprite flipping, sprite animation

• Sprite size: 16×16
• Colors per sprite: 4 colors (3 opaque, 1 transparent)
• Sprites per scanline: 7 sprites, 112 texels

Modifications

Super Cobra (and its predecessor Scramble) added the following upgrade to the hardware in early 1981:

• Background planes: Side-scrolling

Jump Bug made the following modifications to the hardware later in 1981:

• Sound chip: AY-3-8910 @ 1.78975 MHz
• Background planes: Multi-directional scrolling, parallax scrolling

List of games

Sega licensed arcade games that ran on this hardware include:

• Moon Cresta (1980)
• Frogger (1981)
• Jump Bug (1981)
• Super Cobra (1981)
• Turpin (1981)
• Serizawa Hachidan no Tsume Shougi (1982)

References

Sega Arcade Boards
Originating in Arcades
76	77	78	79	80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08
Fonz				Galaxian		Zaxxon		Appoooh			X Board						Model 2						Hikaru				Atomiswave
Blockade					G80				Hang-On / Space Harrier							Model 1			H1	Model 3				NAOMI 2
	VIC Dual					System 1						System 24										NAOMI
					VCO Object		LaserDisc																						System SP
									System 2				System 18
									System 16
										OutRun				System 32
										Gigas
												Y Board
Based on Consumer Hardware
83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15
	SG-1000		System E			System C													Triforce						Europa-R				RingEdge 2
						Mega-Tech System						Sega Titan Video								Chihiro										Nu
								Mega Play														Lindbergh
																										RingEdge
																										RingWide
Hardware Series / Generations
1960s				1970s						1980s						1990s							2000s						2010s
Electro-mechanical systems										Sega System series											Sega NAOMI series
				Discrete logic systems									Super Scaler series											Post-NAOMI systems
						Pre-System boards											Sega Model series