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Post by spenoza on Apr 27, 2021 19:56:39 GMT
Folks, this is a weird technical question, but let me provide a little background before I get into it.
Shmup Junkie made a pretty awesome part 1 introduction video to the PC Engine that I really enjoyed.
But I think he got one key detail wrong (but maybe not, you tell me): that the PC Engine is the most expandable classic console. I know the Expansion port on the PCE grants a lot of possibilities, but the FC cart slot allowed for stuff like the VRC6 and 7 and the SFC cart slot allowed for stuff like the FX Chip. It's obvious that the PCE expansion port was well-capitalized upon with the CD expansion, but could the PCE expansion port have allowed the level of system interaction that was necessary for the kinds of weird cartridge add-ons Nintendo was famous for? I've read in at least one hobbyist pinout document that the SuperGrafx, for example, likely couldn't have been created as an Expansion port add-on and indeed required a separate system build.
Basically, I can only kind of interpret pinout schematics and what they mean in the context of the system itself, and I'm wondering if someone with a little more technical fluency on that point could weigh in.
Also, watch the damn video. It's awesome.
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Post by dshadoff on Apr 27, 2021 21:07:11 GMT
I'm not familiar enough with the FC to know what extras (besides the CPU bus) were on the cartridge port, or what things were in the console but not on the bus... But I can say that the PC Engine's bus exposed pretty much everything except the private CPU <-> VDC bus and IRQ1.
But that's just technical details. That explains what is theoretically possible - but the average user doesn't make his own expansion cards like I do. The average user buys peripherals, so the real question should be about what expansions were available for purchase.
I don't think that a game cartridge with a special mapper really qualifies either - if it adds a peripheral, like the Illust Booster or the Print Booster, it should qualify. When we use this definition, what range of peripherals did NES have as compared to PCE ?
We can compare FDS against CDROM... but I don't know what other peripherals (besides controllers) NES had.
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gilbot
Punkic Cyborg
Posts: 137
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Post by gilbot on Apr 28, 2021 1:12:58 GMT
In the original core concept a lot of different peripherals for the expansion port were planned. They might at one point even considered daisy chaining different add-ons at the same time. But when the CD-ROM unit was released they decided it to be the ultimate add-on and later, the release of the Duo (which didn't have the expansion port and had the CD-ROM permanently attached) just put a nail on the coffin of their original plans and any subsequent peripherals for the expansion port were cancelled, leaving the controller port and card slot as the only ways of expansion. Personally I think this was a missed opportunity, losing a number of cool stuff that could happen. This also more or less restricted the upgrading of the CD-ROM system to be just adding RAM via the card slot, though the developers probably figured all they really wanted to have was RAM. The most ridiculous part is how over-utilised the controller port is. That the PCE only has one such port doesn't help (IMO if it came with at least two ports it would make 2 player gaming much easier and less of the disasters would happen). You can chain a MB128 with the multitap and have a mixture of different controllers attached (mice, 2/3/6 button pads, etc.). This is awful and if you say put the console on a table with the wires hanging in the air, the combo must fall apart at one point. Also, a number of games have problems with certain combinations of the attachments. As far as I remember, Lemmings has problems when the MB128 is attached (or something like that, there is even a paper insert in the manual warning about this). Magicoal supports nearly all the periperals but has a bug such that if you have both the MB128 and multitap attached, loading a game saved to the MB128 will freeze the game, so you have to either save to internal backup RAM or ditch the multitap (so, no 2 player mode...) for it to work, which beats its purpose of supporting everything.
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