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Post by videofestival on May 14, 2019 11:45:16 GMT
Nope, definitely no idea atm. If I'm very lucky, I will be able to share more information once I can open it up.
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Post by videofestival on Jun 13, 2019 16:54:13 GMT
Ok, got one of those Super Twin consoles and yes, it takes HuCARDs and the fat Super Engine carts. Pretty exciting to experience, as it comes from a different manufacturer and not Taiwan. Will test it soon..
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Post by dshadoff on Jun 13, 2019 18:36:02 GMT
Waiting to hear more details !!
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Post by videofestival on Jun 14, 2019 8:12:05 GMT
Live update- the PCB needs a lot of cleaning before I can take a photo- it says on it that it is a Super Twin Star, version 1.0 from February 1993. Through hard wiring inside one can choose between NTSC and PAL. Chips are different than in any of the other pce clones I have.
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Post by dshadoff on Jun 14, 2019 10:45:46 GMT
If it's from 1993 and not from Taiwan, can you share with us what country it did come from ? In my estimation, 1992/1993 is a little early for China proper, though Taiwan would have been a perfect fit...
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Post by videofestival on Jun 15, 2019 11:11:40 GMT
See for yourself... They wanted to make sure, that the date is put on the PCB mutliple times (three times, one is even under the HuCARD-slot). These are from Danyang City, Mainland China. As far as I know in Taoyuan, Taiwan there were other pce clone models produced as early as 1991. There must have been some kind of connection between these two companies from both countries though. Business entity databases in Mainland China are not as easy to access as the ones in Taiwan. Attachments:
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Post by imparanoic on Jun 26, 2019 8:52:18 GMT
Oh yeah, duck piss street. I remember going there and some old men sitting out with their old, used things on towels... it always amazed me. ...But that was a long time ago. officially ap liu st, yes, sometimes, you can get some rather rare items there, reminds me of parappa the rapper and the rastafarian stage, where he sings a reggae song while selling items on the floor
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 28, 2019 13:36:40 GMT
Looking again at the PC board of the PCE clone, I think the common thread between the two companies you mentioned has to be Hong Kong. Around that time, HK did quite a lot of trade with both Taiwan and Japan with video games and technology, and was starting to vigorously set up joint-venture factories in China.
While there was a lot of sales of pirate/bootleg software and hardware in HK at that time, they were mostly made elsewhere (such as Taiwan), even in cases where the designs were from HK (especially the cartridge copiers). I think the idea at the time was that HK is visible to international/Western people, but Taiwan largely wasn't, and China certainly wasn't.
From the above photos, there are a *lot* of through-hole parts, which they may well have sent to China for assembly for a lower assembly cost. The surface-mount chips may already have been on the boards by then. I would expect that the chips were fabbed in Taiwan, but that pains were taken to misdirect on where they were fabbed (this would still be a reasonably-recent feature size in 1993, not likely to be made in China yet at that time).
Also, the '1993' on the board at several locations seems a bit odd, as you mention. It would be believable enough if it was there only once - but since it's there in multiple locations, it seems like it could be there to support a misdirection.
All in all, a very interesting find !!
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Post by videofestival on Oct 8, 2019 14:54:32 GMT
I'd rather think they would print a later year on the PCB to make it look like it's from the future and modern, in case it stays heavy on the shelves of local shops. Indeed, the chips simulating the custom Hudson chips in it are the same as in the "Super UFO"- weird it is because the Super UFO looks almost identical to the (Super Game/Super Engine 1/Galaxy) but has different guts. So there was definitely technological transfer. This clone craze did start very early. To back up some dates- a company in the Czech Republic (Sunpronic) already imported Dar Yar produced clones officially in early summer 1992. If they already started selling to Europe, it's more than likely Asian markets were first. A year later, 1993 at a Czech toy fair they also introduced a successor to it and already got rid of old stock (Super Game/Super Engine 1/Galaxy).
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