Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy

Introductory price¥8,800MediaROM cartridgeCPUMotorola MC6801 (inside cartridge)Memory2k RAMDisplay128 × 192 pixels, 4 colorsGraphicsMotorola MC6847 video processor

The Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy (Japanese: TV ボーイ, Hepburn: TV bōi) is a second generation home video game console developed by Gakken and released in Japan in 1983 for a price of ¥8,800.^[1]

The system was made to compete with the Epoch Cassette Vision, which had a market dominance of 70% in Japan.

The console was released months after the Nintendo Famicom and Sega SG-1000 which, although more expensive at ¥15,000, were more advanced and had more features as well as bigger games libraries; furthermore, Epoch had just launched the Cassette Vision Jr. revision for ¥5,000. These factors made the system obsolete from the start, with a high price tag, very few and comparably rudimentary games, and a strange form factor, leading to poor sales. As a result, it is now a very rare collector's item among some retro gamers.

Technical specifications

• Internal Graphics: Motorola MC6847^[1]
• RAM: 2 Kb^[1]
• CPU (cartridge): Motorola MC6801 (8-bit)^[1][2] clocked at 4 MHz
• Image: 128 × 192 pixel; 9 colors, 4 of the can be shown at the same time^[2]

Games

There were only 6 games officially released for the system, each being sold for ¥3,800;^[1]

• 'Excite Invader
• Mr. Bomb
• Robotan Wars
• Chitaikū Daisakusen (Japanese: 地対空大作戦, 'Big operation of surface-to-air') - A port of Super Cobra
• Frogger
• Shigaisen 200X-nen (Japanese: 市街戦200X年, Hepburn: shigaisen nisen-ekkusu-nen, 'Urban warfare year 200X')

Each of the games is designed for one player only.^[3]

References