The games consoles which came out of Japan in the 1980s are the stuff of legend, with the offerings from Nintendo and Sega weaving themselves into global popular culture. Most of us can recite a list of the main players in the market, but how many of us would have Epoch and their Super Cassette Vision on that list? [Nicole Express] is here with a look at this forgotten machine which tried so hard and yet missed the target when competing with the NES or Master System.
Before the arrival of the Sega and Nintendo cartridge based systems, one of the better known Japanese consoles was the Epoch Cassette Vision. This was something of a hybrid between single-game TV games and an Atari 2600 style computing device for games, in that it used pre-programmed microcontrollers in its cartridges rather than the ROMs of the 2600. For the late-70s gamer this was still hot stuff, but by 1983 as the Master System and NES hove into view it was definitely past its best. Epoch’s response for 1984 was the Super Cassette Vision, a much more conventional 8-bit console with on the face of it some respectable graphics and sound hardware.
The article looks at the console’s capabilities in detail, highlighting the multi-colored sprites and smooth sprite movement, but also the tilemap limitations and the somewhat awful sound chip shared with handheld games and sounding very much like it. Coupled with its inferior controllers and TV game style aesthetic, it’s not difficult to see why it would be the last console from this manufacturer.
If forgotten consoles are your thing, have a read about the Fairchild Channel F, the machine that gave us console cartridges.
Awesome! Never heard of it before, though.
I like the name, also. Who needs a Super Famicom, if there’s a Super Cassette Vision! 😁
Seriously, though. I remember my friends and me calling game cartridges “cassettes” when we were young.
This held true throughout the NES days, at least.
It wasn’t too uncommon back then to refer to the NES or Mastersystem games as “cassettes”.
Also probably because there was a German name to it; spelled Kassette or Cassette (as in Spielcassette), depending on were you lived*.
Using the English terms “Cartridge” or “Game Pak” was sounding odd.
Saying “Gamepad” or “Joypad” for the controller was enough English in real life already.
(*Way back in the 80s and 90s, the East Germans often used what felt like a more modern/less traditional/less cultural spelling: Telefon vs Telephon, Delfin vs Delphin etc. That was before one of the various spelling reforms, even, which took away a part of our writing culture by nullifying the old “ph” variants.)
Just checked the specs, there also was a girl’s version – in pink.
The graphics specs seem better than that of the C64 or PC’s lo-res CGA/EGA, even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cassette_Vision
https://muuseo.com/henly/items/191