Well I like to apologize, finally found the interview in volume 2 and it turned out it this dev environment was in 83 . Was hard to find interview in book cause of the way it's structured. It was put in the masaya section cause if his work with them. Once again sorry for the misinformation.
Pic from twitter of arcade stick used to draw graphics. According to previous post it was used well into the 90s but can't confirm this.
After playing Darius Gaiden for the first time years ago, I can agree with that statement. Seriously, even now that game looks fantastic, Taito knows how to create some bizarre mechanized fish.