I've tried to find this before and drawn a blank. Was one step away from buying the damn thing just to take a photo of the internals, if there were any games that were remotely interesting I already would've.
It uses the super adanced "Phail" processor. I don't think anyone has bothered cracking one open yet.
Someone from Bandai (although this was Bandai UK) told me a while back that it uses a custom Motorola 68K based CPU.
Last time I looked there was no information anywhere, now I look there's a few dribs and drabs around saying it's a 32-bit CPU, and Kyuusaku reckoned it was an 8-bit CPU here, so uh no, right now there's no real information on it on Google. Could well be a 68K for all I know. Anyway, there's more than just a CPU in there, a photo would be interesting.
I saw an RGB modded one on YAJ. I'm totally frothing with demand to play DBZ and Ultraman story games in beautiful RGB. -ud
Mine's never even been fired up. :icon_bigg Looks like it has torx screws. Going away on Sunday, but if I get some free time I'll try to crack it open.
You mean that the game code is running INSIDE the video cpu? There is really no other cpu? I've always been interested into this system too Mainly because it was introduced a bit like something a step ahead of ps/sat in a french mag i was reading (screenshots were simply fakes or fmv , in fact, lol)
There must be a CPU... Any chance of a closer/higher-resolution image of the mainboard, Sabre? Cheers for the images, by the way.
Here you are,hope this helps... [img=http://img175.imagevenue.com/loc454/th_76990_DSC03467_122_454lo.JPG][img=http://img129.imagevenue.com/loc342/th_77008_DSC03468_122_342lo.JPG][img=http://img131.imagevenue.com/loc553/th_77025_DSC03469_122_553lo.JPG][img=http://img171.imagevenue.com/loc546/th_77031_DSC03472_122_546lo.JPG]
Well I was only 10 short of saying it was a 68K Machine, when in fact it is a 78K machine, see below for more information. It's also unusual as all the chips in the machine are effectively off the shelf. Thinking about it apart from the Atari 2600, the Sega SG-1000 and the Tomy console I can't think of any other off the shelf parts console. Sanyo Lc89515 - CD-ROM Host Interface Toshiba TA2035F - CD Focus tracking server Toshiba tc9263f - CD Single Chip(!) processer Rohm 6398FP - 4 Channel BTL Driver for CD Player motor Toshiba TMP87C800F - 8 Bit Microcontroller (8K ROM, 16K RAM) - 8Mhz Operation, can access 64K (TLCS-870 series which is based heavily on the Z80) Sharp LH52B256 - 256K (32K x 8) Static RAM chip NEC D78214GC - 8 Bit Microcontroller (16K ROM, 512 Bytes) - 12Mhz Operation, can access 1MB (NEC 78K series, no I've not heard of it either) Toshiba TC514256JAJ - 256K Word x 4 Fast Page DRAM Chip Asahi Kasei AK8000 - Can't find any data about... but meant to be the Audio / Video processer Philips DA8772AH - Triple 8Bit DAC convertor Sony CX1229M - NTSC/PAL Decoder Rohm BA10324AF - Quad Op Amp Sanyo LC78835K - 18BIT DAC with filter Rohm BU3052BCF - Dual 4 Channel Analogue Multiplexer So it has two 8 bit microcontrollers, with the TLCS-870 likely to be the CD ROM controller and the 78K being the CPU. Finding one Japanese website on the Playdia it looks like one of the reasons why there is no Playdia emulation (next to it's rubbish) is the fact that one of the microcontrollers has an unreadable ROM. The only thing of note I can see is that the Playdia can be made into a RGB (and Component video) machine which would be hundreds of times better then the Composite video it gives.
