The
TurboExpress or
PC Engine GT (Game Tank) in Japan was a portable version of the
TurboGrafx-16The TurboGrafx-16 , known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....
/PC Engine (video game console), released by
NEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
in 1990 for $249.99 (the price was briefly raised to $299.99, soon dropped back to $249.99, and by 1992 it was $199.99).
It was the most advanced handheld of its time and could play all the TurboGrafx-16's games (which were on a small, credit-card sized media called
HuCardA HuCard is a memory card developed by Hudson Soft. It is the size of a credit card and is used with the NEC PC Engine and SuperGrafx video game consoles. HuCards contain an integrated circuit that is placed close to the connectors and protected by a thin plastic shield...
s).
The
TurboExpress or
PC Engine GT (Game Tank) in Japan was a portable version of the
TurboGrafx-16The TurboGrafx-16 , known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....
/PC Engine (video game console), released by
NEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
in 1990 for $249.99 (the price was briefly raised to $299.99, soon dropped back to $249.99, and by 1992 it was $199.99).
It was the most advanced handheld of its time and could play all the TurboGrafx-16's games (which were on a small, credit-card sized media called
HuCardA HuCard is a memory card developed by Hudson Soft. It is the size of a credit card and is used with the NEC PC Engine and SuperGrafx video game consoles. HuCards contain an integrated circuit that is placed close to the connectors and protected by a thin plastic shield...
s). It had a 66
mmThe millimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousandth of a metre, which is the current SI base unit of length.Equal to 1000 micrometres.Equal to 1000000 nanometres....
(2.6 in.) screen, the same as the original
Game BoyThe is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America on , and in Europe on . In Southern Asia, it is known as the "Tata Game Boy" It is the first handheld console in the Game Boy line...
, and could display 64
spriteIn computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional/three-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene....
s at once, 16 per scanline, in up to 481 colors from a palette of 512. It had 8 kilobytes of RAM. The Turbo ran its 6820
CPUThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
at 1.79 or 7.16 MHz.
The optional
TurboVision TV tuner included RCA audio/video input, allowing the player to use TurboExpress as a video monitor. The
TurboLink allowed two-player play.
Falcon, a flight simulator, included a "head-to-head" dogfight mode that could only be accessed via TurboLink. However, very few TG-16 games offered co-op play modes especially designed with the TurboExpress in mind. As of July 30, 2007, the TurboExpress has sold 1.5 million units.
Hardware problems
While the system was technologically superior to the other handhelds of its era, it still had its problems.
Due to a problem with cheap capacitors (See
Capacitor PlagueThe capacitor plague involved the common premature failure of certain brands of electrolytic capacitors used in various electronics equipment, and particularly in motherboards, video cards, compact fluorescent lamp ballasts, LCD monitors, and power supplies of personal computers...
), sound failure was a frequent problem with the TurboExpress. Sometimes even new systems had dead capacitors. This problem can be fixed by
replacing the faulty capacitors.
The screen used in the TurboExpress was another source of problems; though it was state of the art when it was released, the LCD technology used was still fairly new and the rate of pixel failure was very high. Brand-new TurboExpress systems often had several bad pixels. Text was also difficult or impossible to read in certain circumstances, as many times fonts were written to be seen on a television screen, not on a small LCD screen. As a result, certain RPGs and adventure games could be difficult to play on the unit.
Some TurboGrafx-16 HuCards saved game data to the internal memory of the TurboGrafx-CD unit,
TurboDuoThe TurboDuo is a video game console released in the United States on October 10, 1992 by Turbo Technologies Incorporated, a Los Angeles-based corporation consisting of NEC and Hudson Soft employees, established to market NEC consoles in North America after NEC Home Electronics USA failed to...
, or TurboBooster Plus (a peripheral for the core TG-16 console). The TurboExpress lacked this internal memory, and as a result it was not capable of saving in this manner. Most games provided a
password saveIn many video games of the 8 and 16-bit eras, after a level was beaten and/or when all continues were used, the game would display a password, that when entered in the game would allow the player to return back to this part in the game. This way, nothing needed to be written on the cartridge, as...
mechanism as an alternative.
Another serious problem was that the battery life was only about three hours (for 6 AA batteries), which was also a problem for other color and backlit/sidelit handhelds of the period, namely the Game Gear (5-6 hours), the
Sega NomadThe Sega Nomad was a handheld game console sold for the North American consumer market which played Sega Mega Drive game cartridges. The system was similar to the Japanese Sega Mega Jet, but featured a built-in color screen...
(2-3 hours) and the Atari Lynx (4 hours+).
Reception
Despite its technical advantages, the Turbo Express was not very popular or known with gamers.
http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&sql=5:17673 In addition to NEC's disastrous marketing, the fact that the handheld was initially released for $399.99 did not help matters (because of this price tag it was labelled as the
Rolls Royce of handheldshttp://most-expensive.net/handheld-video-game-system). Since there were other affordable handhelds and the TG-16 was not popular enough to be accessible for the great majority of players, the system was finally quietly discontinued around the time the Turbo Duo was also in its twilight.
TurboExpress systems appeared in the movies
3 Ninjas3 Ninjas is a 1992 martial arts comedy film directed by Jon Turteltaub, starring Victor Wong, Michael Treanor, Max Elliott Slade and Chad Power. It was the only 3 Ninjas film produced and released by Touchstone Pictures...
,
Doogie Howser, M.D and also in the movie
Enemy of the State well after the system's demise.
Specifications
- CPU: HuC6280
- CPU Speed: 7.16 MHz or 1.79MHz (switchable in software)
- Resolution: 400x270
- Max Colors: 512
- Max Simul. Colors: 481
- Max Sprites: 64