The is a

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...

made by Epoch Co. and released in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

on July 17, 1984, and in Europe, specifically France, later in 1984. A successor to the Cassette Vision, it competed with

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the U ...

and

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

SG-1000 The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nak ...

line in Japan.

History

Epoch's original Cassette Vision was introduced in Japan by Epoch in 1981, which had steady sales and took over 70% of the Japanese home console market at the time, with around 400,000 units sold. However, the introduction of next-generation systems from Nintendo,

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

and Sega quickly pushed back the original Cassette Vision, leading Epoch to quickly develop a successor. The Super Cassette Vision was released in 1984 with a price of ¥14,800, featuring an

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data bu ...

processor and better performance more in line with its competitors. It was later released in France by ITMC under the ''Yeno'' brand. At least sixteen games were brought over from Japan for a European release. A version of the system targeted the young female market was released in 1985 as the with a price of ¥19,300. This console came packed in a pink carrying case, alongside the game ''Milky Princess''. The system did not take off, and was unable to match the massive popularity of the Nintendo Famicom, leading Epoch to drop out of the console market by 1987.

Technical specifications

Epoch-Super-Cassette-Vision-Motherboard-FL

The Super Cassette Vision had the following hardware specifications: * CPU: 8-bit

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

μPD7801G microcontroller @ 4 MHz * RAM: 128 bytes (internal to CPU) * ROM: 4 KB (internal to CPU) * Video processor: EPOCH TV-1 VDC @ 14 MHz * VRAM: 4 KB (2 × μPD4016C-2) + 2 KB (EPOCH TV-1 internal) * Colors: 16 * Sprites: 128 * Display: * Sound processor: μPD1771C @ 6 MHz * Sound: produced by NEC μPD1771C running a permanently burnt-in program with three modes - monophonic preset wave mode, polyphonic (4-channel) sqaure wave and noise mode and ADPCM codec mode * Controllers: 2 × hard-wired joysticks

Games

* 1. ''Astro Wars - Invaders from Space'' * 2. ''Astro Wars II - Battle in Galaxy'' * 3. ''Super Golf'' * 4. ''Super Mahjong'' * 5. ''Super Base Ball'' ** ''Giants Hara Tatsunori no Super Base Ball'' * 6. ''Punch Boy'' * 7. ''Elevator Fight'' * 8. ''

Lupin III , also written as ''Lupin the Third'', ''Lupin the 3rd'', or ''Lupin the IIIrd'', is a Japanese media franchise created by Monkey Punch. The series follows the endeavors of master thief Lupin III (character), Lupin III, grandson of gentleman t ...

'' * 9. ''Nebula'' * 10. ''Wheelie Racer'' * 11. '' Boulder Dash'' * 12. '' Miner 2049er'' * 13. ''Super Soccer'' * 14. ''Comic Circus'' * 15. ''Milky Princess'' * 16. ''Pop and Chips'' * 17. ''Nekketsu Kung-Fu Road'' * 18. ''Star Speeder'' * 19 ''TonTon Ball'' * 20. ''Super Sansu-Puter'' * 21. ''Shogi Nyuumon'' * 22. ''

Doraemon is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko F. Fujio. First serialized in 1969, the manga's chapters were collected in 45 volumes published by Shogakukan from 1974 to 1996. The story revolves around an earless robotic ...

'' * 23. ''BASIC Nyuumon (included four basic games)'' * 24. '' Dragon Slayer'' * 25. ''Rantou Pro-Wrestling'' * 26. ''WaiWai(Y2) Monster Land'' * 27. ''

Dragon Ball is a Japanese media franchise created by Akira Toriyama in 1984. The Dragon Ball (manga), initial manga, written and illustrated by Toriyama, was Serial (literature), serialized in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from 1984 to 1995, with the 519 indi ...

: The Great Unexplored Dragon Region'' * 28. ''

Mappy is a 1983 platform video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It runs on Namco's '' Super Pac-Man'' hardware modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name "Mappy" is likely derived from , a slightly pejorative Japanese sl ...

'' * 29. '' Sky Kid'' * 30. '' Pole Position II''

Unreleased games

* ''Black Hole'' * ''Super Derby'' * ''Super Rugby''

References

{{Home video game consoles Products introduced in 1983 Discontinued video game consoles Home video game consoles Third-generation video game consoles