Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy

The Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy (Japanese: TV ボーイ, Hepburn: TV bōi) is a second generation home video game console developed by Gakken and released in Japan in 1983 for a price of ¥8,800.[1]

Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy
A Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy
DeveloperGakken
TypeHome video game console
GenerationSecond generation
Release date
  • JP: October 1983
Introductory price¥8,800
MediaROM cartridge
CPUMotorola MC6801 (inside cartridge)
Memory2k RAM
Display128 × 192 pixels, 4 colors
GraphicsMotorola MC6847 video processor

The system was made to compete with the Epoch Cassette Vision, which had a market dominance of 70% in Japan.

The console was released months after the Nintendo Famicom and Sega SG-1000 which, although more expensive at ¥15,000, were more advanced and had more features as well as a bigger games library; furthermore, Epoch had just launched the Cassette Vision Jr. revision for ¥5,000. These factors made the console obsolete from the start, with a high price tag, few games, and a strange form factor, leading to poor sales. As a result, it is now a rare and collectible system.

Technical specifications
  • CPU: Motorola MC6847[1]
  • RAM: 2 Kb[1]
  • CPU (cartridge): Motorola MC6801 (8-bit)[1][2] clocked at 4 MHz
  • Image: 128 × 192 pixel; 9 colors, 4 of the can be shown at the same time[2]

Games

There were only 6 games officially released for the system, each being sold for ¥3,800;[1]

  • Excite invaders
  • Mr. Bomb
  • Robotan Wars
  • Super Cobra (Japanese: 地対空大作単戦, Hepburn: Ji taikū taisaku tansen)
  • Frogger
  • Urban War Year 200X (Japanese: 市街戦200X年, Hepburn: Shigai-sen 200 X-toshi)

Each of the games is designed for one player only.[3]

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gollark: That way it will finally be able to scale to heavy loads.
gollark: You know what, I'll just persist the state in memory and then save it every 10 seconds.
gollark: Now I have an issue where everything is crazy.
gollark: I *had* an issue where multiple simultaneous updates broke it.

References
  1. "Compact Vision TV Boy by Gakken – the Video Game Kraken".
  2. "Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy [BINARIUM]". binarium.de. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  3. "The Video Game Console Library". Video Game Console Library. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
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