Sega Nomad
From GamerWiki
| Sega Nomad | |
| |
| Manufacturer: | Sega |
| Alternate Names: | Project Venus (development codedname) |
| Announced: | date the console was announced |
| Release date: | JP: date/October/1995 NA: date/October/1995 EU: date/month in text/year AU: date/month in text/year |
| Initial Price: | JP: ? NA: $180 EU: ? AU: ? |
| Discontinued: | date discontinued |
The Sega Nomad was a handheld game console sold in Japan and North America which played Sega Mega Drive game cartridges. Its chipset was based on the Japanese Sega Mega Jet but the console also featured a built-in color screen. The Nomad was never officially released in PAL territories.
Sega released the Nomad in October 1995 for $180. Marketed as a "portable Genesis", the Nomad was primarily an evolution of the Japanese market Mega Jet. Whereas the Mega Jet was screenless and required an AC adapter, the Nomad featured a 3.25 inch color LCD screen and room for six AA batteries, making it completely portable as opposed to simply being a small Genesis system. In addition to its other improvements over the Mega Jet, an A/V Out plug was added at the top of the unit, letting owners play games on a television screen with a separate A/V cable. One particularly interesting feature of the Nomad was its ability to allow one player to play using the Nomad, while another watched on a connected TV. The directional pad on the unit controlled all one-player games, and a port on the bottom allowed a second pad to be plugged in for two-player games. This meant that the Nomad could be a fully functional home system as well as a completely portable hand-held solution with a pre-existing library of games available for it.
Contents |
Hardware Specifications
- Processor: Motorola 68000 16 bit processor running at 7.67 MHz
- Co-processor (Sound Controller): Zilog Z80 8-bit at 3.58 MHz
- Memory: 156KB total - 64 KB Main RAM, 64KB VRAM, 8KB Sound RAM. 20 Kb ROM
- Display Palette: 512
- Onscreen colors: 64
- Maximum onscreen sprites: 80
- Resolution: 320 × 224
- Sound: Yamaha YM2612 6 channel FM, additional 4 channel PSG. Stereo sound. Also Texas Instruments SN76489 PSG (Programmable Sound Generator)
- Display: Integrated LCD at 320 x 224
- Power Rating: 9V 850mA
Hardware Revisions
The Nomad's hardware was not revised, due to its short shelf-life.
Peripherals
Emulation
Trivia
- Six alkaline AA batteries offered only about 2 hours (depending on volume and screen brightness settings) of play time, making batteries a significant expense for use on the go. A rechargeable battery pack was offered separately for $79. It offered even less play time and was not widely available. Rechargeable AA batteries were not recommended due to voltage problems (Ni-Cd provides 1.2V instead of the 1.5V that alkalines output, and also requires full discharging before recharging; Ni-MH AA batteries were not available at the time).
