Sega Master System

Produced By: Sega

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Although the 8-bit Master System was not embraced by a large audience in the US and Japan, it remains an important and entertaining console that laid the foundation for generations of future hardware releases from Sega.

Overview

The gamepad.

TheSega Master System is an 8-bit cartridge based system released in 1985 for Japan, 1986 for North America and 1987 for Europe. It is based off the Mark III release of Sega's first entry into the Japanese console market, the SG-1000. The Master System has the ability toplay propriety 32K media cards, known as Sega Cards, as well as cartridges.It competed directly alongside the Nintendo Entertainment System during it's heyday, and it was supported by Sega well into the 1990's.Some versions of the system featured a built in game such as Space Harrier, or a timed maze game featuring a snail. That one was hard.

The system has 2 9-pin controller ports, with each controller having 2 buttons (labeled 1 and 2) and an 8-way directional pad. The pause button is located directly on the console.The Master System didn't challenge Nintendo much in the US and Japan, but it did give Sega a good foothold in the home console market that they capitilized on with their follow up, the Sega Genesis.

Peripherals

The 3D glasses.

Early models of the console shipped with a Safari Hunt/Hang On card, one gamepad and one light phaser. The light phaser was required to play Safari Hunt and would go on to be featured in games such as Shooting Gallery and Missile Defense 3D. Missile Defense 3D also made use of the console's 3D glasses, which plugged into a card slot device and saw only six games made for it since release. The glasses plugged into a card slot device and used shuters to simulate 3D depth from flickering images onscreen. An arcade stick was also released as a peripheral, and a six-button version of the gamepad appeared later in the console's life.

Sega released an add-on for the Genesis called the Power Base Converter that sat on top of the cartridge slot and allowed for Master System games to be played on the 16-bit console. It has all of the exterior features of the original Master System including a pause button on the device and support for both catridges and cards.

The Master System was, and still is, huge in Brazil for some reason.

Technical Specifications

CPU: 8-Bit Zilog processor running at 3.579545 MHz
Memory: 64 Kb RAM
Video: Texas Instruments VDP, 256 x 192 or 256 x 224 resolution, 32 colors on screen (16 for sprites/background, 16 for background only) from a palette of 64
Sound: Texas Instruments 4 channel processor (3 Square Wave, 1 White Noise)