Taito Z System

Taito Z System

The Taito Z System is a 16-bit arcade system board released by Taito in 1987. It was followed by an enhanced 32-bit upgrade, the Taito SZ System, in 1992.

Taito Z System Specifications

• Board composition: CPU Board, Video Board, Sound Board
• CPU:
  • Main: Motorola MC68000 (16/32-bit) @ 16 MHz (2.8 MIPS) (handles screen, palette, sprites, inputs and road)
  • Secondary: Motorola MC68000 (16/32-bit) @ 12 MHz (2.8 MIPS) (handles inputs, DIP switches, sound and road)
  • Sound: Zilog Z80 (8/16-bit) @ 4 MHz (0.58 MIPS)
• Sound chips:
  • Yamaha YM2610B:
    • 6 FM synthesis channels
    • 6 ADPCM channels @ 18.5 kHz sampling rate, 12-bit audio depth
    • 1 ADPCM channel @ 1.85–55.5 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit audio depth
  • Taito TC0060DCA DAC
  • Taito TC0100SYT Sound Communication
• GPU: Taito custom chipset @ 26.686 MHz
  • TC0070RGB RGB/Video Mixer
  • TC0220IOC Input/Output
  • TC0110PCR Palette Generator
  • TC0100SCN Tilemap Generator
  • TC0150ROD Road Generator
  • TC0320OBR Road Object Generator
  • Motion Object Generator chipset (TC0050VDZ, TC0170ABT, TC0020VAR)
• Video resolution:
  • Display resolution: 320×240 pixels
  • Overscan resolution: 320×256 pixels (256 scanlines)
• Refresh rate: 60 Hz (60 frames per second)
• Colors:
  • Colors on screen: 4096 (12-bit)
  • Color palette: 32,768 (15-bit)
• Graphical features: Stereoscopic 3D glasses support
• Graphical layers: 5–7 planes
  • 2–4 tiled scrolling planes: 1–2 background layers, 1–2 foreground layers, 64×64 tiles per plane, 8×8 pixels per tile
  • Sprite plane
  • Road plane
  • Text plane
• Sprite capabilities: Sprite buffer, sprite zooming, sprite flipping (horizontal & vertical)
  • Sprite sizes: 16×8, 16×16, 32×128, 64×64, 64×128, 128×128
  • Colors per sprite: 16 (4-bit), 128 (7-bit), 256 (8-bit)
  • Sprites on screen: 7–8 bytes per sprite, 1.75–4 KB (1792–4096 bytes) sprite RAM, 224-512 sprites on screen
  • Sprite pixels/texels: 26.686 MHz video clock cycles, 444,766 texels per frame (60 frames per second), 1737 texels per scanline (256 scanlines), 108 sprites per scanline (16-pixel width)
• RAM: 145.75–148 KB (48 KB SRAM)
  • Main CPU: 105.75–108 KB (16 KB main, 16 KB shared, 64 KB tilemaps, 8 KB root, 1.75–4 KB sprites)
  • Secondary CPU: 32 KB (16 KB main, 16 KB shared)
  • Sound CPU: 8 KB
• ROM: 5768.5–9154.5 KB (256–512 KB main CPU, 256 KB secondary CPU, 64–128 KB sound CPU, 3–5.5 MB graphics, 578.5–584.5 KB user, 1.5–2 MB YM2610)^[7] (ref)

Taito Z System Games

• Continental Circus (1987)
• Chase HQ (1988)
• Enforce (1988)
• Battle Shark (1989)
• Night Striker (1989)
• Special Criminal Investigation (1989)
• Aqua Jack (1990)
• Space Gun (1990)
• Double Axle (1991)
• Racing Beat (1991)

Taito SZ System

The Taito SZ System, also known as the Taito 68020, is an enhanced 32-bit upgrade of the Taito Z System. It debuted with Gun Buster in 1992.

Taito SZ System Specifications

The SZ System includes the following upgraded specifications:

• Board OSC: 40 MHz, 16 MHz, 30.48 MHz
• CPU:
  • Main: Motorola M68EC020 (32-bit) @ 16-32 MHz^[2][9] (4.85–9.7 MIPS)
  • Sound: Motorola 68000 (16/32-bit) @ 16-20 MHz (2.8–3.5 MIPS)
• Stereo PCM sound chips: Ensoniq chipset (ES5701, ES5510, ES5505) @ 16–30.47618 MHz
  • Ensoniq ES5510 DSP sound chip (stereo)
  • Ensoniq ES5505 (32-channel) @ 15.24 MHz (stereo)
• GPU: Taito custom chipset @ 40 MHz
  • TC0480SCP Tilemap Generator
  • TC0570SPC Object Chip
  • TC0260DAR Pallette Controller^[12][13]
• Other custom chips: Taito TC0510NIO input/output chip, Taito TC0470LIN
• Display: Single monitor, dual-monitor
  • Display resolution: 320×240 (single monitor) to 640×240 (dual-monitor)
  • Colors on screen: 8192 (13-bit) to 16,384 (14-bit)
  • Color palette: 32,768 (15-bit) (single monitor) to 65,536 (16-bit) (dual-monitor)
• Tile layers: 4 scrolling tiled planes
• Sprite capabilities:
  • Sprite sizes: 16×16, 32×32, 64×64
  • Colors per sprite: 16 (4-bit) to 256 (8-bit)
  • Sprites on screen: 8 bytes per sprite,8 KB (8192 bytes) sprite RAM, 1024 sprites on screen
  • Sprite pixels/texels: 40 MHz video clock cycles, 666,666 texels per frame (60 frames per second), 2604 texels per scanline (256 scanlines), 162 sprites per scanline (16-pixel width)
  • Sprite-scaling: Enhanced sprite-scaling system based on Taito Z System
• Graphics engine: Similar to Super Scaler and ray casting engines
• Memory:
  • RAM: 226 KB (128 KB main, 8 KB sprites, 2 KB sound, 64 KB TC0480SCP, 8 KB palette, 16 KB other)
  • ROM: 9984.125–32,000.125 KB (1–2 MB main CPU, 256–512 KB sound CPU, 5–22 MB graphics, 512–768 KB user, 3–6 MB Ensoniq, 128 bytes EEPROM, 256 KB optional sub-RAM)^[15] (ref)

Taito SZ System Games

The following games were released for the Taito SZ System / Taito 68020 hardware:^[2][9]

• Gun Buster (1992)
• Galactic Storm (1992)
• Ground Effects (1993)
• Super Chase: Criminal Termination (1993)
• Super Ground Effects (1993)
• Under Fire (1993)
• Chase Bombers (1994)