Little Turbografx question [Archive] - Retrogaming Roundtable

Nebagram

08-09-2006, 09:28 AM

Hardware-wise, is an American Turbo CD unit compatible with a PAL Turbografx?

heyricochet

08-09-2006, 09:27 PM

I'd guess no, because of the fact that there is straight video out on a TG-CD, works with any generic RCA cables.

T2KFreeker

08-10-2006, 12:45 AM

Wow, you have to post pics of that system as from what I was lead to believe, there are no PAL Turbo Grafx units. Interresting. Again, I would love to see this unit.

Ed Oscuro

08-10-2006, 01:13 AM

From Wikipedia:

A PAL version of the system also saw a very limited release in the UK and continental Europe in 1990 as "Turbografx" (not including the "16" in the title, and uncapitalized "g" in "grafx").
Interesting, I had never heard about this (or even thought about it...I've never seen PAL TG stuff though!)

j_factor

08-10-2006, 02:12 AM

Nope, they're not.

Ed Oscuro

08-10-2006, 02:39 AM

Hey, I have a link with some apparently definitive information.

It contradicts what j_factor said though.

Link (first post has a picture; Dementia's post has the info):

http://www.hudsonent.com/viewtopic.php?t=44

heyricochet

08-10-2006, 02:45 AM

All he said was that US games work on the PAL TG, not that the cd unit would work.

Ed Oscuro

08-10-2006, 08:04 AM

Oh, gotcha. My inadequate attention to detail has done me in once again!

Nebagram

08-10-2006, 12:04 PM

http://videogamecollectors.com/gallery/NebagramWorld/turbografx

Ask for pics and ye receiveth. :-) The next pic in the gallery is of the box it came in. The accessories- cables, power lead etc. Came in a separate box labelled "turbografx accessories" but that alas disintegrated not long after I removed the stuff from it.

Cauterize

08-10-2006, 03:54 PM

Ive got the same PAL unit and wondered the same question!
Want pictures of the box too?

Supposedly it was released in spain in limited quantities... runs in 50hz though :(

T2KFreeker

08-10-2006, 03:58 PM

Damn, that's actually a pretty groovy looking machine there, probably would fetch a Shitload of money from a collector as well. Sweet!

Mr. Smashy

08-11-2006, 01:52 AM

Hardware-wise, is an American Turbo CD unit compatible with a PAL Turbografx?

I suppose that would depend one the pin connnector on the back of the unit. Since the shells of the PAL and North American system look nearly identical, I imagine that the pin connector on the back of the board would be identical. We know that it uses North American HuCards so chances are that the only thing different is the video encoder.

From the Hudson Entertainment forums, that Dementia guy says they "basically took the PC Engine and put PAL conversion units onto them and enabled them to play US games". That sounds like a load of crap to me. As far as I know (and I don't know much), no PC Engine systems use controller connectors like the system in your picture or the standard North American TG16. Everything seems to suggest that it's a slightly modified North American board. You could compare the pin connector on the back of your system with that of an NTSC Turbo Grafx unit.

If the CD system works, the Turbo Booster (regular and Plus) ought to work as well. I don't really know what you'd do to run power to the unit but you could probably build an AC adapter easily enough.

scooby105

08-11-2006, 01:59 AM

Here's some more pics and info about the Spanish TG-16 from a neo-geo selling forum post.

some more pictures and info (http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121077&highlight=pal)

j_factor

08-11-2006, 02:20 AM

Hardware-wise, is an American Turbo CD unit compatible with a PAL Turbografx?

I suppose that would depend one the pin connnector on the back of the unit.

The pin connector is the same, but you'd still be connecting an NTSC Turbo CD to a PAL Turbografx. So when you put in a hucard, the base system converts the video to PAL, and then it passes that PAL signal to the CD system which puts the PAL signal out as NTSC.

I think it works if you only use it to play CD games, with the only problem being that it will look a bit letterboxed. But even then, you have to deal with using "our" hookups, since there's no SCART available.

Mr. Smashy

08-11-2006, 10:52 AM

Hardware-wise, is an American Turbo CD unit compatible with a PAL Turbografx?

I suppose that would depend one the pin connnector on the back of the unit.

The pin connector is the same, but you'd still be connecting an NTSC Turbo CD to a PAL Turbografx. So when you put in a hucard, the base system converts the video to PAL, and then it passes that PAL signal to the CD system which puts the PAL signal out as NTSC.

I think it works if you only use it to play CD games, with the only problem being that it will look a bit letterboxed. But even then, you have to deal with using "our" hookups, since there's no SCART available.

That doesn't really make much sense since there's no reason to believe that components like the TurboBooster, CD system, PC Engine briefcase thing, and Super CD-ROM (with the 3.0 software built in) do any video encoding at all. At least, it doesn't matter if they do any video encoding since the standard RF-out (or AV out on a SuperGrafx) will continue to work as it always has. Still, I would think that the AV out on the CD system docking bay would work fine on PAL sets when equipped with a PAL TurboGrafx.