Taito Z System (Concept)

Taito Z System

CONCEPT

The Taito Z System is a 16-bit arcade system board released by Taito in 1987, debuting with racing simulation Continental Circus. It was followed by an enhanced 32-bit upgrade, the Taito SZ System, which debuted in 1992 with first-person shooter Gun Buster.

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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
Spriteplane
Roadplane
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 (Game) (1987)
Chase HQ (1988)
Enforce (1988)
Battle Shark (Game) (1989)
Night Striker (1989)
Special Criminal Investigation (1989)
Aqua Jack (Game) (1990)
Space Gun (Game) (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 debutedwith Gun Buster (Game) 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 (Concept) 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 (Game) (1992)
Galactic Storm (1992)
Ground Effects (1993)
Super Chase: Criminal Termination (1993)
Super Ground Effects (1993)
Under Fire (Game) (1993)
Chase Bombers (1994)

Games view all →]