djcouchycouch wrote:
I've always wanted to do something with Outrun/Afterburner/SpaceHarrier hardware, but don't have the necessary skill set to do it.
Those aren't actually the same hardware though, but they are part of the same "series" I guess you could say. Space Harrier runs on the hardware called Sega Space Harrier (creative name, I know), Outrun runs on the Sega Outrun and After Burner, which is the most advanced, runs on the Sega X Board. However, If you want to see something really crazy, look at this, Sega's most advanced "Super Scaller" system (and quite possibly the most advanced 2D system I've seen so far, even if the games don't show it):
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=709 Honestly, the thing's practically an amusement park attraction, and I'm sure it cost just as much as one.
I think it's funny though how often new arcade boards are made when the game developed on the newer system could have been made on the older one just as easily. The example I always look at (Off course
) is the Irem M107. Apparently, it is pretty much the same thing as the M92, except that the V33 is now running at 14Mz instead of 9, There is an extra BG for a total of 4, and apparently twice as many sprites (which System 16 never even says the original amount...) and "colors". (What? Palettes or total?) Anyway, the games that use this are a vertical shooter (which never uses more than 3BGs and doesn't appear to use any more sprites than GunForce 2) and, you guessed it, 2 soccer games. Because you know, in a soccer game, you need all the BGs and sprites as you can get. I'm sure it's very strenuous on the CPU too, with all the bullets and explosions and what not. Like I was saying though, there was no need to develop the more powerful hardware. (And there are companies that are far more guilty of this, mostly Sega.)
Edit: What the heck! I looked all over the mame website, and I
still haven't found anything. I guess emulating a system takes a lot less knowledge of said system than I thought?