GENESIS/MEGADRIVE/NOMAD

The Sega Genesis was introduced to the market at the end of 1988 - at that time, no other console could compete with Sega´s powerful 16-bit system, apart from the Turbo Grafix 16, perhaps. Due to a lack of third-party support - especially with the arrival of the SNES - the Genesis never became as successful as Nintendo´s 16-bit console. Nevertheless, about 28.5 million consoles were sold worldwide, compared to about 48 million SNES consoles. It was definitely no mistake to buy the console, as Eidolon did in early 1990, shortly after Super Shinobi had been released. Among the 1000 or so games that were produced during the Genesis´ lifespan (about 10 years during 1988-1998) are a lot of evergreens that deserve to be played even today.

There are three flavors of the standard Genesis. The Genesis 1 console is a somewhat rectangular affair with an offset raised circle, originally released in 1988, and is the only model with a headphone jack and volume control. The Genesis 2 console is the now-familiar square low-profile affair first released in 1995, with a cartridge port almost exactly in the middle of the unit. The Genesis 3 console is a bargain-basement model that was made under license by Majesco in 1998 that resembles a portable CD player; it is often derisively called "the hockey puck." The Genesis 3 lacks the expansion port of its predecessors; hence you cannot use a Sega CD player with it. There are also three known officially licensed clone consoles - the JVC X-Eye (aka the Wonder Mega, circa 1992?), the Pioneer MegaDrive module for its CLD-A160 laserdisc player (circa 1992), and an Aiwa portable stereo/Sega CD combo unit (exact details unknown at this time, but Sega Forever has the picture). There are also a number of official spinoffs, such as the MegaJet, but I will not deal with them here.

There are two major names/variations of the standard Genesis console. The MegaDrive is the Japanese and European version; it is identical under the hood, but its case and cartridge styling are a little different. The Nomad is a portable Genesis console released in 1995 with a built-in color LCD screen along the same lines as the smaller Game Gear unit. Any game designed for one of these consoles should work with the others, but they may have to be set for the specific market (USA, Japan, Europe) involved. This usually involves a well-documented hardware modification to the unit in question. There are some titles with which Nomad has problems; see the appropriate factoid.

One variation of the Genesis deserves special mention - the Sega TeraDrive. This was an ordinary AMD 386SX PC (25MHz) with 2MB of RAM - but it had a built-in MegaDrive on a 16bit ISA card. In Japan, it was shipped with a set of development tools which made it possible to program your own Genesis games without further hassle. It wasn't very successful in Japan, largely due to its high price (about US$3000). The TeraDrive was also sold in Europe by Amstrad under the name the name "Mega PC". The TeraDrive has all but disappeared with the passage of time - Eidolon himself owns one of the rare Euro survivors and won't part with it for any amount of money (although he would like a copy of the development tools that came with it, as his did not have them - somebody help him, please).