Neo Geo Pocket

The Neo Geo Pocket Color was released in 1999 in Japan. It was a 16-bit color hand held console designed by SNK, the makers of the Neo Geo CD. It came after SNK's original Neo Geo Pocket, which debued in 1998. In 2000, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was dropped from both the U.S and European markets purportedly due to the inability to support itself financially. Before SNK was bought out by Aruze, a Japanese Pachinko? manufacturer, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was being advertized on US television and units were being sold nationally in Wal-Mart?. As of fall 2001, SNK has gone out of business entirely, so the NGPC is now not sold in retail anywhere.

Specs:

CPUS: Toshiba TLCS900H core (16-bit), 6.144 MHz, Z80 at 3.072 MHz for sound.

RAM: 12k for 900H, 4k for Z80

ROM: 64kb boot ROM

COMMUNICATIONS:SIO 1 channel 19200 bps, 5-pin serial port

RESOLUTION: 160x152

COLORS: 16 palettes per plane, 48 palettes. 146 colors on screen out of 4096.** NEO GEO POCKET color mode, 20 colors out of 4096.

SPRITES: 64 sprites per frame, 4 colors per sprite*.

SCROLLING: 2 scrolling planes, 8x8 character tiles, 4 colors each*.

SOUND: PSG 6 tone simultaneous output. Stereo sound.

CARTRIDGES: Maximum 2 MB (16 Mbit) with 4-16Mbit flash memory.

BATTERIES: 40 hours on 2 AA batteries.

MISC: Lithium battery backed-up memory and clock