Bandai RX-78

The Bandai RX-78 is a Japanese 8-bit microcomputer manufactured by Bandai. Its name comes from the RX-78-2 Gundam.

It was released in July 1983, the RX-78 had a release cost of 59,800 yen, and was sold with a dozen of games and software, including a BASIC interpreter cartridge featuring a cassette tape interface.

The Bandai RX-78 was primarily a gaming machine, with two joysticks included. Software was available on cartridges or cassettes.

Specifications

The Bandai RX-78 employed a SHARP LH0080A (Zilog Z80A clone) CPU, running a clock speed of 4.1 MHz. It shipped with 30 KB of RAM and 8KB of ROM. It had two joystick ports in a proprietary format using 8-pin DIN connectors.

The computer can generate 27 colors, created from 3 levels of intensity of each RGB channel, arranged into VRAM video planes, with a maximum resolution of 192 ÃÂ 184 pixels, and is capable of displaying 30 ÃÂ 23 text characters using a 6 ÃÂ 8 pixel font. Sound was generated by the Texas Instruments SN76489 chip, providing 3 voices in four octaves and noise generator.

Software

Software was released on ROM cartridges (Sen'you Soft Cartridge) and compact cassettes (Sen'you Tape Cassette).

Games

About 20 games for the Bandai RX-78 were released:

Cannon Ball (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Card World (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Challenge Golf (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Champion Racer (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Combined Fleet/ Rengo Kantai (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Donjara (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Excite Baseball (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Excite Tennis (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Fight! Ultraman/ Tatakae! Ultraman (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Hamburger Shop (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Luna Two no Tatakai (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Perfect Mah-jongg (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
The Pro-Wrestling (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Sekigahara (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Sheep/ Hitsuji Yaai (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Space Capsule (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Space Enemy (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Super Motocross (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Yellow Cab (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Zero Fighter/ Zerosen (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)

Educational (Education Series)

A smaller number of non-gaming titles were released:

ABC Tangou Game (Sen'you Soft Cartridge)
Graphic Sugaku (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Keisan Enshuu Drill (Sen'you Tape Cassette)
Sansu Tsuma Zuki

Applications (Culture Series)