Project Unity: 15 Game Consoles and 18 Processors
Master Modder Bacteria recently completed ‘Unity’ a single cabinet integrating 15 classic consoles, and capable of playing games from 18 different systems (sme consoles can run more then one type of game. It an impressive feat especially considering he managed to make it work off a single controller, and a single video/audio output. A custom 15-position switch tops off the console.
The consoles range from a Intellivision and its oddball CP1610 General Instruments (based on the PDP-11) processor, to the wildly successful 299MHz Sony PS2. Below you can see the variety of systems, and the processors (this IS the CPU Shack after all) that run them.
| Console | Processor(s) |
|---|---|
| Amstrad GX4000 | Zilog Z-80 4MHz |
| Atari 7800 | MOS 6502 1.79MHz |
| Colecovision | NEC 780C-1 (Zilog Z-80) 3.58MHz |
| Mattel Intellivision | GI CP1610 894KHz or 1MHz |
| NEC TurboGrafx 16 | Hudson Soft HuC6280 (65C02 based) 7.16MHz |
| NeoGeo MVS | Motorola MC68000 12MHz + Zilog Z-80 4MHz |
| Nintendo NES | Ricoh 2A03 (6502 Core) 1.79 MHz |
| Super Nintendo | Ricoh 5A22 (GTEu 68C816 core) 3.58 MHz |
| Nintendo 64 | NEC VR4300 (MIPS) 93.75 MHz |
| Nintendo Gamecube | IBM PowerPC “Gekko” 486 MHz |
| Sega Master System | Zilog Z-80 3.58 MHz |
| Sega MegaDrive (Genesis) | Motorola MC68HC000 7.67MHz + Zilog Z-80 3.58 MHZ |
| Sega Saturn | 2× Hitachi SH-2 32-bit RISC 28.6 MHz |
| Sega Dreamcast | Hitachi SH-4 RISC 200 MHz |
| Sony Playstation 2 | Emotion Engine (MIPS based) 299MHz |
As you can see a few processors are common. Five of the consoles run Zilog Z-80 processors, and 4 run on some variation of the MOS 6502 made famous by the Apple 1 computer. Later consoles shifted towards the RISC based designs of MIPS, PowerPC and the SuperH series by Hitachi (now Renesas). Today’s console continue to use RISC processors albeit at speeds of over 3GHz.
