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 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 × 184 pixels, and is capable of displaying 30 × 23 text characters using a 6 × 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 and compact cassettes.

Games

About 20 games for the Bandai RX-78 were released:
  • Cannon Ball
  • Card World
  • Challenge Golf
  • Champion Racer
  • Combined Fleet/ Rengo Kantai
  • Donjara
  • Excite Baseball
  • Excite Tennis
  • Hamburger Shop
  • Fight! Ultraman/ Tatakae! Ultraman
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Luna Two no Tatakai
  • Perfect Mah-jongg
  • The Pro-Wrestling
  • Sekigahara
  • Sheep/ Hitsuji Yaai
  • Space Capsule
  • Space Enemy
  • Super Motocross
  • Yellow Cab
  • Zero Fighter/ Zerosen

Educational (Education Series)

A smaller number of non-gaming titles were released:
  • ABC Tangou Game
  • Graphic Sugaku
  • Keisan Enshuu Drill
  • Sansu Tsuma Zuki

Applications (Culture Series)

A smaller number of non-gaming titles were released: