PC-88VA platform series

Hardware theme

An offshoot of the PC-8801 series design. Several games were released for both the 8801 series and 88VA series.

9
games
2
platforms
Sold for 298000¥ from spring 1987–1988, the PC-88VA is a 16-bit Japanese computer that is fully backwards compatible with the NEC PC-8801 using hardware emulation for V1 or V2 mode. The 16-bit 'V3 mode' can run MS-DOS and similar OSes. It has special hardware to handle graphics (SGP). This allows for monochrome sprites ranging 32x4x2(4096)–256x256x2(4096) or color sprites from 8x4x16(4096)–256x256x16(4096). Monochrome and color sprites could occupy the screen simultaneously. There is no limit on the number of sprites? but collision detection can only track 32 at a time. SGP has hardware acceleration? for page flipping?, rectangles? and fill?.
The 8MHz PD9002 CPU is both NEC V30 and Z80A compatible. A PD780 C co-processor is apparently only used as a disk controller. 512KB of RAM, upgradeable to 640KB, and 256KB of Video RAM are built-in. A 480KB ROM contains PC-Engine N88-Japanese BASIC V3. An additional 288KB ROM contains 40,000 Japanese glyphs? (translation difficulties). There is an 8KB chip with battery backup on the motherboard, presumably for bios settings. It has a 40x10, 80x10, 40x12, 80x12, 40x20, 80x20, 40x25, 80x25 text modes in 16 colors from a pallet of 4096 . It has 640x400, 640x400, 640x200, 640x200, 320x400, 320x400, 320x200, and 320x200 graphics modes in 256, 4096, or 65536 colors. All modes had smooth horizontal and vertical scrolling. Apparently in text mode, this is for word processing in modern(ltr) or traditionally(ttb) styles, it is nice for text mode games as well.
Has 3 channel FM sound and 3 SSG sound channels. The stereo, 6 rhythms, and 1 ADPCM at 4kHz–16kHz, and line input sound capabilities of the 8801FA and 8801MA are not present as this model since it was released prior to those. The sound hardware is on a removable card? and a second card can be added to upgrade to 8801FA/MA sound specs? There is a built-in speaker, line out and headphone out. Two 5¼'' 2SSD/2SDD disk-drives are built-in. It has an internal power supply.
There are two RGB outputs, an Analog and a Digital. Composite video out. One printer (parallel) port. One mouse port. (The keyboard is permanently attach by a wire?). One RS-232C serial port for standard modem and scanner (daisy chained?). One proprietary scanner (parallel) port. Inside are 3 expansion slots, one already used for the sound card. There is also a video expansion slot. It comes with a set manuals for the system and one for N-88 Japanese BASIC. A PC-Engine system disk. A demo disk. A calculator program written in basic.

It was followed by the PC-88VA2 (298000¥) & PC-88VA3 (398000¥) which have the same sound capabilities as the 8801FA and 8801MA models. These replace a drive with a 3½" 2SHD/2SDD one. They have math co-processors. The ROM was increased to 768KB and the additional 288KB now had 65000 Japanese and Chinese glyphs? There is an 16KB chip with battery backup on the motherboard, presumably for bios settings. These had an additional 2 expansion slots. A trial version of NET-ACCESS V3 was added.

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Games by year

87888990 82460

The first PC-88VA platform series video game was released on July 1987.

Pony Canyon, Micro Cabin and Koei published most of these games.

Platforms

NEC PC8801 8
NES 1