The Unofficial TurboPages

[_joshuaTurbo]

Have any of you ever tried Web.Archive?  If you haven't its a place you can go to see websites that have been discontinued for a while, it keeps files for sites from like 1996 or earlier.  Anyway, I can remember back when I used to check out the Unofficial TurboPages.  Well I found it again, while some of the links dont work anymore, most of it is still functional.  

I have a link posted in the links section of http://www.gamescape.shorturl.com

or you can just shoot over there with this link-
http://web.archive.org/web/20000520080931/http://www.amug.org/~bobfra/turbo.html


TurboSage[/url]

[D-Lite]

OMG Bobfra.  He has more or less disappeared from the face of the planet.  I exchanged 2 e-mails with him about 2 years ago and then -poof-

[GUTS]

Holy shit, I remember that page!  I used to go there all the time back in the day.  Good times, good times.

[vestcoat]

man, these are dark times....
The Turbo Pages are reduced to back-up archives.
the Working Designs page is gone, along with it's wonderful game museum.
Darkman's page is down for at least a while.

i talked to Bob from Retrogames last month and his perspective of the Turbo community was pretty bleak.  he said that interest in this old system is continuing to dwindle with all of the new consoles these days.
Retrogames has been gone for what, a year or two now?
TZD's supply is slowing shrinking...we pretty much cleaned out Game Express...
what do you all think?  are NEC gamers a dying bread or is the community pretty healthy right now?
i suppose i should get over to mindrec and support the new Turbo List.

[esteban]

man, these are dark times....
The Turbo Pages are reduced to back-up archives.
the Working Designs page is gone, along with it's wonderful game museum.
Darkman's page is down for at least a while.

i talked to Bob from Retrogames last month and his perspective of the Turbo community was pretty bleak.  he said that interest in this old system is continuing to dwindle with all of the new consoles these days.
Retrogames has been gone for what, a year or two now?
TZD's supply is slowing shrinking...we pretty much cleaned out Game Express...
what do you all think?  are NEC gamers a dying bread or is the community pretty healthy right now?
i suppose i should get over to mindrec and support the new Turbo List.

Crap, I was going to save all of the box scans at WD's site. Crap!

Anway, it's so tough to gauge the active Turbo community. Activity on message boards is one measure -- so if you combine the shooter fans (i.e. shmups.com), the Ys fans, plus the console fans here and elsewhere... well, I think a small but significant cross-section of gamers are familiar with Tg-16 and PCE today that you wouldn't find back in 1990. I'm not kidding .

But then there are the folks who don't have a sustained interest in message boards... we have no way of gauging this audience.

I think it is safe to assume that we're in our own little niche. At least we don't have it as bad as the folks who are into 3DO or CD-i .... those communities are nearly dead (lots of the sites have disappeared over the years). Of course, it's not really helpful that I chose 3DO and CD-i to make us feel better. I might as well have said, "We're doing better than the game.com and N-gage communities!"  

You know what I'm saying

[Keranu]

I'm picking up a 3DO from Elseven's place this Friday night, I plan on being a fan of it . I've been wanting to get a CD-i for awhile too, those look rad!

[GUTS]

Make sure you get a CDI with the game pad, they're f*cking god awful otherwise.  There are a few good games on it though if you have the pad.  3D0 I've always thought was a neat system, it had a few pretty cool games on it but unfortunately most games have aged pretty badly.

[Keranu]

The Zelda games for it look really cool, especially the two side scrolling ones since I am a sucker for platform RPGs . Awesome animated cut scenes in them too.

[_joshuaTurbo]

3Do, and CD-i got it bad.  nuff said.

Personally I think we as Turbo Fans are doing just fine.  Look at E-bay if you must.  The problem 3Do and CD-i is that they weren't really doing all that well anywhere they released them.  While the Turbo(PC Engine) and others like Sega Saturn were HUGE in certain places around the world.  That alone will keep the support for them going strong for an eternity.

Just out of curiosity what are some other Dead systems you guys collect??

I got a CD-i(hehe) its ok, but some others that I'm totally dorked out on are Virtual Boy, Saturn, DC, NES, and my PC-FX whenever it gets here......


TurboSage

And besides, for every Turbo Site that dies, another 2 pop up... just check out my links section- http://www.gamescape.shorturl.com <---Shameless plug--->

[td741]

Just out of curiosity what are some other Dead systems you guys collect??

Umm... Let's see...

Appart from PC-FX and my SuperGrfx + SuperCD

On the console side I've got:
Colecovision (well, actually it's a colecovision compatible system.)
Intellivision
Atari 5200
Sega Master System
Genesis/CD/32x
VirtualBoy
Neo-Geo Pocket Color
Neo-Geo CD
Neo-Geo MVS
Saturn
PSOne
Atari Jaguar (I need to find a new JagCD unit, mind died )
3D0
Dreamcast

I had an AmigaCD32, I traded that off for a PSP.  It wasn't being played and I've got enough Amigas around to keep me busy.

On the computer side:
Vic-20
C=64
Amiga 1000/1200 (I paired it down a little)
I've also got a Pegasos PPC computer for a more modern Amiga.

I've got a TRS-80 Model 100 (you know those laptops that run on AA's and has a 8x24 screen )

I also want to get back into the CoCo3...

The funny thing is most of these things above, I got when the system was still supported.  Not sure if that counts?

[TR0N]

Just out of curiosity what are some other Dead systems you guys collect??

NeoGeo MVS
Saturn:not for a while ways.
PCE:of corse duh
Famicom+Disk system

[PC Gaijin]

I think one thing that hurts the Turbo, at least so far as getting new people interested in the system, is emulation. And by that I mean most people who never played a Turbo in real life or back when it was a current system download a few ROMs and play them in an emulator and say, "ewww, what is this cheap, junky, crap?" There's a lot of great HuCard games, but think about the HuCard games compared to the SNES/Genesis cart games. HuCard software started drying up in the early 90s as most games started coming out on CD. Also, very few large-memory (more than 4 megabit) HuCards came out compared to tons of very large-memory carts on the SNES/Genesis. And cart sizes do matter quite a bit, I mean compare the 20 megabit PCE Street Fighter II to just about any 2 megabit game. So a lot of people who've only played a few emulated Turbo/PCE games are comparing low-megabit games (usually 2-4 megabits) from the 87-92/93 time period to high-megabit carts from 88-95/96 on the SNES/Genesis. And not playing any CD games also means you're missing out on over half the Turbo/PCE library! And yes, I know people can download ISOs, but I bet not a whole lot do.

I wonder how many Turbo systems were ever sold in North America. I've never been able to dig up any concrete figures, other than a vague 400k sold by '91. I'd like to think the Turbo sold at least as much as the Jaguar, which supposedly sold 650k units. The Jag community is certainly more active/cohesive than the Turbo community, but then again they're drawing on the Atari fan community, which is probably one of the oldest/largest and best organized.

Oh, and other systems I collect include:

Atari 8-bit home computer stuff - I've got a ton of boxed games and hardware, but currently no functioning computer
SNES/SFC
Saturn
PC-FX - dunno why as I think the games are truly terrible, but there's something oddly compelling about the FX, it's just such a bizarre system when you really think about it
Dreamcast
Neo Geo Pocket

I have quite a few other other game systems, handhelds, and computers but I don't really consider myself a collector of those. Just somehow acquired a lot of stuff over the years and hardly ever sell anything. Except  most of my Genesis and N64 collections, which I regret now.

[akamichi]

I've had a number of consoles, but in my early gaming days, I played mostly on friends' systems.  It wasn't until the NES (but mostly PCE) when I started really getting into gaming.

Consoles:
Colecovision - first console... still pretty good IMO.  Broke a long time ago.
NES - who didn't have one?  Well, I don't anymore.
FC+Disk - took me 20 years to get those.
PCE - birth of a legend.
MD - Bought one in '89 or '90.  Sold it and a year later or so, bought another one and sold it.  Haven't had one since.
SNES - Bought it for SF2.  Traded it in for a PSX when it came out
SFC - Found a working one for $5 at a flea market a few years ago.
PSX - Not sure what happened to it.
Sat - Had 3 Saturns(!) at one point.  Basically bought them used and eventually sold them to friends.  Recently I bought a JPN Sat to play the games I still have.
DC - Fav of the "current" gen.
PS2 - For the longest time, I didn't want one, but too many games I wanted to play were on PS2 so I caved in.
GC - Bought it for Wind Waker.

Handhelds:
Microvision - I don't have this anymore... it was stolen or something a long time ago.  Pretty cool back in the day.
GT - I picked one up in the mid/late 90's when a store was clearing them out.
GBA SP - Couldn't resist.  2D games forever!
DS - Interesting concept.  Love the games.
PSP - Suckered by hype.  Nice looking unit, but no games I want.  Other than Ridge Racers, I've been using it for emulators.


Computers:
C64 - It seemed like everybody in my neighborhood had one.  My first computer.
Amiga 500 -  My favorite computer.  Sold it a long time ago to get a 386 (ugh).  A friend of mine gave me a good deal on another A500 a number of years ago.
PC - Not much to say.  I don't do much gaming on PC 'cept for emulation and various indie and "remake" games.

Wow, I wrote more than I thought.  hehe.  Well, as for collecting, I really only collect PCE stuff.  I've been casually picking up Famicon, SFC, MD when I see something cheap that I like.  I don't particularly collect for other systems, but after time, all that crap adds up!

[_joshuaTurbo]

I also want to get back into the CoCo3...  

Holy Crap!!  A fellow CoCo fan??

I used to have a CoCo2 back in the day, but my 'rents sold it at a garage sale!!  Damn that was a killer unit!

I'm looking to get back into that also!



TurboSage

[vestcoat]

NES - first system.  Played it to death.  huge fan of Rad Racer2 , River City Ransom, Metal Gear, Life Force, Blades of Steel, Double Dragon 2, Rescue, TMNT 1, Ultimas, DW series, most of the other RPGs.

Sega Master 2 - Purchased this for $50 as it was being discontinued in 92.  Favorite system after Turbo Duo

TG16 - 92-94.  had about 10 turbo chips.  sold it because i was an idiot.

SNES - don't really play this much anymore.  Super Bomberman 2 was my first Bomberman game.

N64 - used almost exclusively for multi-player Perfect Dark.

Turbo Duo - 97-present.  main system.

Game Gear - Garage sale purchase for $10.  I own no games, just a master gear converter.  

Playstation - got this for free, never really liked it.  I beat Metal Gear Solid and mostly just use this for R-Types and Atari ports these days.

Jaguar - picked this up last month.  i only have Iron Soldier and APV so far.


the Turbo Grafx was awesome because is spanned both the 8 and 16 bit eras of video games.  it has tons of 8-bit style games that were popular on the NES and SMS but the Turbo Grafx never really went through the early period of weak graphics and primitive games that these systems had.  the TG/PCE came out late enough that it adapted to fit in with the 16-bit consoles and got fairly advanced by 94-95 with the SNK ports, FMV, CD sound and shooters.  i know referring to how many "bits" a system has is pretty meaningless but the early games are like playing an 8-bit system with improved graphics and some of the later games get close to Neo Geo or early Playstation quality.  i don't know, i appreciate the diversity and the Duo does a good job capturing the range of games i played back when i was into this kids stuff.