The Light Gray "TurboGrafx System."

[Black Tiger]

It is a common problem for PAL consoles to have slowdowns when running on 50Hz (there is the possiblity to switch to 60Hz for these systems). This is more prevalent in earlier-made ones.

PS - Black Tiger, I think your HDTV accepts a PAL signal.  Just a guess on my part.

The reason I first tried it on my LCD is because I know that it does PAL. My projector does too, but only the LCD doesn't run NTSC PCE video correctly.

The weird thing is that later last night I was testing a TG-16 with RF for an unrelated issue and it also ran smooth. I was sure that I had tried a few different PCE systems, including my Duo RX and Shuttle and that they all turned out choppy. Maybe the Turbo's artifact reduction doesn't work when run through RF or something.

[guyjin]

from the picture on the box, I'm guessing turbo sized - the pce controller connector isn't as long.

[Black Tiger]

from the picture on the box, I'm guessing turbo sized - the pce controller connector isn't as long.

From the picture on the box, it looks like it comes with a wireless pad plus receiver.

[ceti alpha]

I think I actually prefer the Halloween theme. 

[Turbo D]

Halloween theme ftw!!1!! 

[awack]

Only one of these looks good in halloween colors, i wonder which one

[shubibiman]

EDIT AGAIN: The games are cropped to a wider perspective. The rest of the screen is black, and some of the off-screen bg/foreground building pieces can be seen in Aeroblasters(I'll need pics to explain properly). The image appears to look less distorted than this TV makes other retro/240p consoles look.

Yeah, that's why at the time I;d never buy pal systems, even though I'm french, as I always found games running on PAL systems too slow for me. The problem is that at the time, all TVs in France wouldn't accept NTSC systems and I had to buy a TV so that I could play wirth my PC Engine.
When I bought a PAL TGX a couple of years ago, I was stunned when I first ran Turrican as it was as slow as a tired snail.

[guyjin]

Yeah, Ive seen videos of UKians playing Wonderboy 3: dragon's trap on the SMS, and the game seeming to be in slo-mo.

[FM-77]

That extra 50mA may be required for the signal conversion circuitry.

No such thing. The only difference is a crystal on the board which is rated at a different clock speed, so that the video output will be 50Hz instead of 60 (that's all it takes for PAL output - no need for "signal conversion"). In other words, this is the exact same hardware, with the exception of that single crystal.

Also, slowdown is a misleading term when talking about PAL-50 output... Because while games generally run somewhat slower (constantly, not just occasionally, which slowdown means), the frame rates are actually higher. It's a little hard to explain, but think about ACTUAL slowdown in games... like, when a game starts running at maybe 30% speed because there's too much stuff going on at the screen... well, in PAL mode, these slowdowns rarely occur.

It's pretty fun to play a game console with a 50/60 Hz switch... whenever there's slowdown in a game, I just flip it to 50Hz and it all runs faster right away.

 I don't know what causes it, but I think that Bonknuts briefly explained this somewhere once.

[Game and Watch Kirby]

Hm. After all, I have not heard much about the advertising for it in 1991. This may also be related to the same ordeal that you had included stickers with yours. Since that is the year Bonk's Revenge was released, are you positive it was Bonk's Adventure, or was it the sequel instead?

Here is a picture of my TG-16 box:



I never owned Bonk's Revenge until I purchased the Super System Card which came with it on the Gate of Thunder CD.  The stickers came with the CD unit I believe.

PS - Black Tiger, I think your HDTV accepts a PAL signal.  Just a guess on my part.

You know what, though, I have heard being mentioned in that SuperPCEngineGrafx has that purchasing a TurboGrafx-16 at the time would get the buyer "a free Bonk!" with the purchase. I was pretty sure that it was Bonk's Revenge that would be with since it was shown with that promotion.

I think I actually prefer the Halloween theme. 

Halloween theme ftw!!1!! 

It wouldn't strongly be considered a "Halloween" theme, since red and yellow are not really Halloween colors. It's more in the general "evil" color scheme, since all the colors representing on it fit this more properly. Of course, the TurboGrafx-16 itself isn't considered evil, but it may have been misunderstood as it by a few because of this.

That extra 50mA may be required for the signal conversion circuitry.

No such thing. The only difference is a crystal on the board which is rated at a different clock speed, so that the video output will be 50Hz instead of 60 (that's all it takes for PAL output - no need for "signal conversion"). In other words, this is the exact same hardware, with the exception of that single crystal.

Also, slowdown is a misleading term when talking about PAL-50 output... Because while games generally run somewhat slower (constantly, not just occasionally, which slowdown means), the frame rates are actually higher. It's a little hard to explain, but think about ACTUAL slowdown in games... like, when a game starts running at maybe 30% speed because there's too much stuff going on at the screen... well, in PAL mode, these slowdowns rarely occur.

It's pretty fun to play a game console with a 50/60 Hz switch... whenever there's slowdown in a game, I just flip it to 50Hz and it all runs faster right away.

 I don't know what causes it, but I think that Bonknuts briefly explained this somewhere once.

This information seems to be "incorrect", in a sense. More proper evidence is needed.

[Necromancer]

It wouldn't strongly be considered a "Halloween" theme, since red and yellow are not really Halloween colors. It's more in the general "evil" color scheme, since all the colors representing on it fit this more properly. Of course, the TurboGrafx-16 itself isn't considered evil, but it may have been misunderstood as it by a few because of this.

It's orange and yellow, not red and yellow.  Candy corn, which is undoubtedly a Halloween candy, is also orange and yellow; therefor a orange and yellow motif on a black object (nobody can intelligently argue that black is unHalloweeny), can certainly be considered a Halloween theme.

This information seems to be "incorrect", in a sense. More proper evidence is needed.

I await your rebuttal and proof.

[SignOfZeta]

What a strange design . First, I've discovered that the TurboChips need to be shoved into the system from the front as opposed to pushing the catridges on the top like most other consoles at the time, then I find it has only one controller port. I suppose that's why the TurboTap has 5 connectors on in, and not just for convenience reasons.

Well if you are just looking at the TG-16 it seems weird, but these design decisions makes sense when you see the original white PC Engine. There isn't any room for another controller port, and the HuCard being horizontal makes the whole package much smaller.

Personally, I've never heard a credible explanation for why the TG-16 is more than twice the size of a PC Engine. I assume its because they were thinking that Americans like really f*cking huge things (Mercury Grand Marquis, for example), so they wouldn't like a nice tidy white PC Engine that is only the size of a few CD cases stacked up. However, they easily could have built a 5 player tap into the TG-16 if they wanted to, but instead all they did was use a larger DIN connector for the single controller port.

[nodtveidt]

No such thing.

Could have chosen a better way to say it...makes ya sound rude. Anyways, I've never looked in one so I wouldn't know...only going by what others have said, and what makes sense. So then, if there's no video conversion circuitry...someone please explain the difference in 50mA. That's a considerable power difference.

[Game and Watch Kirby]

It's orange and yellow, not red and yellow.  Candy corn, which is undoubtedly a Halloween candy, is also orange and yellow; therefor a orange and yellow motif on a black object (nobody can intelligently argue that black is unHalloweeny), can certainly be considered a Halloween theme.

Supposedly, in certain lightings, the "Turbo" part of the logo can appear to be orange. From the many image sources I've seen before, this has been red.

This information seems to be "incorrect", in a sense. More proper evidence is needed.

I await your rebuttal and proof.

What I meant by this is that the information that FM-77 presented doesn't look to be complete, as there were some holes left in the information, and doesn't seem to be properly sourced, regardless if it's really true or not. If Bonknuts did briefly explained this as implied, it is in doubt that it would be enough to provide that much in extent. For this conception reason, I try to say and source my knowledge the best I can.

[Turbo D]

It's orange and yellow, not red and yellow.  Candy corn, which is undoubtedly a Halloween candy, is also orange and yellow; therefor a orange and yellow motif on a black object (nobody can intelligently argue that black is unHalloweeny), can certainly be considered a Halloween theme.

Supposedly, in certain lightings, the "Turbo" part of the logo can appear to be orange. From the many image sources I've seen before, this has been red.

Are you daft? Its not red, its orange.