Arcadia 2001

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Emerson Arcadia 2001, intended as a portable game console^{[citation needed]}, the Arcadia 2001 was released by Emerson Radio Corp in mid-1982.

The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit console released by Emerson Radio Corp. It was considerably more powerful than the then-dominant Atari 2600^{[citation needed]}, but came out right before the more-advanced Atari 5200 and the ColecoVision^{[citation needed]}. The game library was composed 51 unique games and about 10 variations. The graphics quality is similar to those of the Intellivision and the Odyssey².

The Arcadia was not named after the company of the same name. Arcadia Corporation, manufacturer of the 2600 supercharger, was sued by Emerson for trademark infringement. Arcadia Corporation then changed its name to Starpath^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Description

The Arcadia is much smaller than its contemporary competitors and is powered by a standard 12-volt power supply so it can be used in a boat or a vehicle. This portability feature, however, requires a portable television, which was extremely rare in the early 1980s. It also has two outputs(or inputs) headphone jacks on the back of the unit, on the far left and far right sides.

The system came with two Intellivision-style control pads, but with a lighter touch on the side 'fire' buttons. The control pads have screw holes in their centers, so that one could transform them into a joystick, as with the later Sega Master System's controller. Most games came with mylar overlays which could be applied to the controllers. The console itself had five buttons: power, start, reset, option, and select.

There are at least three different types of cartridge case styles and artwork, with variations on each.^{[citation needed]} Emerson-family carts come in two different lengths of black plastic cases; the short style is similar to Atari 2600 carts in overall size. This family uses a unique "sketch" type of picture label. MPT-03 family cart cases (see below) resemble Super NES carts in size and shape, except that they are molded in brown plastic. Their labels look much more modern and stylized, with only a minimal picture on each. There are also a family of what look like pirate carts, that look nothing like the others in shape, size or label artwork. The different labeled versions however all used the same cartridges.

[edit] Market Failure

The Emerson version of the console was essentially considered dead on arrival in the USA. The system came out at nearly the same time as the Atari 5200 and the ColecoVision were released. In addition, Atari's use of exclusive rights to many games made it very virtually impossible for Emerson to get popular games to the console. However, it was moderately successful in other countries^{[citation needed]}.

Emerson actually created many popular arcade titles including Pacman, Galaxian and Defender for the Arcadia and had them manufactured. However, Atari started to sue its competitor companies for releasing games to which it had exclusive-rights agreements^{[citation needed]} and Emerson was left with thousands of manufactured games that could no longer be sold^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Variants

Unlike almost all other consoles, the Arcadia 2001 was sold from many different firms under different names:

These include:

Each console had a different number of games released for them; some like the Schmidt had almost every game released for them, others like the Tele-fever only had 4 games released. The Palladium has a different cartridge connector/pinout, 4 extra keys per controller^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Technical specifications

• Main Processor: Signetics 2650 CPU running at 3.58 MHz
  • Some variants run a Signetics 2650A
• RAM: 512 bytes (originally promised 28K)
• ROM: None
• Video Display: 128 × 208 / 128 × 104, 8 Colours
• Video Display Controller: Signetics 2637 UVI
• Sound: Single Channel "Beeper" + Single Channel "Noise"
• Hardware Sprites: 4 independent, single color
• Controllers: 2 × 2 way
• Keypads: 2 × 12 button (more buttons on some variants)

[edit] Games

Many of the games for the Arcadia 2001 are ports of lesser-known arcade games such as Route 16 and Jungler.

• 3-D Bowling
• 3-D Raceway
• 3-D Soccer
• Alien Invaders
• Astro Invader
• American Football
• Baseball
• Brain Quiz
• Breakaway
• Capture
• Cat Trax
• Crazy Gobbler
• Crazy Climber (unreleased)
• Escape
• Funky Fish
• Galaxian
• Grand Prix 3-D
• Grand Slam Tennis
• Hobo
• Home Squadron
• Jump Bug
• Jungler
• Kidou Senshi Gundamu (only in Japan)
• Math Logic
• Missile War
• Ocean Battle
• Pleiades
• RD2 Tank
• Red Clash
• Robot Killer (clone of Berzerk)
• Route 16
• Soccer
• Space Attack
• Space Chess
• Space Mission
• Space Raiders
• Space Squadron
• Space Vultures
• Spiders
• Star Chess
• Super Bug
• Super Gobbler
• Tanks A Lot
• The End
• Turtles/Turpin

[edit] External links

• Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central
• WinArcadia and AmiArcadia emulators
• The Emerson Arcadia 2001 Emulator The first (DOS) emulator
• MESS: Multiple Emulator Super System. Another emulator of Arcadia 2001 (Windows, *nix, Mac OS, MS-DOS)
• Emerson Arcadia 2001 Gaming Guide
• The Dot Eaters entry on the mighty Arcadia 2001
• GiG Manufacturer of the Italian clone named Leonardo
• www.old-computers.com Emerson Arcadia 2001 museum entry
• www.old-computers.com Article about Arcadia 2001 and "clones"