In the last post, i've talked about the two different models of the Terebikko, the Mattel See 'N' Say clone and the list of the games. But now, let's discuss about what's inside (the guts) of the Terebikko.
It somehow looks like a mix between a video phone alarm system (without the screen) and an ordinary phone at first glance, but made simple for the young ones as it has four major "choice" buttons identified as 1 (red), 2 (green), 3 (blue) and 4 (yellow) plus on ON/OFF switch (button-right corner) with a LED indicator (on top of the power switch) and the phone handle.
On the right side on the console, you have a speaker switch (A or B) as if you put the switch on the "A" position, you will hear the character talk to you through the handle receiver and is in the "B" position, you will hear the character talk through the speaker on top of the LED indicator.
This plug need to be inserted in the "Audio Input" jack in the rear of the video player, but you will need an adapter to be able to plug in an RCA jack.
As for power, it needs x4 "AA" type batteries (6 Volts DC) as it has no power supply input jack.
Now here comes the good part: the guts! (Mad scientist laugh !!)
Huh ??? There is not much to see...it is sssoooo simplistic! Great, will be so much easier to emulate it!
Here is the heart of the console: a TMP47C200AN - which is a CMOS 4-bit microcontroller with 2K builtin ROM (2K 8-bit ROM) and 128 byes 4-bit RAM! This could have existed by the end of the 70's!
And here the secong chip: a KIA75902P - which is simply a Quad Low Power OP Amp....really! So the major parts of the Terebikko is a 4-bit Microcontroller and a Quad Op Amp (plus resistors, transistors, capacitors, etc) - that's it! So for the MAME team to make a driver to emulate this console, they will need to extract the 2k ROM inside the TMP47C200 and VHS tape copies to CHD and voila (Easier said than done...mind you! ;P )
And in the cordless model (2nd model), it has more components as they are mostly needed for transmitting by radio frequency (RF) but in the end, it uses an TMP47C203M which is almost an exact copy of the TMP47C200 since they share the same specs (2K 8-bit ROM and 128 byes 4-Bit RAM).
So he Terebikko has an 4-bit Microcontroller and uses VHS tapes for games but did you know that it has a successor ? Really! Here's some hints: The successor was released by the same company, has an 8-bit Microprocessor and uses CD-Roms for games and was released the same year that the Terebikko was cancelled AND...has also quiz-type games...Sounds familiar ? If you've guessed the Bandai Playdia, you have guessed right!
And finally, the Terebikko has another kind of successor, it called the "Terebi Denwa Video Phone" (てれびでんわ) arcades. The arcades are released by Banpresto and uses either arcade boards or CD-Roms (can't be specific as i have never seen the inside of one of these arcades). But you can see that it uses a phone handle and has a 12 button keyboard but only 3 keys are highlighted (1, 2 and 3). The major difference is that the graphics uses pixels and when the game is over, it spits out a holographic card as a reward.
And here's some link to videos on Youtube (not mines):
I love Japanese video games in all it's forms but it also gives me a headache! LOL!!
Hope that you had fun reading this post as well as the previous one and if you have any comment(s), don't hesitate to post! =)
Will you create a emulator? :)
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