Mega-Tech

Arcade System published 35 years ago:

Mega-Tech System (c) 1989 Sega Enterprises, Limited.

The Sega Mega-Tech was a 16-bit arcade system based on the Mega Drive hardware, they are more or less identical. Its operation ability is similar to Nintendo's PlayChoice-10, where the credits bought give the user a playable time period rather than lives (usually 1 minute per credit), and can switch between games during playtime.

The Mega-Tech also includes the ability to display to a second monitor, which contains a list of the games installed in the machine and also displays instructions for controlling the game, 1 or 2 player information, and a short synopsis of each game. The second monitor also displays the time left for playing.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU : Motorola 68000 (@ 7.670442 Mhz), (2x) Zilog Z80 (@ 3.57954 Mhz)
Sound Chips : YM3438 (@ 7.670442 Mhz), (2x) SN76496 (@ 3.57954 Mhz)

Official Mega-Tech Cabinet Dimensions :
Width: 53 cm.
Depth: 76 cm.
Height: 176 cm.
Weight: 113 Kg.

Video Resolution: 256 x 224 Pixels.
Screen Refresh: 60.00 Hz.
Palette Colors: 512.

- TRIVIA -

The Sega Mega-Tech was developed by Sega Europe in 1989. A few things were omitted, such as the expansion hardware allowing for Mega CD or 32X as these were not developed at this point, so would not likely be offered as an arcade expansion.

Since the machine was basically a Mega Drive with timer control for arcade operations, porting games to the Mega-Tech was an easy task and so many games were released, most of them popular titles. The ability was also added for the machine to play Sega Master System titles, though fewer Master System titles were ported than Mega Drive titles.