Not a bad one, though the Z80 was a well-understood animal by arcade programmers in the 1990’s. Judging by the datasheet, it was designed to interface with a Motorola 68EC000 CPU, so the use of a Z80 here is very likely a cost-cutting move. At 8.468MHz, this one runs twice as fast as the Neo Geo, but it’s also got a different job: rather than running a Yamaha YM2610 synthesizer, this one runs a WaveFront ICS2115V, which can run up to 32 sampled audio channels (called “wavetable”) and used in many PC MIDI cards. The Zilog Z80 was even more long in the tooth by 1997. Whereas the 1988 Sega Genesis had a 7.6MHz, and the 1990 Neo Geo only sported a 12MHz 68000, this surface-mount chip here runs at a whopping 20.000 MHz. On the other hand, though, it was well-understood, affordable, and in 1997 newer production methods made it possible to run much faster. The Motorola 68000 is an interesting choice of CPU, definitely a bit long in the tooth by this point. Special thanks to the sellers I purchased from for excellent customer service. Unfortunately, no repair attempts worked, so there's no repair post possible right now. I actually went through three PGM motherboards making this post only the third would work with everything. You might notice these boards look slightly different- note the position of the capacitor near the JAMMA edge. A lot changed over the past seven years, after all. And yes, from the exterior, it looks a lot like the famous SNK Neo Geo from 7 years earlier. The PolyGame Master was released in 1997 by Taiwanese-based company International Games System (IGS). Great, so we’re on the same page– wait, what the heck is a Neo Geo? That’s not what I was talking about at all! 2D isn’t dead yet Hailing from an island in the Pacific off the east coast of Eurasia. With a powerful Motorola 68000 processor, and a Zilog Z80 alongside to handle sound duties, with a powerful chipset allowing for colorful 2D graphics with scaling of sprites. Imagine, if you will, a four-button JAMMA arcade board that took large plastic-clad cartridges that had two PCBs inside.
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