The PC Engine Duo made it to the United States as the TurboDuo in 1992, but never reached Europe. It was marketed by new company Turbo Technologies Inc. (TTI), which consisted of ex-employees from both NEC and Hudson Soft, after the apparent failings of the TurboGrafx-16 campaign.
The console contained a TG-16 and the newer Super CD-ROM˛ unit which were unified in a single case, along with the Super System Card integrated on the motherboard and buyers received quite a package for their money. A control pad, TG-CD versions of Ys book I & II, a compilation of four Super CD games and a TurboChip game were all included in the $299 price tag. There was no escaping the fact that this was still a system based on ageing 8 bit technology though.
When Sega's Mega CD launched the same year and promptly outsold the TurboDuo, a series of four mini comic book adverts were launched. Featuring Johnny Turbo, a superhero who battles the evil Feka's attempts to sell CD add-ons for their system (which NEC had already done themselves with the TG-CD) and reveals Feka staff to be robots. Despite being quite entertaining and well drawn, the adverts appear to be little more than a bizarre attack on Sega's ethics rather than a genuine attempt to sell the TurboDuo.
NEC stopped officially supporting the TurboDuo in 1995, and withdrew from America to concentrate their efforts on their native Japan and the newly released PC-FX.
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NAME
TurboDuo
MANUFACTURER
NEC
TYPE
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
October 1992
END OF PRODUCTION
1995
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
8-way d-pad, 2 buttons + Run + Select
CPU
8 bit HuC6280A
SPEED
7.16 MHz (Switchable by software to 1.79 MHz)
CO-PROCESSOR
16 bit HuC6260 Video Color Encoder, 16 bit HuC6270A Video Display Controller
RAM
256 KB
VRAM
64 KB
GRAPHIC MODES
usually 256x240, 512x240 max.
COLORS
512 palette, 482 on screen (241 background & 241 sprite)
