Woo an obscure Sega computer nobody remembers There is a lack of information on the net about this one... other than <a href="http://park21.wakwak.com/~suka/sega/catalog/AIcom/AI.html" target="_blank">this site</a>, which is in Japanese (and Google Translate doesn't give perfect results here). Can anyone here could fill in the gaps such as why this computer exists, what it actually does and how long it lasted? Because I have no clue.
It lasted nothing since US providers wanted DOS compatibility. Which is a shame. AI based programming language? Laserdisc support? Tablet? I think it even had speech synthesis. That was overkill for the time, I swear... Didn't check that page, on a phone...
SegaKore has slightly more on it, but not much. This did, however, remind me about the SC-5000 (which I more or less hit a wall while looking up) and found thiiiis:
Hello, I'm Bock of SMS Power! btw - sorry this has to be my first message here. Sorry to resurrect this topic. There is a short window opportunity (less than 20 hours) right now to buy a Sega AI and up to 13 software. I am committed to buy it and have secured a decent pool of money. Will gamepres.org and smspower.org we will attempt to dump the card software and release as much information about the system (there's currently no scan and no videos of any Sega AI running available). Hopefully if we get dumps it might lead toward an emulator. I am posting this to see if anyone may be interested in donating a bit toward the auction cost - which may rise to unknown amount. So pledged donations can help us raise bids if needed. The cumulated start bid for hardware and 13 individual software are about 1600 euros (total 14 auctions). Contact me if you think you can help. The software are educational software they come on Sega Card styles format. Unfortunately no Sonic software Best. O./Bock
Damn dude, don't those machines go for at least $30,500+ in a auction? Well I'm sure the SEGA Retro staff will be more then interested here, thats one hell of a rare machine and we could use more information on it. wish you guys the best of luck!
The specifications of the Sega AI Computer are rather interesting: http://www.segakore.fr/systemes_segaai.html Quick translation: CPU: NEC V20 (Intel 8088-compatible CPU) ROM: 128 KB RAM: 128 KB VRAM: 64 KB VDP: V9938 (an evolution of the TMS9918 commonly found on MSX2 systems, but not other Sega systems) Audio: SN76489 (same as SG-1000 through Sega Master System) Looks like some kind of wacky hybrid between an IBM-compatible PC (CPU), MSX2 (VDP), and Sega systems (audio).
Only 9 of 13 games, hmm. Hopefully they'll be gotten sometime down the road. What's important is that we will finally get some documentation on this thing.
I hope we'll see detailed teardowns of that machine - hi-res PCB shots for example. There were so many different revisions of boards for Sega hardware, it would be nice to have as many as possible documented. Then again I have a feeling that much of the parts were designed by third parties.
I'd LOVE to see some high-res photos of the unit in use. Like, the unit itself is also a tablet? Is that a screen or do you put an overlay card on top to show where to use the stylus??
It's running emulated now. Chris, jdg and etabeta have been working on it. There are a few things to sort out because the HW has so many chips and peripherals, and at least the touch pad overlays needs to be scanned so we can release them along with the roms. The main unit only has 5 roms a total of 640 KB and an extra 128 KB for the Sound Box. The games are 128-256 KB ish.
