Gooday Gaming Guests - SNK Neo-Geo System Thru the Years

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

The X is the Original Switch.

Alright, so today I was thinking about what am I going to do. There's a lot of other gaming systems that are not popular as the top three. Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation. And a really good one, that's what we're going to do today, is SNK Neo Geo. That's a fun system. There's a few different ones of the Neo Geo. So we'll put that in its own little category let's go to the SNK Neo Geo really fun first let's see how many there were.

I know this is a Neo Geo X. I never had a Neo Geo, the original one. Includes... Okay, here we go. Cool. So the first Neo Geo was the NVS, Multi-Video System.

That was in 1990. It was an arcade system. Modular arcade cabinet. Swappable cartridges. Made easy to update game library. Hugely popular in arcades. Versatility. Then there was the Neo Geo AES. It was a home console. 1990. Sensor for the home version of the MVS. So it was an upgraded version. Identical hardware and game library.

High price point. Made it more luxury item for hardcore gamers. The Neo Geo CD. I've had those. There's the Neo Geo CD as the top loader and then there's a front loader.

I still have one left. I think it's the front loader missing some pieces. That came out in 1994. Used CDs instead of cartridges. Three versions. Oh, there's three versions.

Excuse me. So the front loader, the Neo Geo, initial model, rare and expensive today. I have some parts of that. The top loader, the Neo Geo, initial model, rare and expensive today. I have some parts of that. The top loader, the most common, and a CDZ, improved version with faster load times, but only released in Japan. So I've never had that.

Neo Geo Pocket, I had one of those. All these things you can type in my YouTube and you can find videos of me playing around with them at some point. Neo Geo Pocket. I had one of those just recently. I sold it. It's a handheld. It's kind of like a Game Boy. Almost like a DS. Then there was a Neo Geo Pocket Collar. I don't think I had the color. It was an upgraded version.

So like Game Boy to a Game Boy Color. Discontinued in 2001. Due to the competition. Of Game Boy Color. Now think about Neo Geo. A lot of their games are fighting games. And it's like my worst kind of game. Oh so then there's the Neo Geo X.

You can also mod those, and I did. I had to get this conversion kit thing, and again, there's videos of me doing that. I don't have any more, so... A hybrid console, and so the Neo Geo X is preloaded with 20 games. And to me, that's the original Nintendo Switch concept came from. There's a handheld that's inside of a dock. And that was in 2012.

Then Nintendo Switch came out in 2017 as a handheld inside of a dock. So you do the math. Other notable systems. Hyper Neo Geo 64. A 3D arcade system introduced in 1997 designed a platform like Sega model 3 it failed to gain traction neo geo mini I think I had one of those little

portable ones neo geo remains legacy for kings of fighter fighter fighter metal sludge all right so let's do neo so let's do the first model boot process so let's stick right with neo g the first model which is the AEV AES or it's counterpart the MVS, multi-video system. So let's see what we got here for this.

We've got other systems too that I haven't will go into. Well actually a lot of those. So this had a Motorola 68000 which was common in another one i forget which that other one so i think it's a sega the 68000 cpu um had a bios uh it used a video display processor vdp use the the Yamaha YM6210 chip. I believe that was also on Sega. Game code.

Transfers the game code. Memory mapping. Enables arcade perfect performance. Multi-game support. BIOS checks for multi-games installed. All right, so then we go from there to the that was that one and then the CD.

We did the AVS, MVS, AVS was 1990. CD was out in 1994. So the Neo Geo CD

boot process. Oh, 3DO. That's one of the systems I haven't done yet. Amiga 32. That's another fun system I had. Okay, so the Neo Geo CD slightly more complex than the cartridge the cartridge ones are really hard to find

they're really expensive I never had one the AES or the MVS that I never had they were just too expensive same Motorola 6800 let's see what else we got going 6800 I use the Yamaha 2610 disk file system leads the disk file because there's a disk is in there gives you an error disk notable features of Neo Geo boot process the BIOS includes a region lock

depending on Japan US or Europe load times single speed, CD, you'll play CDs. Unlike the AES and MVS, these games are immediately playable from the cartridges. The CD relies on loading data from RAM, booting the process longer. So CDs take longer. So let's go to the Neo Geo X boot process. Neo Geo X boot process.

Released in 2012 by Tommy Toma. T-O-M-M-O, in partnership with SNK. Punky is more like an emulator-based console than traditional hardware, so it boots, differs significantly from the original Neo Geo, AES, MVS, or the CES. So it's almost like a hybrid of it. The portable device powers on. Again you have to put the portable device inside the dock,

close the dock and you can also run it as a handheld. to live to the component CPU firmware bootloader and there is a whole process to adding more games to that firmware execution neo geo X BIOS but it's tailored mimics the role of the BIOS but it's tailored for emulation he has to go off to the dock uses a graphic user interface from whiskers see has little CD cards inside but the CD card in the handheld and then the handheld goes in the dock which again again is the original Switch. Because that's just what the Switch was in 2017. And it still is actually.

So that's where it came from. Unlike the original Neo Geo systems. Which dedicated hardware. Uses software. Adds all software emulation. Came with 20 preloaded games. Then you could add another game. A ninja game. And if you did the mod modern hardware difference from the original neogeo systems neogex used an arm based processor

and modern storage solutions uh featured graphical menu uh just bring the classics in that format sometimes results in performance issues hope you then so then we went to what I miss I'll ask them about this so let's's look at the Neo Geo pockets. Neo Geo CDs and the Neo Geo pocket. Let's go look at the pocket. Neo. Neo. Neo. So these are mostly in Europe.

Or Geo. Neo. Geo. Pocket. Boot Process. It was smaller than a Game Boy, but they were pretty cool, though. Nowadays, they're really hard to find. They're expensive. A successor, Neo Geo Park Color, are handheld devices from SNK in 1998 and 1999

power on CPUs your kind of processor inside of a Neo Geo pocket uses a 16-bit Toshiba TLC s dash 900 s H I'm sorry, 900H CPU. So that's interesting. Toshiba had a little chip back then. So it has a little bit of a BIOS action going on. Detects the cartridge. I had one cool game before, too. And I sold that. I pretty much got every system I could find.

And then in the last six months I've been just reselling all just to move on to other new stuff which is vintage computing today I just picked up a piece of a Radio Shack TRS-80 the original I have one but I don't have a power adapter and it's a really special power adapter so now I'm gonna get one with a power adapter and I have a monitor to test it the first one the 16-bit reaShack so we're gonna do all the boot processes and all that fun stuff too already did it I just want to say but it's what it does how do you do the X my new GX money well software and hardware modifications I'll just claim claiming mounting voids off.

Mounting for additional games. You need a computer. You need an SD card. And then you need a reader. And then you need that special tool that you have to get it. It's like a... It puts the SD card in it and then you can plug it in the computer

or plug it into the... It's a little bit of work, but it's's fun and it gave me a lot more games create folders organize typical names slash Neo Geo ROMs acquire a legally owned Neo Geo games install firmware yeah you have to flash it to something else. I can't remember. Little games and ROMs. Play the games. You put the cartridge goes in the handheld. After the handheld has been

modded in some way, I forget how you do it. I can't remember now. And then that cartridge on that cartridge is a place to put an SD card. It's a special cartridge you have to have. Actually, there's two different ones.

One was other games for it. And then the other one that you had to do you had to have you had to mod it more. And then you could play some other stuff like PS1 games on it, and emulate other stuff, too.

Final Burn Alpha. Final Burn Alpha. Or Retro Arch. And then you put it in there, and you load the games. Let's see what else I can think of for Neo Geo. Oh, there it is. The Neo Geo X tool, that's what you need.

I had one of those, I sold it without the card that you needed. Hack Chai 2, custom firmware Neo Geo XC FW so those are all the things from Neo Geo so that's my Neo Geo think I'm pretty close to that so we're gonna stop there so that's a little shorter but that's the whole rundown of the Neo Geo they're really fun next thing I got to do, I still have a few other systems that we're going to do can't think of one off the top of my head but

we'll stick with this for today alright, have a good night, talk to you later bye