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Emerson Arcadia 2001
Emerson-Arcadia-2001
Manufacturer Emerson
Generation Second generation
Release date May 1982
Media type ROM cartridge

Released in May 1982, during the full glory of the Atari 2600, Emerson’s Arcadia 2001 had just 22 titles in its library, and all the games were published by Emerson and developed by UA Limited. The console’s lack of commercial success in the United States kept such third-party publishers as Imagic, Activision, and Parker Brothers from entering the fray. The Arcadia 2001 was seen in many circles as nothing more than an outlet for mediocre arcade clones, but its small base of hardcore supporters argued differently.

The Arcadia 2001 has more power than the Atari 2600 (one kilobyte of RAM compared to a mere 128 bytes), but it lacked the popular arcade ports of its day, such as Space Invaders, Missile Command, and Pac-Man. Also, the next generation of systems, i.e. the ColecoVision and the Atari 5200, were released later the same year, making the 2001 all but irrelevant to the gaming masses.

Technical specifications[]

The Arcadia console is small (about the size of an Atari 2600 jr.), and its controllers, which have Intellivision-like keypads, a fire button on each side, and thin, short, screw-in joysticks, are hard-wired into the system. Most of the games came with plastic keypad overlays. The console’s diminutive size, combined with its 12-volt power supply, make it semi-portable as it can be plugged into various 12V batteries/battery packs.

  • Main Processor: Signctics 2650 CPU running @ 3.58 MHz (Some variants run a Signetics 2650A)
  • RAM: 512 bytes
  • ROM: None
  • Video Display: 128 x 208 / 128 x 104, 8 Colours
  • Video Display Controller: Signetics 2637 UVI
  • Sound: Single Channel ’’Beeper” + Single Channel ’’Noise”
  • Hardware Sprites: 4 independent, single color
  • Controllers: 2x2 way
  • Keypads: 2 x 12 button (more buttons on some variants)

Variations[]

Over 30 Arcadia clones exist due to licensing all over the world. They were sometimes called "MPT-03" and systems varied hardware-wise and were not exact copies, although they remained software-compatible with the Emerson Arcadia 2001 cartridges.

Games[]

The game library was composed of 51 unique games and about 10 variations. The graphic quality is similar to that of the Intellivision and the Odyssey2.

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