Атари 2600 Клоны: TV Boy және оның нұсқалары

Dedicated console and clone of the Atari 2600

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The TV Boy, and its successors TV Boy II and Super TV Boy, are handheld TV games sold by many different companies, including Systema, Akor, and NICS, based upon an unlicensed clone of Atari 2600 hardware. They were released around 1992 and three years later, an improved version of the TV Boy 2, the Super TV Boy, was also made by Akor. They were widely available across Europe. In the UK, they were most visibly available through Argos. Users can play any one of 127 built in games. In the UK, they were marketed with 126 games included, while the Super TV Boy has 127.

Resembling a large handheld pad, the systems plug into a TV and operate on either four AA batteries or a 6V power supply (centre negative). The only difference between a TV Boy and TV Boy II is that the former has two 9 pin Atari type joystick connectors for the optional use of external joysticks. This is true for the Systema and NICS TV Boys, but not for the Akor version, which does not have such external ports at all. As the TV Boy II has no capacity for external joysticks, only a single player may play using a built in pad. Some versions of the TV Boy, but not all, have a jumper labeled NTSC/PAL on its motherboard. There is no cartridge slot for additional games.

The system contains a single 512KB ROM, housing 128 programs. One is the program that enables the others to be selected so only 127 games are included. None of them use any sort of paged ROM scheme. All 127 are original Atari 2600 games by companies such as Atari, Activision, and Mattel, hacked to remove copyright notices and other assets demonstrating ownership. The colored bars to the left of the A in the Activision logo remain in some games but the company name is excised. False and ambiguous names – such as Mad Kong (Donkey Kong) and The Flying Man (Superman) – are printed on the packing box and in the instruction manual. For the UK versions, one game originally included with the TV Boy was removed from the TV Boy II: game #91: Protection (Defender). No replacement game takes its place (it was left non operational) making the TV Boy II a 126 game handheld console. This space was filled in the Super TV Boy with Winter Adventure (Mountain Man). Also, three games were exchanged in the UK: Maze Town (Maze Craze) with Full Attack, Football (Pele's Soccer) with Besieged (Z Tack), and Duel (Outlaw) with Laser Attack (Laser Blast). Some of the games slightly alter the graphics of the originals. All play with altered colors — for example, Pitfall! (retitled as Forest Walk) is set in a blue forest — because the game ROMs are NTSC versions played on a PAL console.