Genesis Nomad
The Sega Nomad was a handheld game console sold in North America, essentially a mini-Genesis console, based on the Japanese Mega Jet and featuring a built-in color screen. The Nomad was never officially released in either Europe or Japan. Its codename during development was Project Mercury.
Release and features
Sega released the Nomad in October of 1995. They marketed it as a portable Genesis, and while it was, it was primarily an evolution of their Japanese market Mega Jet. Whereas the Mega Jet was screenless and required an AC adapter, the Nomad featured a 3.25 inch color LCD screen and room for six AA-batteries, making it completely portable as opposed to simply being a small Genesis system. In addition to its other improvements over the Mega Jet, an A/V Out plug was added at the top of the unit, letting owners play games on a television screen with a separate A/V cable. One particularly interesting feature of the Nomad was its ability to allow one player to play using a connected TV, while another watched on the Nomad. The directional pad on the unit controlled all one-player games, and a port on the bottom allowed a second pad to be plugged in for two-player games. This meant that the Nomad could be a fully functional home system as well as a completely portable hand-held solution with a pre-existing library of games available for it.
A quick death
While the Nomad won praise for its screen resolution and features, there were some problems. The 32X and Sega CD were not compatible with the unit, and Sega's Power Base Converter, used to play Sega Master System games on the Genesis/Mega Drive, was also incompatible. On paper, the Nomad was the perfect color portable. It had a full color, backlit display, and supported an estimated 600 titles already on the shelves in addition to being a functional home system. Unfortunately, like the Game Gear, the Nomad was very bulky being even larger than the Game Gear, and offered abysmal battery life. 6-AA batters offered only 90-160 minutes of play time, making batteries a significant expense for using it on the go. A rechargeable battery pack was offered separately but for $80, it offered even less play time than the 6-AAs and it was more expensive than the system itself, it was not widely available. Rechargeable AA batteries were not recommended due to voltage problems (Ni-Cd providing 1.2V instead of the 1.5V that alkaline provides). But despite the price falling from $179 to $79.99, rendering moot any complaints of overpricing, the handheld did not garner enough support to continue. By the time it was released, the Genesis was almost at the end of its lifetime, already being replaced by the Saturn and Playstation, and people were becoming disinterested in 16-bit titles. Sega is rumored to have been forced to cut off plans for European and Japanese versions of the system as a result of its poor sales.
Technical specifications
| Processor: | Motorola M68000 16 bit processor running at 7.67 MHz |
| Co-processor: | Zilog Z80 8-bit at 4 MHz |
| Memory: | 136KB total - 64 KB Main RAM, 64KB VRAM, 8KB Sound RAM. 20 Kb ROM |
| Display Palette: | 512 |
| Onscreen colors: | 64 |
| Maximum onscreen sprites: | 80 |
| Resolution: | 320 x 224 |
| Sound: | Yamaha YM2612 6 channel FM, additional 4 channel PSG. Stereo sound. Also Texas Instruments SN76489 PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) |
| Display: | Integrated LCD at 320 x 224 |