Namco Pole Position (system board)


 * This article is a generic description of Namco's "Pole Position" hardware. For the specific arcade game, see Pole Position.

Namco Pole Position is the name of Namco's arcade system board, first used in 1982 for the Pole Position video games. It was the first 16-bit gaming system ever released.

Namco Pole Position specifications

 * Main CPU (Central Processing Unit) processor : Zilog Z80 (8/16-bit)  @ 3.1 MHz (0.45 MIPS)
 * Secondary CPU processors : 2 x Zilog Z8002 (16/32-bit)  @ 3.1 MHz each
 * Microcontroller CPU :  Fujitsu MB8844 (4-bit) @ 256 KHz
 * Sound CPU : Uses one of the secondary CPUs for the sound as well
 * Sound chips :  Namco WSG (4-bit) @ 48 KHz,  Namco 52XX @ 1.6 MHz,  DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter)
 * Graphics chips: 3x Namco 02xx Custom Shifter, 2x Namco 03xx Playfield Data Buffer, Namco 04xx Address Buffer, Namco 09xx Sprite RAM Buffer
 * Other chips : Two custom I/O controllers (type 1) handles the controls and the speech.
 * Video resolution : 256x224
 * Colours on screen : 3840
 * Graphical features: Scrolling, sprite-scaling

List of Namco Pole Position arcade games

 * Pole Position (1982)
 * Pole Position II (1983)