Despite having 4 dials like a regular pong machine, the system is for two players, each have two dials each, one for horizontal and one or vertical. Each player also has a left and right lever, and two fire buttons. There is also a socket on the top to plug in a light gun.

Epoch decided to capitalize on the NEC uPD77xx chipset as they had already used to develop games on this platform (TV Baseball, TV Vader). To achieve this, The Cassette Vision cartridges also house the CPU  in the cartridge, the console handles the power, controls as well as the video and sound.

This allowed development to be handled by advancing the cartridges, rather than having the consumer buy new hardware.

The machine is about as capable technically as an Atari 2600. The name does not have anything to do with the magnetic tapes that we use, in Japanese, Cassette is synonomous with cartridge.

During it's lifetime, it sold around 400,000 units, and had just 12 games released, making it one of the smallest games libraries in the console world, there is also one unreleased title.

There is also a cut down model, the Cassette Vision Junior, which is a more compact design, has less controller options, and only single play.

The machine was succeeded by the Super Cassette Vision, which was technically more advanced and comparable with the Famicom and SG-1000, it sold well, and unlike the earlier machine, it was available in Europe, distributed by Yeno, but was not a great success in that territory.

Our Cassette Vision was donated with the kind generosity of Johnny Blanchard.

Manufacturer: Epoch
Date: 1981

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH60612. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.