> It's possible that H1 was the rumored original 2D-only Saturn from before they found > out Sony was going polygonal and threw in a bunch of stuff hoping something would > stick The obviously extreme development cost doesn't make sense as an arcade one-off > running a reskin of Outrunners.
If you look up the IC part numbers, Saturn custom chips are 315-5687 to 5690, H1 custom chips are 315-5691 to 5698.
The board numbers are, however, much lower than that of the Saturn, even including developer hardware. Saturn VA0 Japan: 171-6874D, Saturn Sophia developer board: 171-6833D, H1 video board: 171-6514F. Of course the Saturn probably had more iterations before they reached a design suitable for production, while the H1 may have been thrown into the meat grinder as-is, given that arcade machines operate at a higher cost.
So these numbers really tell you nothing. Odd coincidence with the IC numbers though. Given the strong 2D focus of this thing, I wouldn't be surprised if there were similarities between this, the Saturn, and the previous System 24/32 line.
|