Games Hardware: PAL versus NTSC (and SECAM)

Game Territories

The PAL video game territory includes: most of Asia, Australia, South America, Africa and most of Western Europe.

NTSC is used in US, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Burma. Japan uses a modification called NTSC-J. NTSC = National Television System Committee. NTSC-C was a "region" created by Sony in 2003 for the release of its PS2 console in China.

Region lockout can make a game intended for one region unplayable in another region. Nintendo was the originator of region lockout in the video game industry.

Short History of Video Broadcast Standards

France still uses the SECAM standard which will be phased out in 2011. SECAM was introduced in 1967 in France to broadcast colour television, on "la deuxieme chaine". The PAL (Phase Alternating Line, 625 lines per frame) standard was introduced in the early 60's and implemented in most European countries (except France). A wider channel bandwidth than NTSC which allows for better picture quality.

What are Maltodextrin, Aspartame, Oligofructose?

Dextrins are carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch. They are produced from starch from enzymes such as amylases (similar to what happens in human body).

Aspartame is a sugar substitute (E951). It was first approved by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in 1980.

Oligofructose is contained in some flavoured yoghurts. It is a healthy way of sweetening food and drinks - it's useful for people on calorie controlled diets.

Snow Chains

Snow chains are devices fixed to tyres to improve traction when driving through snow or ice. Driving with chains will reduce fuel efficiency and limits speeds to 30mph.

DVD Format

DVDs use MPEG-2 compression to record the moving pictures (25-29 frames per second). Audio can be in a variety of formats including PCM, DTS, MP2 or AC3. PAL players require at least one of PCM, MP2 or AC3 formats. DVDs can contain more than one channel of audio to go with the video.

Some DVD players will also play raw mpg files, these are "unauthored" and lack the file and header structure that defined DVD VIDEO. Audio, video and so forth are multiplexed into VOB (Video Object) container format. EVO stands for Enhanced VOB.

Math co-processors

1980s - co-processors for floating pointing arithmetic became common, popular with purchases of CAD software. Intel and Weitek were producers of math-coprocessor hardware. By 1990s, most CPU designs had FPUs built into the main chip basically "for free".

What is a TIFF file?

TIFF = Tagged Image File Format, developed by Aldus Systems, now known as Adobe.

Casio School Calculators

The CASIO fx-series are a host of school calculators running of 1.5V DC battery. They have an associated education website as well. It implements a feature called "Natural Display" so you see equations (with brackets, powers etc) as if they are written on the page. To achieve this, the fx-series has a slightly "taller" LCD screen than some other calculators.