Casio PV-1000

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This is an 8-Bit games console released by Casio late in 1983. It was only on the market for a very short time, reportedly only a few weeks or months.

It has a Z80 processor, and has the graphics chip similar to the Colecovision. It runs with 2KB of Ram, as well as 1KB for the graphics and a dedicated 1KB for a character generator.

The machine was over a year late to market, and was originally intended to compete with the Epoch Cassette Vision, which had 70% of the emerging videogames market. By the time the PV-1000 released, both the Nintendo Famicom and the Sega SG-1000 were on the market, and had immediately wiped out the dominance of the Cassette Vision.

Casio were also developing MSX computers by the time of the PV-1000 launch, and were also about to release the PV-2000 computer, which despite having identical looking cartridges was completely incompatible, apart from the joystick.

The architecture of the PV-1000 had no similarity with the MSX, so that combined with the stiff competition from the Nintendo and Sega machines, meant Casio had little choice but to quickly pull it from the market, before moving forward with the PV-2000 briefly, and their new MSX machines the PV-7 and PV-16.

Just 13 games were released, all at launch, and are mostly conversions of early arcade hits, they are numbered one to fifteen, but eight and thirteen were thought not to be released, they might possibly have been Frontline and Galaga, both of which appeared on the PV-2000.

It is thought the machine only sold around 9,000 units. Outside of Japan it is little known, and can fetch high prices. The software was not produced in large quantities, so can also reach hundreds of pounds for the rarer titles.

A victim of bad timing, the console could have been a contender if it had been released a year earlier as intended. It is highly regarded among the retro community for it's striking design and dark blue case. The games that were released were limited, but mostly fun.

Our machine was donated with the kind generosity of Johnny Blanchard

Manufacturer: Casio
Date: October 1983