Unlike other Taiwanese or Hong Kong
Game Boy competitors, such as the
Watara Supervision,
Hartung Game Master and the
Mega Duck, the Gamate's internal hardware contains no epoxy covered chips and was assembled in a quality manner. The build quality is relatively akin to that of the Game Boy. The shell is made of thick plastic and with batteries installed, the unit feels very similar to the weight of a Game Boy.
Screen The screen on the Gamate is very similar to the
Game Boy. It is a greenish color, with manual contrast adjustment, and
non-backlit. Backlit screens were not common in 1990. Moving objects appear blurry and faint - the quality known as "ghosting" - which can make game play very frustrating. The Gamate seems, however, to have had two different types of
LCD screen used throughout its lifespan. The easiest way to tell which type one has is by turning the Gamate on without a game in - the "bad" one displays vertical lines while the "good" one displays a slightly corrupted checkerboard pattern.
Sound The Gamate internally uses an
AY-3-8910 sound chip that can generate 3 channels of square waves and one for noise. The Gamate's mono internal speaker is of poor quality, giving off sound that is quite distorted, particularly at low volumes. However, if a user plugs into the headphone jack, some of the sound channels are mapped to the headphone's left/right channels that forms stereo audio, and the output is of a relatively high quality.
Shell The original Gamate is dark grey in color and has a "x"
D-pad and small speaker vents and produces the full game stereo soundtrack through the monaural speaker. The later Gamate are dark grey in color and have a "+" D-pad design and large speaker vents and have louder volume output but output only a single mono track through the console's mono speaker and requires headphones for the entire L/R audio tracks to be heard. A variant in the latter design, with a white shell and red buttons also exists.
Serial numbers All Gamates have a seven digit serial number near the card port on the rear of the console. The first two digits represent the year of manufacture, while the last five represent the unit's chronology. Therefore, a unit with the number "9001687", was the 1687th produced in 1990. The newest unit thus far discovered was produced in 1993.
Specifications •
CPU UMC UA6588F (earlier revision);
NCR 81489, 8 bits (
BIT WS39323F) in a
QFP-100 shell (later revision) •
ROM 2 KB (UM6116M-2L
CMOS static RAM, pin compatible with ROM/
EPROM chips) •
RAM 16 KB (2 × CXK5864M-15L chips) of
static RAM • Case: Grey plastic •
Keys D-pad, A, B, START and SELECT •
Sound General Instrument AY-3-8910, output via either internal mono speaker or external stereo headphones •
Media ROM card, very similar to
HuCard (
PC-Engine),
My Card (
SG-1000) and
Sega Card (
Master System) 19×2 pins •
Input/Output • Cartridge Slot • Stereo headphones • Power • External link connector (for 2-player games)
Expansion • Gamate link cable •
Ni-CD battery pack ==Games==