¶ Technical data
- Manufacturer: Sega
- Year of release: 1983
- CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz
- RAM: 1 KB
- VRAM: 16 KB
- Video: Texas Instruments TMS9918A
- Resolution: 256x192, 16 colors
- Sound chip: Texas Instruments SN76489 (3 channels + noise)
- Media: Cartridge, Sega My Card
¶ Presentation
The SG-1000 (Sega Game 1000) is Sega's very first home console, launched in Japan on July 15, 1983 — the same day as Nintendo's Famicom. Built around a Z80 and the Texas Instruments TMS9918A video processor, it stayed technically behind its rival, which quickly overtook it on the Japanese market.
Sega iterated fast: the SG-1000 II in 1984, then the SC-3000 home computer sharing the same architecture with a keyboard, and finally the Mark III in 1985, which would become the Master System. The SG-1000 was also licensed in several countries, notably as the Othello Multivision in Japan and the Telegames Personal Arcade in North America.
Its library of about a hundred titles consists mainly of Sega arcade conversions and simple action games: Congo Bongo, Flicky, Girl's Garden, Zaxxon, Champion Baseball and the early Monaco GP entries. It is the root of Sega's whole 8-bit lineage, of which the Master System and the Game Gear are the direct heirs.
¶ Emulators
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro genesisplusgx | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro gearsystem | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro fbneo | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro bluemsx | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro picodrive | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The default emulator is genesisplusgx, the only one supporting CRT output on this system. gearsystem is the core specialized in Sega's 8-bit machines, fbneo covers the arcade versions of some titles, bluemsx emulates the Z80/TMS9918 family as a whole and picodrive closes the list. All five cores are available on every board.
Netplay is supported by every core except bluemsx. Softpatching is available with none of them. RetroAchievements are available on this system; light guns are not supported.
¶ Roms
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/sg1000/
Supported extensions per emulator:
| Emulator | Extensions |
|---|---|
| genesisplusgx | .sg .zip .7z |
| gearsystem | .bin .sg .zip .7z |
| fbneo | .zip .7z |
| bluemsx | .sc .sf .sf7 .sg .zip .7z |
| picodrive | .bin .sc .sg .zip .7z |
The standard extension is .sg, accepted by every core but fbneo. The .sc files (SC-3000 programs) are only recognized by bluemsx and picodrive: if a game refuses to start, switch emulator from the game menu.
No BIOS is required for this system. No-Intro romsets are recommended.