DECO Cassette System

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The System Startup Screen
The System Startup Screen

The DECO Cassette System was introduced in 1980 by Data East and was the first standardised arcade system that allowed arcade owners to change games.

The arcade owner would buy a cabinet, while the games were stored on standard audio cassettes. The arcade owner would insert the cassette and a security dongle (This was an early form of Digital Rights Management, to ensure the tapes would not be copied) into the cabinet. When the cabinet was powered up, the program from the tape would be copied into the cabinet's RAM chips. This process took about two minutes. After this, the game could be played. It was revolutionary for its time, but arcade owners complained about the poor reliability of the cassettes, which could be demagnetized easily, corrupting the game data, and the poor quality of the games offered. Most of the DECO cassette games are playable in MAME.

[edit] Game list

  • Burgertime
  • Bump 'n' Jump
  • Burnin' Rubber
  • Super Astro Fighter
  • Boulder Dash
  • Kamikaze Cabbie
  • Manhattan
  • Missile Sprinter
  • Nebula
  • The Tower
  • Buramzon
  • Astro Fantazia
  • DS TeleJang
  • Disco No. 1 (also known as Sweet Heart)
  • Treasure Island
  • Lucky Poker
  • Cluster Buster (also known as Graplop and Flying Ball)
  • Terranean
  • Angler Dangler
  • Rootin Tootin (also known as La Pa Pa)
  • Skater
  • Night Star
  • Super Doubles Tennis
  • Tornado
  • Explorer
  • Genesis
  • Bambolin
  • Zeroize
  • Scrum Try
  • Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory
  • Lock 'n' Chase
  • Pro Tennis
  • Pro Bowling
  • Pro Soccer
  • Fighting Ice Hockey
  • Oh Zumou
  • Hello Gate Ball
  • Highway Chase (also known as Mad Alien)
  • Sengoku Ninja Tai (also known as Ninja)
  • The DECO Kid (also known as Flash Boy)
  • Tokyo Mie Sinryohjyo
  • Tokyo Mie Sinryohjyo 2
  • Geinohijin Sikaku Siken