Watara Supervision

The Watara Supervision is a monochrome handheld game console, originating from Taiwan, and introduced in 1992 as a cut-price competitor for Nintendo's Game Boy. It came packaged with a game called "Crystball", which is similar to "Breakout". One unique feature of the Supervision was that it could be linked up to a television via a link cable. Games played in this way would display in four colors, much like Nintendo's Super Game Boy add-on for the SNES. A full color TV link was also in the works, but it in light of the Supervision's failure to make a major impression among gamers it was cancelled, along with the games which were in development for it.

Though the machine garnered some attention at launch (mainly due to the low price point for the machine and its games, which many felt might enable it to make inroads into Nintendo's market share) it was ultimately unsuccessful in unseating the Game Boy from its position as the world's most popular handheld. Reasons commonly cited are the poor quality screen which was prone to blurring and made following the action difficult, a general lack of games and the simplistic nature of those that were released.

Yet another problem was that most if not all of the games that were available were developed in Taiwan, meaning that fans of big name western and Japanese developers were underwhelmed by the apparent lack of support from these companies. Only a tiny handful of games were developed by third parties, those that were are generally reckoned to be superior to those developed in-house. One such third party title - Super Pang - is commonly held to be the best game released on the Supervision and a very good game in its own right. However, up against Nintendo's list of popular franchises (Zelda, Mario, Metroid) and those of its third parties (Castlevania, Mega Man) - all of which eventually surfaced on the Game Boy - the Supervision's games were of little interest to anyone outside Taiwan.

The Supervision was marketed by several different companies around the world and under several different names, including Quickshot (a UK joystick manufacturer), Travell Mate, Hartung SV-100, and Electrolab in Argentina, under two different models: the Supervision (in a form factor resembling Nintendo's Gameboy) and the Hipervision seen in the picture of this article.

In the early 1990s it was once offered as a final prize on the television game show "Legends of the Hidden Temple". It was also offered as a prize on the premiere of the 1994 syndicated run of "The New Price is Right".

Quickshot's UK version of the Supervision was heavily featured for a time on ITV's gaming show Bad Influence!. In addition, presenter Violet Berlin could be seen playing a Supervision in many of the show's publicity photos.

Technical specifications

*CPU: 8-bit 65C02 processor, running at 4 MHz
*Screen: 61 mm × 61 mm (2.37 inches × 2.37 inches), 160 × 160 pixels, 4 greys LCD
*Sound: 2 Tonal and 1 Noise Channel plus additional audio DMA stereo output channel. Built-in speaker and headphone jack with stereo earphones included.
*Power: 4 × AA batteries or 6V AC/DC adapter
*Communication port: Two Player Link using DE-9 connector.
*Cartridge port
*Controls for 1 Player
*TV adapter (optional)

Games

The following games are known to exist:
*"Bust/Cross" (2-in-1)
*"Hash Block/Eagle Plan" (2-in-1)
*"Classic Casino" (3-in-1)
*"Cave Wonders" (4-in-1)
*"Lucky Jacky" (4-in-1)
*"Alien"
*"Balloon Fight"
*"Block Buster"
*"Box Carrier"
*"Brain Power"
*"Bubble World"
*"Carrier"
*"Challenger Tank"
*"Chimera"
*"Chinese Checkers"
*"Climber"
*"Crystball"
*"Dancing Block"
*"Delta Hero"
*"Devil Paradise"
*"Dream World"
*"Eagle Plan"
*"Earth Defender"
*"Fatal Craft"
*"Final Combat"
*"Galactic Crusader"
*"Galaxy Fighter"
*"Grand Prix"
*"Happy Pairs"
*"Happy Race"
*"Hash Block"
*"Hero Kid"
*"Hero Hawk"
*"Honey Bee"
*"Jade Legend"
*"Jaguar Bomber"
*"John Adventure"
*"Journey To The West"
*"Juggler"
*"Kabi-Island"
*"Kitchen War"
*"Kung-Fu Street"
*"Linear Racing"
*"Ma Jong"
*"Magincross"
*"Matta Blatta"
*"Olympic Trials"
*"P-52 Sea Battle"
*"Pacboy and Mouse"
*"Pacific Battle"
*"Penguin Hideout"
*"Police Bust"
*"Popo Team"
*"Pyramid"
*"Recycle Design"
*"Scaffolder"
*"Soccer Champ"
*"Sonny X'Press"
*"Space Fighter"
*"Sssnake"
*"Super Block"
*"Super Pang"
*"Super Kong"
*"Tasac 2010"
*"Tennis Pro '92"
*"Thunder Shooting"
*"Treasure Hunter"
*"Untouchable"
*"Witty Cat"

Preservation

Like many consoles, the Watara Supervision has lived on through emulation. (See MESS) Cowering's Good Tools includes a tool called GoodSV which catalogues 47 Supervision games in version 2.01.

External links

* [http://slydc.20m.com/supervsn.htm The Supervision Museum]
* [http://www.pixelpower.on.ca/supervision/ Syd Bolton's World's First Supervision Page]