Emulation General Wiki

SG-1000

SG-1000
Manufacturer Sega
Type Home video game console
Generation Third
Release date SG-1000/SC-3000
JP: July 15, 1983
AUS: November 1983
SG-1000 II
JP: July 31, 1984
TW: 1986
Discontinued SG-1000
JP: July 1984
SG-1000 II
JP: October 1985
Successor Master System
Emulated ✓

The SG-1000, also known as Sega Game 1000, was a third-generation 8-bit home video game console released by Sega on July 15, 1983, and had a Zilog Z80 CPU at 3.58 MHz with 1 KB of RAM. This system marked Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. The SG-1000 didn't see much success in its home country, mostly due to competition from the technically superior Famicom. It did, however, enjoy a brief period of popularity in Taiwan before the latter market was inundated by unlicensed Family Computer clones.

Sega's use of off-the-shelf components in developing the console, which was also shared with the ColecoVision, led to at least one unauthorized clone of the SG-1000, manufactured and sold by Taiwan-based Bit Corporation as the Dina 2-in-1. Indeed, the Dina had support for SG-1000 games and ColecoVision titles to a certain extent.

The SC-3000 (also known as Sega Computer 3000) was its home computer counterpart and has a built-in keyboard.

Emulators

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Before editing, review the getting involved and recommended pages. See system requirements page for performance demand of the emulators.
See tables for enhancements, hardware features & peripherals, and arcade variant.
For more details such as licensing, programming language, emulation method, visit each emulator’s dedicated page.
Name Platform(s) Active? Latest version License Compatibility libretro core Accessories SC-3000 SF-7000 Arcade variant Recommended? (overall)
PC
MasterGear         ✓ 4.9.10 Proprietary ✗ ? ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓
MAME         ✓ 0.289

libretro core[note 1]

GPLv2
BSD-3-Clause 		✓ ? ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
BizHawk     ✓ 2.11.1 MIT
GPL 		✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✓
Possible with BizHawk's MAME core.		 ✓
ares           ✓ git Artifacts

v148

ISC (Permissive) 99.44%
178 out of 179 reported titles		 ✗ ? ✓ ✗ ~
Runs two of the three games supported by MAME		 ✓
Genesis Plus GX         * ✓ libretro core MAME license (Non-commercial) ✓ ~ ✗ ✗ ✗ ~
Kega Fusion       ✗ 3.64 Proprietary ✗ ~ ✓ ✓ ✗ ~
Gearsystem                 ✓ libretro core

3.9.18

GPLv3 (Copyleft) ✓ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ~
blueMSX         ** ~[note 2] libretro core

2.8.2

GPLv2 (Copyleft) ✓ ? ✓ ✓ ✗ ~
MEKA         ✓ 2025-08-17 Non-commercial ✗ ~ ✓ ✓ ✗ ~
BlastEm[note 3]         ✓  Nightly builds

libretro core

Web

1.0.0

GPLv3 (Copyleft) ✓ ? ✓ ✗ ? TBD
CoolCV         ✓ 0.6.9 Proprietary ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
CLK       ✓ 2026-07-23 MIT (Permissive) ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
DarcNES         ✗ 9b0401/9b0313 Non-commercial ✗ ? ~ ✗ ✗ ✗
Essgee   ✓ git MIT (Permissive) ✗ ? ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
FinalBurn Neo       ✓ Stable

WIP builds

libretro core

Non-commercial ✓ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
FreezeSMS   ✗ 4.6 Proprietary ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
higan (火眼)         ✗ v110 GPLv3 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ~ ✗ ✗ ✗
Superseded by ares
RetroCopy     ✗ 0.960

1.00 Beta 5

Proprietary ✗ ? ? ? ? ✗
TwoMbit       ✗ 1.0.5 GPLv3 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
vdmgr   ✗ 0.2.7 Proprietary ✗ ? ~ ✓ ✗ ✗
ZEsarUX                     ✓ 13.0 GPL (Copyleft) ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
jgenesis       ✓ 0.14.1 MIT (Permissive) ✗ ? ? ? ? ?
MesenCE             ~
As of April 2026, Mesen 2 development has stalled. The last successful automated build and commit from the lead developer (Sour) occurred on July 16, 2025 (Build #698). No public activity has been recorded on GitHub or Nesdev since that date. 		Development Builds GPLv3 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ? ? ? TBD
Obentou         ✓ 0.2.1 GPLv2 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ✓ ✗ ? ?
Pantheon   ✓ 16.458 Proprietary ✗ ? ? ? ? ?
Retro Virtual Machine       ✓ 2.1.20 Proprietary ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ TBD
Snepulator     ✓ 26.02 MIT (Permissive) ✗ ~ ? ? ✗ TBD
Mobile
Snepulator   ✓ 26.02 (Snepulator MS) 26.02 (Snepulator SG)

git

MIT (Permissive) ✗ ~ ? ✗ ✗ ✓
MasterGear   ✓ 4.9.10 Proprietary ✗ ? ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓
Genesis Plus GX     * ✓ libretro core Non-commercial ✓ ~ ✗ ✗ ✗ ~
blueMSX     ** ~[note 2] libretro core GPLv2 (Copyleft) ✓ ? ✓ ✓ ✗ ~
GearMasterPlayer   ✗ 1.0.5 Proprietary ✗ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ~
Manic EMU     ✓ 2.0.0

git

AGPLv3 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ? ? ? TBD
Provenance       ✓ 3.3.0

git

? ✗ ? ? ? ? ?
FinalBurn Neo     ✓ Stable

WIP builds

libretro core

Non-commercial ✓ ? ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
MEKA   ✗ git

20191218

Non-commercial ✗ ~ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Console
Genesis Plus GX     ✓ 1.22.2

1.7.5 RC1

Non-commercial ✗ ~ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓
S8DS   ✗ 0.7 ? ✗ ? ✓ ? ✗ ✓
SMS Plus GX       ✗ 1.22.2

r64

0.2b (DC)

GPLv2 (Copyleft) ✗ ? ? ? ✗ ~

*Only available on PC as a libretro core (e.g., RetroArch).

**Only available outside of Windows as a libretro core (e.g., RetroArch).

Enhancements

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Name MasterGear MAME BizHawk ares
Misc. Netplay
 ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
RetroAchievements ✗ ✗ ✓ roadmap

Hardware features and peripherals

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Name MasterGear MAME BizHawk ares
Hardware features 2nd controller port for player 1 ? ? ? ?
On-cartridge extra RAM[note 4] ? ? ? ?
Peripherals Data Recorder SR-1000 ? ✓ ? ?
Floppy Disk Drive ? ✓ ? ?
Handle Controller & Bike Handle ? ✗ ? ?
HyperShot ? ✓ ? ?
Keyboard ? ✓ ? ?
Modem ? ✗ ? ?
Othello Keyboard ? ✓ ? ?
Plotter ? ? ? ?
Sega Graphic Board ? ? ? ?
System Converter ? ? ? ?
8kB RAM Adapter ? ? ? ?
Misc. F18A replacement board[note 5] ? ? ? ?
Switch between discrete VDP/modified SN76489 audio chip and Sega 315-5066 (Yamaha YM2217) ASIC[note 6] ? ? ? ?

Sega Graphic Board

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Also known as Terebi Oekaki. Includes a graphic board attached to a cartridge. Can be used on SG-1000, SC-3000, Sega Mark III, and Japanese / Korean models of Master System. Another version made for the International Master System models was planned to be released.

MEKA supports both variants of the Graphic Boards.

Keyboard

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Named Sega Keyboard SK-1100. It essentially adds some of the missing features of the SC-3000 to an SG-1000 or Sega Mark III. It is not compatible with the Japanese / Korean models of Master System due to pinout differences in their respective expansion ports.

Kega Fusion, Meka, and MAME support this keyboard.

Othello Keyboard

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A built-in keyboard found in Othello Multivision, an SG-1000 clone from Tsukuda Original. It is solely used to play the Othello variant of the game used as a BIOS. It cannot be used with the stand-alone version of Othello for SG-1000, which was distributed as a common cartridge.

Meka and MAME support this special keyboard.

Floppy Disk Drive

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Known as Super Control Station SF-7000. Allows the SC-3000 to use 3" (proprietary format) floppy disks manufactured by Sega. Not widely popular due to their high retail price (¥79,800). It also includes its own IPL (BIOS), as the SC-3000 does not include any kind of built-in software, unlike MSX computers.

MEKA, Kega Fusion, and MAME support reading disk images, although is unknown if they allow data writing to them.

HyperShot

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Cross-compatible two-button controller manufactured by Konami to be used in any piece of hardware that uses DE-9 ports. On SG-1000, it is used with Hyper Sports, although it can be used with the bootleg conversions of Hyper Olympic / Sports games from MSX1 on Sega Mark III / Master System.

Data Recorder SR-1000

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Datacorder that allows common cassette tapes to be read and written with the BASIC software from SG-1000 or SC-3000. On SG-1000 (or Sega Mark III), the presence of a SK-1100 is required. On standard SG-1000 games, it can be used on:

  • C-So!
  • Championship Lode Runner
  • Lode Runner

MAME supports reading and writing cassette tape images. blueMSX also had planned tape support for their SC-3000 driver as well.

Modem

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A modem used for SC-3000 manufactured by John Sands, released only in Australia. It allows a special software named SegaCom to be connected to the Internet through dial-up. The modem connects itself in the cartridge port, in the same vein as connecting a Model 2 Sega CD to a Sega Genesis.

No known emulator supports this, and the SegaCom ROM is not dumped.

Handle Controller & Bike Handle

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Known as SR-400 and BH-400, both are driving controllers compatible with the following games:

  • GP World
  • Hang-On II
  • Monaco GP
  • Safari Race
  • Zippy Race
  • Zoom 909

No emulators support these controllers for now.

Plotter

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SP-400 plotter which can print 4 colors: black, red, blue, green and has a switch to toggle between text mode and graphic mode.

RAM Adapter

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An 8KB RAM Adapter to be used in SG-1000, sold only in Taiwan without a license from Sega. It allows certain MSX1 conversions to be played on the system.

Genesis Plus GX, MEKA, and MAME do support this accessory as a form of cartridge mapper.

Arcade

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Sega also used the SG-1000 hardware to run Arcade games. Here's a known list of Arcade games:

  • Champion Boxing
  • Champion Pro Wrestling
  • Doki Doki Penguin Land
  • Super Derby
  • Super Derby II

The first three games are pretty much the same as their SG-1000 counterparts, but Super Derby and Super Derby II are special medal-type games intended to be used with 1-9 players. MAME features full support for the common SG-1000 Arcade games, but for the Derby ones, it is still preliminary.

Notes

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  1. ↑ As 0.251, 0.139 (2010), 0.78 (2003), 0.37b5 (2000)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Libretro core is still active.
  3. ↑ Only standalone version for now.
  4. ↑ Used by BASIC Level II A (512 bytes, SG-1000, SC-3000 and Sega Mark III only), BASIC Level II B (1KB, SG-1000, SC-3000 and Sega Mark III only), BASIC SK-III (32KB, SG-1000 / Sega Mark III only), Home BASIC (32KB, SG-1000 / Sega Mark III only).
  5. ↑ (See here and here)
  6. ↑ Other than sound output difference, there is also some video output difference due to color palette inaccuracies.

References

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Sega(edit)

 
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