When was the CP System II arcade system board announced by Capcom?
Capcom announced the development of the CP System II in 1990. The system arrived in arcades during 1993 with Super Street Fighter II.
Questions about CP System II
Short answers, pulled from the story.
How did region-specific color coding distinguish CP System II boards?
Japan received green plastic cases with white text while U.S.A. units used blue plastic with red lettering. European systems featured blue plastic but with blue text instead and Asian markets got grey plastic enclosures marked with yellow writing.
Who hacked the CP System II encryption in January 2001?
The CPS-2 Shock group hacked into the hardware itself in January 2001 to obtain unencrypted program data through reverse engineering efforts. Andreas Naive and Nicola Salmoria fully reverse-engineered the method in January 2007 revealing two four-round Feistel ciphers using a 64-bit key.
What caused suicide battery failure on CP System II boards?
Battery-backed memory stored decryption keys needed for game execution until these batteries lost their charge as years passed by. Games stopped functioning once the CPU could not execute any code after original batteries fell below 2 volts.
When did technical support for CP System II battery replacements end?
Technical support for battery replacements ended on the 28th of February 2019. Most official support for the hardware ceased earlier on the 31st of March 2015 and manufacturing of new CP System II hardware stopped on the 22nd of December 2003.