The history of MSX computers
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- čas přidán 28. 12. 2023
- From their inception to technological evolution, MSX computers have left an indelible mark in the world of retrocomputing. Enjoy the video and don't forget to leave a comment with your memories and thoughts on the history of MSX. 🕹️
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MSX is the best 8-bit computer in my opinion. I had C64, then Spectrum and then MSX (a Sony Hit-Bit). The ease of use of MSBasic, the wide software library, the floppy that was quick and able to transfer files between MSX and PC, the ability to make custom extensions boards was what conquered me.
The MSX indeed had some remarkable features. I love how user-friendly MSBasic was, and the wide range of software available really set it apart.
Yet home brewing games was tough. I interviewed a few programmers from the era that were trying to move from Z80 for the ZX Spectrum to the MSX, but they abandoned game coding for 8-bit instead, main reason being a pain in the ass graphics system.
The MSX was very well known here in Spain. Maybe not all games were released for it and the spectrum conversions were insulting to the computer owners. However... The cartridges... Ooooohhh the cartridges ❤❤ They were on another level.
Agreed to an extent. Most Spectrum ports were insulting, but there were exceptions - Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Hunchback and Chuckie Egg were terrific. A non cart exclusive called Sweet Acorn was also seriously fun.
Your appreciation for vintage electronics as well as your videos is a huge inspiration for others to watch and learn to restore yesterday's marvels!!
Thank you!
In Brazil, the design of the National CF-3000 was copied to produce the MSX Expert by the company Gradiente. Three models were released, namely the Expert in gray, the Expert Plus in black, and the Expert DDPlus, the latter featuring a built-in disk drive.
It's impressive that you have all of these machines in your collection, in lovely condition too. It would be nice to see a video demonstrating your favourites, and some of the best software and games.
Excellent work. 😊
My first home system - Toshiba HX10 MSX. I learned to code on it. The Konami carts for the most part were amazing with the exception of Green Beret which was my favourite arcade game at the time, so that conversion was very disappointing. The former director of Konami UK actually apologised for that some years later in an interview on a Spanish MSX blog.
It's easy to discount the cassette based games since most of those were very lazy ZX Spectrum ports, but Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg and Sweet Acorn were great.
It's a shame the MSX never made it to the US. They're quite fascinating machines with great games.
there were some units but MSX just couldn't compete against the likes of ubiquitous C64s in the home computer market that were also capable of playing arcade-like games and had existing vast catalogs of said games
An MSX2 was with it's amazing colors sometimes closer to an Amiga than a C64 or even an Atari ST😅: 8-bit on steroids, great Konami titles and Dutch text & drawing editors. What a beast.
I used to love MSX so much, one of my fav retro computer console of all time, thanks to konami games for keep supporting it, I really love this system
Yes MSX is still very popular in Brazil until now
I was only 16 when I got an MSX.
Congratulations and thanks for the video.
IIRC they were really good, here in the UK the ZX Spectrum and C64 took the market, but IIRC my uncle had a Ti-99A which is when I got the bug.
Thank you so much for your comment! So cool to hear that you had an MSX since you were 16. :)
The MSX Basic was the first computer and language I got my hands on, in 7th grade. It was a lot of fun. I'm old, I guess. lol
This channel gives me retro nostalgia ..I've still got my speccy, but use emulators these days when I feel the nostalgia calls..
I loved my MSX1 from Philips :)
Although Commodore dominated the home computer field in Finland, MSX also had a very strong foothold. Especially regarding Spectravideo's models. There were also some Sonya, Yamaha, etc. Thanks for the video, and hopefully there will be more of these. :)
Around 1985, me and a friend where thinking about buying an MSX, we even went to some club meetings. Eventually, he did buy a Philips MSX and I bought a stereo system 😅 Still, we played games together on his machine.
Another great video, Thanks x
Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot to me and I'm happy to know that you like my videos😃
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic I'm an automation engineer from the UK, love this kind of content. Are you studying? What field are you going into?
Love MSX games there loads of classics but sadly never owned a MSX computer.
Same 😢I really used to love MSX thanks to konami games and others too
MSX? you just got my subscription. I had a MSX from Gradiente from 1987 to 1994 in Brazil.
Thank you for subscribing! It's fantastic to connect with someone who had an MSX.🙂
Thanks!
Thank you so much for your generosity and watching!
Nice comprehensive story about the MSX! I knew the computers from my youth, but never heard so much about them!
I just heard of these because of me trying to play all the old metal gear games and 2 is just for the msx platform. i got an emulation of it running under retroarch on my rg35xx and its awesome. so now im very curious about your video and the history of the msx. thanks for your work!
What a collection You have !!
Thank you !
The MSX gave us Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake, giving birth to one of the most beloved videogame franchises of all time, what a fantastic little machine 🙌
👍
You showed off an interesting collection of MSX units! Very cool!
This is, historically, the first computer/console I have ever played. I remember playing Bomberman with my dad when borrowed his co-worker's MSX back in 1991.
Good times isn't it?!
Excellent video. These machines were almost unknown in California and the Silicon Valley.
MSX machines were so popular in the Arab world too, thanks to a Kuwaiti company called Al-Alamiah which introduced the Arabic language to the system with cooperation with Microsoft.
The most popular model was Sakhr AX-170 which is based on Sanyo MPC-2 with embedded Arabic keyboard and 4 built in programs (Calendar, English word processor, Arabic word processor and Paint)
Thanks!
That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing such interesting information about the popularity of MSX machines in the Arab world. I didn't know that!
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic I hope you can make more MSX related videos.
Thank you!
great info, always thought it was the case, I bought my japanese sony HitBit Mezzo from a collector in Kuwait 7 years ago and he had several with arabic roms :)
Thank you so much for covering MSX machines. I recently acquired and fixed up a couple that needed repair. The Mitsubishi ML-F120 with 32k of RAM was mostly working except for cosmetic and broken casing and a couple of keycaps with missing pieces. The other is a National FS-4000 with built-in word processor and and embedded thermal transfer printer. Condition was better but I had to remove lots of rust mostly from the printer section. Both work great now and I'm just saving up to pay for shipping of a NEC PC-8801mkII (not an MSX machine) and PC-DR321 data recorder which I recently won the bidding on. I wouldn't mind watching a longer version so that we can enjoy your videos more. Looking forward to what you have in store for us. Love from Philippines.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience,so cool to hear that you've successfully fixed up the Mitsubishi ML-F120 and the National FS-4000! It sounds like you've been busy with some impressive restoration work. Also, congratulations on winning the bid for the NEC PC-8801mkII and PC-DR321 data recorder, that sounds like an exciting addition to your collection.
Thank you. It's a small collection as I only started since getting over losing my collection when I was out of the country and came back devastated that everything was gone.
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic
Early Japanese consoles were often targeted at being general home computing devices. Famicom is a portmanteau of Family Computer; my wife said they had one with a keyboard and a BASIC cartridge when she was growing up. It wasn't until stuff like the Super Famicom was released that they got super dedicated. Sony continued this throughline with the Net Yaroze which was a programmable PS1
The Net Yaroze was a developer kit. Not unusual at all. All Playstations had a devkit version, they were not home computing devices.
@@huhummmmmmm Net Yaroze was a "consumer" grade item, they were widely distributed in schools and colleges.
I always loved the clean lines and quality construction and keyboards of the MSX machines, but the prices in England were crazy for a simple 8-bit machine, when you could get a 48k Spectrum for a lot less. Until MSX-II came along there didn't seem much point in investing in the standard, though I appreciated that there WAS a standard that Japan evolved almost single-handedly.
Never experienced the MSX, but definitely think my grandfather had one. He gave me his Commodore C-16 back in the day, great to have lived through that era. Great video!
You gave away my age.😅😅😅
The C16 was such a bad release, think Commodore were under major financial stress at the time.
@@spacechannelfiver It was indeed but for me only in hindsight. It did the same for me as a C64 as in immediately giving me exposure to programming. And it was a free gift. :)
Thanks a bunch for sharing. It's cool your grandfather might've had an MSX. Glad you enjoyed the video! 🙂
You could open a museum and you would be a great curator for the museum! I often wonder how you became so interested and so knowledgeable at your age. Wonderful.
Some notes for your info and entertainment:
1. 0:45 Or MicroSoft Extended or eXtensible
2. 0:50 I think the main motivation was to offer a computer standard (indeed a standard so that devices from different manufacturers would work combined) to be positioned at a lower price level than the PC's which were extremely expensive back then. (Mr. Nishi recently said: the biggest competitor of MSX was the 2nd hand PC.)
3. 2:39 you really should have mentioned here that it was also very popular in (particularly) the Netherlands. Also somewhat in Belgium. (It was introduced in Germany and the UK, but didn't sell well there.) And in many Arabic countries it was also sold well, like Egypt, Kuwait and Yemen.
4. 2:49 I don't think there have been many unauthorized clones back in the day. Can you mention some examples?
5. 5:00 The superimpose capability may have been standardized in the MSX2, but it was not mandatory to be implemented to be an MSX2 and as such only a distinct number of MSX2 machines have this functionality. E.g. the Sony HB-G900P and Philips NMS 8280 (being the most known in Europe).
6. 5:08 The superimpose of the MSX2 was not at all used for video games, as far as I know. (Note that there were about 10 laserdisc based games that worked with superimpose for some of the Pioneer MSX1 machines. But perhaps that's what you mean here?)
7. 5:48 The copyright of the MSX2-BASIC is 1985, but probably machines didn't arrive before 1986 on the market indeed.
8. 5:50 The minimum amount of RAM increased from 8kB to 64kB indeed. Most MSX2 machines sold in Europe had 128kB though.
9: 5:51 See remark 6. So apparently you were talking about the MSX1 with superimpose earlier :) So consider remark 6 for this part.
10 6:00 There was also spread sheets and word processing software for the first generation MSX. But the 80-column capability of the MSX2 and the often presence of more RAM helped to make such applications work better on MSX2.
11 6:14 120 games for the MSX1? If you look at a website like Generation MSX you can find many more. There are more than 3000 listed now...
12 7:48 in principle all MSX models (of all generations) are compatible with a disk drive. You can just plug in a disk drive interface in a cartridge slot and use the drive via that interface. It automatically adds disk BASIC via the ROM in the interface cartridge.
13 7:56 A built-in disk drive is not a unique feature. Many MSX machines (mostly MSX2 and later) had it. The screen-shot feature is quite unique indeed.
14 8:37 You mean MSX2+ (not MSX+) of course. And there are more than 4 models: Sony had the HB-F1XDJ and HB-F1XV, Sanyo had the PHC-70FD, PHC-70FD2 and PHC-35J and Panasonic had the FS-A1FX, FS-A1WSX and FS-A1WX. So that's 8 models in total :)
15: 9:05 it wasn't forgotten at all in the Netherlands :) And many people there imported a MSXturboR from Japan back then.
Hope to see more MSX related videos from you in the future indeed! Thanks for this one already.
Thank you, I never knew all this about the MSX machines.
MSX was also quite popular in the Netherlands, as Philips also built the machines 😀 I will have a Philips built MSX2. Quite cool! (I think ) It might actually the one you showed as well 😃Also quite cool, I wanted a Sony Hit Bit, my father wanted a C64. Of course, he bought a C64. Sure, can't say I'm sad about that in hindsight, but still, seeiing a Hit Bit computer brings back memories...
Preservation of computer history at its finest, thank you.
Thanks for shedding light on the MSX computers. 👍And I like your shirt, Grendizer (Duke Fleed) and The Great Mazinger, Kugji Abuto and others. 😁
Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the information about MSX computers. And I'm happy you noticed the shirt🙂
Pretty cool! I had no idea they were still making them in 1995. PC architecture definitely won in the US, but it's fun to think where something like this might have ended up. Then again, it was probably too expensive for this market, especially in the 80s.
Yes, MSX computers were still in production until 1995! You're right, it's intriguing to think about how the computing landscape might have unfolded if MSX had made a more significant impact. :)
Thanks for presenting the history of the MSX computers.
Nishi is very active on twitter! hes always answering questions about msx3
Ciao! Gotta love those Sony spectrometer stickers! What a blast from the past, they truly were awesome back in the day! Thanks for another great video
Wow.. a complete section of computing history that passed me by! I had no idea about the MSx standard and how innovative it was. Thanks, Elenora. I feel enlightened!
I'm thrilled to hear that the video provided some insight into a fascinating chapter of computing history for you! The MSX standard indeed played a significant role, and it's great to bring awareness to its innovation.
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic
Indeed. I love learning new things, so thank you once again for enlightening me.
Fantastica! :) I have several MSX machines, love them to bits, my HitBit Mezzo is my favorite. Love the shirt! ciaooo
Z80 was a great chip, I really enjoyed coding it. Easily my favorite 8 bit CPU. Had a really good Register setup.
was? as cmos still in production and did you know without some smart boys from Texas we would never had the z80/8008 haha
@@klaasj7808 Hah, had no idea they were still making them. Was a great little CPU that one.
Gosh this is so refreshing !!!! I remember the MSX ! ... and you reviving this memory makes it really cool...
I wrote comments like that in your previous videos, but really, this is so nice you are keeping the history of home computing alive. Thanks for that !
Plus being young, smart and cool makes Us (the early adopters of home computers) validated :)
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm thrilled to hear that my videos bring back fond memories of the MSX for you. Your support means a lot, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share the rich legacy of these early computers. It's fantastic to connect with fellow enthusiasts like you who played a crucial role in the early days of home computing.🙂
Really cool to see someone talking about these computers. They seem to be so unknown. From when I was a kid, I should have two MSX 2, maybe a MSX 1 and still searching for a MSX Turbo R and the one game I never could play. Name forgotten right now, but it was something which only was possible on the Turbo R. Some sort of fantasy game.
That's awesome that you still have two MSX 2 computers from your childhood! Do you remember any specific features of the game that could help in finding the name?
Thanks for sharing. Didn't know much about the MSX, only that it was big in Spain. And, somehow demoscene release are/were often paid for. Anyway, good to see new retro fans creating content and keeping "old" hardware alive.
Thank you for your kind words! I'm delighted to hear that you found the information about the MSX interesting. Keeping 'old' hardware alive is a wonderful endeavor, and I'm grateful to be part of the community contributing to it.
The MSX version of Final Fantasy has the BEST music of any port of that game.
Awesome video! And this is like a trip down memory lane, because MSX was my first computer when I was a kid in Japan. I had one by Canon!
Thank you for your video. Helping to explain the beginnings.
Thank you!
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic
Do you have an onlyfans that I could subscribe to?
I had an MSX Expert by Gradiente here in Brazil. Plenty of time available for typing programs and games was a basic requirement. I felt very important having a computer at home. It was useless for anything other than passing time. But I loved it!
That's a wonderful memory! It's amazing how having a computer at home, even if it was primarily for passing the time, could make us feel open up to a whole new world of possibilities.
I had one MSX and I was very happy with so many great games created by Konami, Compile and many others Japanese companies. Kojima's Metal Gear franchise started on MSX 2, I was there! =)
That's fantastic! The MSX truly had a treasure trove of amazing games, and the contributions from Konami, Compile, and other Japanese companies were exceptional. 🙂
What a great piece of retro history. Thank you Eleonora.
Looking forwards to this. I have a Yamaha CX5m II/128. Nice machines..
Wow, I didn't know Philips was rebranded Phonola in Italy! Philips was big when it came to MSX here in the Netherlands, obviously as it was our 'home' company that produced them. I have a NMS8250, which has some weird video issues though. My scope died some years ago, so I just ordered a new one. If I can't get it fixed, I might need a drive to Italy 😉
Your NMS8250 sounds like a classic model. Best of luck with fixing the video issues, and I hope your new scope helps diagnose and resolve the problem.🙂
Awesome coverage of important computing history!
you deserve more views! lovely video, thanks for posting!
Good video, thx; looking forward for the next ones 👍
Good overview,thank you. I've always been curious about MSX, but even after all these years I haven't looked into them virtually at all.
Keep up the great work ❤
Very interesting, thanks. As someone in the US, these were very exotic. I remember in the early 90s, running Linux, someone was distributing source for an MSX emulator.
That was Marat Fayzullin, and the emulator fMSX. As he didn't accept patches to improve the accuracy my friends started openMSX in 2001...
10:45 That Phonola looks dangerously similar to my Philips MSX...
Because phonola is Philips, and that machine was exactly the same as my very first computer (bought bundled with a set of pans and a VHS video recorder)
Very interesting! My first computer was a Spectravideo SVI-728 MSX. I've been interested in acquiring an MSX-2, knowing more about differences between each model is a valuable information. More videos on what you could do with an MSX-2 in modern days will be very interesting.
Exploring the differences between MSX models can be quite intriguing for enthusiasts. I appreciate your suggestion, and I'll definitely consider creating more content on what you can do with an MSX-2 in modern days!
I remember them, especially the Yamaha one which had a MIDI connector. They didn't do very well here in the UK. People preferred the home grown computers and the C64. I didn't know anyone who had one.
Interesting to hear your perspective! The Yamaha MSX with a MIDI connector sounds like a unique feature. I'm curious, did you have a preference for any particular computer at that time?
Great video, thank you very much!
Great video. Thanks. Very interesting info.
Great channel! Thank You!
I really enjoy your videos. This one is really well researched, keep up the good work 😀
Also... Cool tshirt!!!
Love the T-shirt, not many people know Grendaizer nowadays even in Japan.
Grendizer is very poopular in europe. ( and in France )
I was in Love with my hitbit.
So many good memories of the msx and msx 2 still have the Philips msx 2, thanks for the video and information
I love the old oscilloscope in the back ground, and would enjoy seeing it in operation. About a year ago I built one of Sergey Kiselevs Omega MXS2 home brew systems. It was an enjoyable build and a cool system to play with. This was a great video, please keep them coming.
Thanks a lot for your positive feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I share your appreciation for the old oscilloscope, it's a gem in the background.🙂 I'll definitely consider showcasing it in operation in a future video.
MSX was pretty popular in the Netherlands when I was growing up. I had _no_ idea Microsoft/Bill Gates had a hand in it! Fascinating. 👍
Love seeing these
Great video! Love the Mazinger shirt.
Thank you for another informative video. I didn’t know about those latest msx standards. Very cool, indeed.
Great work thanks for sharing this video...😊 awesome work
Awesome to see people covering the MSX! Great video! 😊❤
Thank you so much for your kind comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the MSX video. If you have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to share them. 😊
Amazing models you have
MSX standard also provided simultaneous use of its slots. As a result, one slot could use extra capabilities placed on one game cart while running another with different capabilities. Early game carts extended sound capabilities, while others extended video abilities. You could activate a game on one cart that used abilities on another (often from the same manufacturer). This was uncommon for the time (most computers only could use one slot). MSX was capable of mapping multiple slots simultaneously. Until the IBM PC, where multiple I/O slots were necessary, this was uncommon for most computers. The only computers that spring to mind were the Atari 400/800 - and when the Atari 600XL/800XL came out this feature was eliminated to put only Atari I/O on the main board except for the bus devices. Atari did have the bus device controller that was the predecessor to USB.
Thanks for sharing such insightful information about the MSX standard! It's fascinating to learn about the simultaneous use of slots, allowing for the activation of different capabilities from various game cartridges. The MSX's ability to map multiple slots simultaneously was quite innovative.
Thanks for posting a video on the end of the year, it was a good surprise. I have memories of my uncle using a TK-2000 (a brazilian brand) computer connected to the television screen and programming it in Assembly, he would type and the computer would make some fun graphics to show us kids back in the days. In my home, the first PC we had access to was a Pentium with Ms-Dos and Windows 3.11. I love to play the skifree game.
I'm delighted that you enjoyed the end-of-year video! Your memories of your uncle programming a TK-2000 connected to a television sound like wonderful nostalgic moments. 🙂It's fantastic how those experiences with early computers, like the Pentium with MS-DOS and Windows 3.11, leave a lasting impression.
Great video, just wanted to make a small suggestion, when you can't say one whole paragraph without cutting, since you can't really reset exactly back to where you were, perhaps try cutting to a picture in between cuts or B-roll stuff so it seems like you said it all in one go with out the visual cuts being noticed. So far I've enjoyed your videos a lot, hope you or your group continue to make more, very informative.
I appreciate your feedback, and it's great to hear that you've been enjoying the videos. I'll definitely keep your suggestion in mind and work towards improving the flow, perhaps using visuals or B-roll to enhance the continuity. If you have any more ideas or thoughts, feel free to share!
thanks for making us remember the history of computers
I enjoy learning about PCs that were popular outside the US. I hope you get your hands on a Yamaha CX5M.
My first computer was a Vic 20 - to get another 64 kilobytes of memory was over $600 lol. I love these old computers. Would have loved one of these! Thank you for the video 😊
my first computer Yaschica YC-64 MSX 😄,btw great vid👍🏻
Thank You for an Informative and educational video
Thank you for watching!
Never heard of it, now I learned something :)
There were quite a lot of them in The Netherlands, due Philips (which is a Dutch company). Back in the day Philips factories had a little store for amployes where they sold porducts with a discount. So besides the C64 it was quite a populair homecomputer over here.
The idea of Philips factories having a store for employees with discounted products must have contributed to their popularity. It's always intriguing how certain brands and distribution methods can influence the adoption of technology.
@@Sayakas_Digital_Attic I think it is a smart move, to promote your products. They did the same thing with the CD-Player for example.
The directional keys were great, like a huge joypad, I don't know why anybody hasn't produced a USB keyboard like that.
年の瀬ですね。年末年始も無理せず健康に注意してがんばってほしいです。
年の瀬のご挨拶, ありがとうございます。がんばりますね。
Nice hope you show more of the MSX capabilities in next videos
Your ending slideshows make me sooo jealous 😜 hope you find time to play with it all.
Thanks for another great video 👍
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Your support means a lot. By the way, I really enjoy your videos too! :)
I like the design language on many of those computers. It's in line with contemporary A/V equipment so they would better fit in the living room maybe?
Growing up in the 80s in Germany, I've never even heard of the MSX. Fascinating... 🤨
Great video, keep it up! ❤
I'm from Germany as well.
I only knew the MSX name from my multi system joysticks. They had a switch on the bottom to choose between systems: ATARI/Commodore/Sega/MSX.
They all used the 9 pin Atari joystick connectors, but with incompatible different pinouts.
Mine was always on the Commode position of course, like it should be 🙃
Sometimes my friend wanted to piss me off and he changed the position to another system and hit the fire button this created a short on my C64 and the C64 made a reset and he didn't lost the game 😅
If I remember correctly MSX computers were quite popular in Finland especially models made by Spectravideo.
MSX was quite popular here in the Netherlands, although not as popular as the C64. And even though the C64 is my favourite computer of all time, the MSX 2 just may be the most complete 8 bit micro of the 80s. I like it more now than I did back then TBH. Silly rivalries you know... :)
There are wonderful exclusive Konami games for the system. Too bad it didn't have more (western) software support. Instead it got too many done-in-a-weekend ZX Spectrum ports...
You have a nice collection! Even a (16 bit) MSX Turbo R! I only have a Philips NMS-8250 MSX 2 myself.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! It's always interesting to hear about the popularity of computers in different regions. The MSX 2 indeed had a unique charm, and it's great that you've come to appreciate it even more over time. :))
Manzinger FTW! Great video and your lab is pretty nice, too! I wish I had set up like that, instead of a dirty garage.
Ah, Mazinger is truly awesome! 😄 Organizing space can be a bit challenging, but I'm pleased that you like my lab.
Thumb up for your Goldrake t-shirt 🙂