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This article is about the computer standard MSX. For other uses, see MSX (disambiguation).
MSX

Sony MSX, Model HitBit-10-P
Type Home computer
Released 1983 (MSX)
Discontinued 1995 (MSXturboR)
Processor Zilog Z80
Memory 16 KB ~ 512 KB
Operating system MSX-DOS / MSX BASIC

MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s. A home computer was a class of Personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit Microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix Kilo -, meaning 1000 is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to either 1024 MSX-DOS is a Disk operating system developed by Microsoft for the 8-bit Home computer standard MSX, and is a cross between MS-DOS MSX BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language. It is an extended version of Microsoft Standard BASIC Version 4 A home computer was a class of Personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989. It was a Microsoft-led attempt to create unified standards among hardware makers, conceived by one-time Microsoft Japan executive Kazuhiko Nishi. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Microsoft Japan, officially is a division of the United States -based Computer technology corporation Microsoft based in Japan. worked for Microsoft during the 1980s as Vice President of the Far East operations Despite Microsoft's involvement, MSX-based machines were seldom seen in the United States but were hugely popular in other markets. Eventually 5 million MSX-based units were sold world-wide.

Nishi proposed MSX as an attempt to create a single industry standard for home computers. A home computer was a class of Personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s Inspired by the success of VHS as a standard for video cassette recorders, many Japanese electronic manufacturers along with Goldstar, Philips and Spectravideo built and promoted MSX computers. PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS IS A GENERAL ARTICLE ABOUT VCRs/VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDERS Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV ( Royal Philips Electronics Inc. Spectravideo, or SVI, was a US Computer company founded in 1981 as "SpectraVision" by Harry Fox Any piece of hardware or software with the MSX logo on it was compatible with MSX products of other manufacturers. In particular, the expansion cartridge form and function were part of the standard; any MSX expansion or game cartridge would work in any MSX computer.

Nishi's standard consisted primarily of several off-the-shelf parts; the main CPU was a 3. In finance or when buying things off the shelf refers to products that have already been designed and made compared to " Made to measure," (or " One-off 58 MHz Zilog Z80, the graphics chip a Texas Instruments TMS9918 with 16 KB (KiB) of dedicated VRAM, the sound was provided by the AY-3-8910 chip manufactured by General Instrument (GI), and an Intel 8255 Programmable Peripheral Interface chip was used for the parallel I/O such as the keyboard (and partly by the I/O ports provided by the AY-3-8910). The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit Microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards A Video Display Controller or VDC is an Integrated circuit which is the main component in a Video signal generator, a device responsible for the production The TMS9918 is a Video Display Controller (VDC manuafactured by Texas Instruments. A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix Kilo -, meaning 1000 is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to either 1024 A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice Programmable Sound Generator (PSG designed by General Instrument, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series General Instrument (GI was an Electronics Manufacturer based in Chicago, IL specializing in Semiconductors and Cable television The Intel 8255 (or i8255) Programmable Peripheral Interface chip is a peripheral chip originally developed for the Intel 8085 microprocessor This was a choice of components that was shared by many other home computers and games consoles of the period, such as the ColecoVision home computer (an emulator was later available with which MSX systems could run some of its software), and the Sega SG-1000 video game system. The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries ' second generation home Video game console and was released in August. The, which stands for Sega Game 1000, is a cartridge-based Video game console manufactured by Sega. Most MSX systems soon starting to integrate not only the common "glue logic" components but also the Z80 CPU, the sound chip, the 8255 PIO and the Video Display Processor into a single chip, called an MSX-Engine chip. In Electronics, glue logic is the custom Electronic circuitry needed to achieve compatible interfaces between two (or more different off-the-shelf Integrated An MSX-ENGINE chip is a specially developed Integrated circuit for home computers that are built according to the MSX specifications The result was that one only needed an MSX-Engine chip and some ROM and RAM chips to build a basic system, which greatly reduced production costs. However, almost all MSX systems used a professional keyboard, not a chiclet keyboard, which drove the price up again. A chiclet keyboard is slang for a Computer keyboard built with an array of small flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like Erasers or So these components alongside Microsoft's MSX BASIC made the MSX a competitive, though somewhat expensive, home computer package. MSX BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language. It is an extended version of Microsoft Standard BASIC Version 4

The system MSX most closely resembled was the Spectravideo SV-328 home computer (Spectravideo even claimed to be "MSX compatible" in advertisements before the actual launch of MSX systems) but it was in fact not completely compatible with it. The SV-328 was the business-targeted model of the Spectravideo range sporting a rather crowded full-travel keyboard with Numeric keypad, and no built-in This led to a new and short-lived kind of software cracking: converting. Software cracking is the modification of Software to remove protection methods Copy prevention, trial/demo version serial number hardware key CD check Since the MSX games were unplayable on the SV-328 computer, SV-328 crackers developed a method of modifying the (MSX) games to make them work on the SV-328. In most cases this included downloading the MSX BIOS to the SV-328 from tape or floppy disk. In Computing, the BIOS (ˈbaɪoʊs Spectravideo later launched a system, the SV-728, which did completely adhere to the MSX standard. The SVI-728 was the first Home computer from Spectravideo that complied fully with the MSX home computer specification

Before the appearance and great success of the Nintendo Famicom, MSX was the platform for which major Japanese game studios, such as Konami and Hudson Soft, produced their titles. The Nintendo Entertainment System (often abbreviated as NES or simply Nintendo) is an 8-bit Video game console that was released by () is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys Trading cards, Anime, Tokusatsu, Slot machines Hudson Soft Company Limited is a Japanese Electronic entertainment publisher The Metal Gear series was originally written for MSX hardware. is a critically acclaimed series of Stealth games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. [1]

Contents

History

The Canon V-20 had 64K of RAM while its little brother, the V-10, had 16K.
The Canon V-20 had 64K of RAM while its little brother, the V-10, had 16K.

In the 1980s Japan was in the midst of an economic awakening. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Large Japanese electronics firms may have been successful in the early computer market had they made a concerted effort in the late 1970s. This article is about the Decade 1970-1979 For the Year 1970 see 1970. Their combined design and manufacturing power could have allowed them to produce competitive machines, but they initially ignored the home computer market and appear to have been hesitant to do business in a market where no industry standard existed.

The MSX was formally announced during a press-conference in June 27, 1983 (a date that is considered the birthday of the MSX standard) and a slew of big Japanese firms declared their plans to introduce machines. This set off a wave of panic in the U.S. and UK industry. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the However, the Japanese companies avoided the intensely competitive U. S. home computer market, which was in the throes of a Commodore-led price war. Commodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a US-American Electronics company based in West Chester Pennsylvania Price war is a term used in Business to indicate a state of intense competitive rivalry accompanied by a multi-lateral series of price reductions Only Spectravideo and Yamaha briefly marketed MSX machines in the U. S. Spectravideo's MSX enjoyed very little success, and Yamaha's CX5M model, built to interface with various types of MIDI equipment, was billed more as a digital music tool than a standard personal computer.

During the 1980s Europe became the largest computer games (as opposed to console games) market in the world, and the extremely popular Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum computers dominated. By the time the MSX launched in Europe several more popular 8-bit home computers had also arrived, and it was far too late to capture the extremely crowded European 8-bit computer market.

A problem for some game software developers was that the method by which MSX-1 computers addressed their video ram (to draw a picture on the screen) could be quite slow compared to systems that gave direct access to the video memory.

Because accessing video memory involved first outputting the low then the hi bytes of the video memory address to I/O port $99, then the 8-bit data to port $98. MSX-1's video chip did have a "memory pointer auto-advance", so consecutive addresses could be written to with repeated OUT instructions to $98.

However because of the screen layout, (which was top-down for each character of 8 lines then advancing to the next character) this was difficult to use for programmers who tried to convert existing software originally written for another system (such as the Sinclair Spectrum). So when trying to use the MSX-1 high resolution mode video memory in the conventional way this method of indirect-access could be far slower than in other 8-bit computers whose CPUs could usually access their screen memory directly, like any other piece of RAM. Consequently MSX-1 machines could be inefficient at certain graphical tasks, such as scrolling games, which entailed moving the entire background memory.

To increase the speed to an acceptable level this could then only be done in 8-pixel steps, which looked primitive in comparison to the 1 or 2 pixel scrolling steps available to the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 machines (although the Commodore 64 also used 8-pixel steps it had a fine-scroll register which could compensate for this, the MSX-1 did not).

The MSX-1 video chip did have some features to make up for this shortfall, for example a programmable character set which allowed indirection, and by having 32 hardware sprites. A limitation of the sprites however was that in their highest resolution they were only 16x16 pixels, and single-color (with transparency).

A bigger drawback though was that in reality there were only 4 sprites available on any one picture line, and attempting to have a 5th sprite on the same line as the four others would result in flickering or missing pixel lines.

However, there were some tricks available to circumvent the scrolling and other speed related problems by using clever programming techniques and video chip capabilities that were not available in the Sinclair Spectrum (the UK system most resembling MSX-1, and the source of most games that were ported to MSX).

By using an undocumented text mode that supported multiple colors, and by using the built in re programmable fonts, it was possible to combine high resolution graphics with faster scrolling while also being able to use sprites.

However, programmers that ported programs from other systems often failed to use this technique, and tried to use the MSX-1 as if it was a Spectrum. It is notable that games that were written from scratch, (mostly by Japanese programmers) made much better use of the extended capabilities of MSX-1's video chip. Also notable is that most of these video problems described above were fixed with the newer MSX-2 video chips, especially the limitations for the sprites were removed. By that time however 16 bit systems like the Amiga and Atari ST had started to dominate the market. The Amiga is a family of Personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. The Atari ST is a home / Personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s

There were also some minor compatibility issues which plagued ported Spectrum games. Such as the Toshiba HX-10 machine being unable to read certain key combinations at the same time, (preventing the Spectrum-'standard' of Q,A, O,P steering) whereas machines by other manufacturers worked fine. Later (ported) games tended to use the MSX-1 joystick port or used MSX's official arrow keys and space bar, (or offered the option to choose other keys to control the program with) which solved the problem.

A larger problem was that the designers of the MSX standard bank switching protocol did not prescribe to hardware manufacturers in which banks the cartridges, but more important RAM should be found, and the MSX's BIOS did not provide this information either, thus requiring programmers to write complex routines to "find" these resources. In Computing, the BIOS (ˈbaɪoʊs Often programmers did not bother, (or know) and just assumed that the RAM and cartridges would be available at an (imagined) "default" bankswitch location. Which then lead to problems, because such "default" locations did not really exist. Some systems had their RAM or cartridge slot(s) not at the "default" location, but on another bankswitch location (which was completely allowed by the MSX specification). In those cases these sloppy written programs failed to run because they only "saw" 32K of the available memory, instead of the full 64K that almost all MSX-1 machines offered[2].

Consequently, MSX never became the worldwide standard that its makers had envisioned, mainly because it never took off in the United States and the UK. In Japan and South Korea, MSX was the paramount home computer system in the 1980s. South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often referred to as Korea ( Korean: 대한민국 tɛː The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989. It was also quite popular in Europe (except in the UK). Especially in the Netherlands and Spain, but also in Brazil, some Arab countries and the Soviet Union, where classes of networked Yamaha MSX2 were used for teaching informatics in school. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Informatics is the science of Information, the practice of Information processing, and the engineering of Information systems.

The Hotbit, developed by Sharp and marketed by Epcom, was a hit in Brazil.
The Hotbit, developed by Sharp and marketed by Epcom, was a hit in Brazil. () is a Japanese Electronics manufacturer founded in 1912 It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions the Ever-Sharp Mechanical pencil, which |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld

The exact meaning of the 'MSX' abbreviation remains a matter of debate. At the time, most people seemed to agree it meant 'Microsoft eXtended', referring to the built-in MSX-BASIC programming language, specifically adapted by Microsoft for the MSX system. In Computer programming, BASIC (an Acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of High-level programming languages However, according to Kazuhiko Nishi during a recent visit to Tilburg in the Netherlands, MSX stands for 'Machines with Software eXchangeability'. The MSX-DOS disk operating system had file system compatibility with CP/M and was similar to MS-DOS. MSX-DOS is a Disk operating system developed by Microsoft for the 8-bit Home computer standard MSX, and is a cross between MS-DOS In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers is an Operating system originally created for Intel 8080 / 85 based Microcomputers by Gary Kildall MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. In this way, Microsoft could promote MSX for home use while promoting MS-DOS based personal computers in office environments. MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated

MSX spawned four generations: MSX (1983), MSX2 (1986), MSX2+ (1988) and MSXturboR (1990). Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar) Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) The first three were 8-bit computers based on the Z80 microprocessor, while the MSXturboR was based on an enhanced Zilog Z800 known as the R800. A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a Central processing unit (CPU on a single Integrated The Zilog Z800 was a 16-bit Microprocessor designed by Zilog to be released in 1985. The R800 is the Central processing unit used in the MSX Turbo-R Home computer. The MSXturboR was introduced in 1990 but was unsuccessful due to a lack of support and the rise in popularity of the by then well-established IBM PC Compatible market. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Production of the Turbo R ended in 1995. Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995

In total, 5 million MSX computers were sold, which made it relatively popular but not the global standard it was intended to be. For a comparison with rival 8-bit computers, the Commodore 64 sold 17 million units worldwide in its lifetime, the Apple II sold 6 million units[3], the Amstrad CPC sold 3 million units, and the Tandy TRS-80 sold 250,000 units. The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit Home computers produced by Amstrad Plc during the 1980s and early 1990s TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation 's desktop Microcomputer model line sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early

In the 80's, Sakhr Computers (a Kuwaiti company), started the production line of the first Arabian version of MSX computers. The State of Kuwait ( دولة الكويت IPA [dawlatt̪ alkuwajt̪]) is a sovereign Arab Emirate on the coast of the Persian Gulf, enclosed One of the most popular and affordable models was Sakhr MSX AX170.

Many MSX computers were used during 80's in Eastern European (former communist block) countries as a perfect tool for subtitling pirated films on VHS, or BETAMAX cassettes. The MSX computers were used for their simplicity and it's ability to display prepared titles in real time as superimpose text on mastering tapes.

MSX Revival

1chipMSX
1chipMSX

Franchises established on the MSX

Konami's Metal Gear made its debut for MSX2 before the release of its reworked counterpart for the NES.
Konami's Metal Gear made its debut for MSX2 before the release of its reworked counterpart for the NES. (commonly abbreviated MG) is a Stealth game designed by Hideo Kojima. The Nintendo Entertainment System (often abbreviated as NES or simply Nintendo) is an 8-bit Video game console that was released by

The most popular and famous MSX games were written by Japanese software-house Konami and several popular video game franchises were established on the MSX:

Others got various installments on the MSX, including some titles unique to the system or largely reworked versions of games on other formats:

Manufacturers of MSX computers

System specs

MSX

Philips MSX, Model VG-8020
Philips MSX, Model VG-8020

MSX2

MSX2+

MSX2+ computer: a Panasonic FS-A1WSX.
MSX2+ computer: a Panasonic FS-A1WSX.

MSXturboR

Peripherals

Floppy disk drives

MSX systems generally did not have a built-in disk drive, so games were published mainly on cartridge and cassette tape. Floppy disk drives were available for MSX however, in the form of a cartridge containing the disk interface electronics and a BIOS extension ROM (the floppy disk drive interface), connected to an external case with the drive. A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased In South-America, many of these systems used a 5¼" floppy disk drives, but in Europe, mostly the 3. 5" drives were popular.

Later in the 1980s the MSX2 was released, which systems often (but not always) included a built-in 3. 5" disk drive, and consequently the popular media for games and other software shifted to floppy disks.

The MSX 3. 5" floppy disks are directly compatible with MS-DOS (although some details like file undeletion and boot sector code were different). Undeletion is a feature for restoring Computer files which have been removed from a File system by File deletion. A boot sector (sometimes called a bootblock) is a sector of a Hard disk, Floppy disk, or similar Data storage device that contains Like MS-DOS 1, MSX disks (formatted) under MSX-DOS 1 have no support for subdirectories. [1]

MSX-Audio

MSX-Music

Emulation

Main article: List of MSX emulators

MSX computers are one of the most emulated platforms today, with versions for almost any platform, including mobile phones. Yamaha Y8950 is a Sound chip, produced in 1984 This model was used in MSX-Audio cartridge for MSX personal computer The YM2413, also called OPLL is a cost-reduced Sound chip manufactured by Yamaha Corporation and based on their YM3812 (OPL2 A list of MSX Emulators An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to Most MSX emulators are or were based on the code of the pioneer fMSX, (homepage) a portable MSX emulator by Marat Fayzullin. fMSX is a portable MSX emulator written by Marat Fayzullin, one of the pioneers of modern computer emulation fMSX source code license isn't free and many emulators removed Fayzullin's Z80 emulation code entirely in later versions to avoid legal problems.

The official MSX emulator is MSXPLAYer (Homepage) (Japanese site) produced by the MSX Association (Japanese site), of which MSX standard inventor Kazuhiko Nishi is president. worked for Microsoft during the 1980s as Vice President of the Far East operations

MSX is also emulated in the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console, with games available for download officially (in Japan only, but it was also announced that North America will get MSX games too, but it's unknown if Europe will receive MSX support. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on Virtual Console, sometimes abbreviated as VC, is a specialized section of the Wii Shop Channel, an online service that allows players to purchase and download )

See also

References

  1. ^ Kojima Productions History
  2. ^ With very few exceptions, except for a very early Phillips MSX-1 model, (the VG8000) and the SVI-318 almost all other mainstream MSX-1 machines offered at least the full 64K of RAM
  3. ^ Mac Daily News 5 to 6 million Apple IIs sold

External links

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