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Welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to retrocomputers and vintage electronics. I'm at Varese Retrocomputing 2023 together with Fabio Massa. You also have your nickname as… BioMassa! BioMass? Why BioMassa? But, it's a bit difficult to imagine: they removed an ago and the bio remained, so BioMassa. BioMass. It also adapts a little to my physicality... But we won't comment on this because... I have always remained like this, I have been like this for years. so, in short... BioMassa anyway. Let's say you have other hobbies besides the computer? Yes: sports, rather than comics, we share a passion for martial arts, so that's fine. Exactly, exactly. What, what do you want to talk to me about here, about these computers? So, here we have brought a small selection of MSX computers. Computers that… MSX was a standard, a standard that was created in 1983. The intention was to have multiple brands of PC and computer manufacturers, home computers in this case not personal computers, sharing the same software, therefore using the same operating system, however the same Basic, the same features and all the games and programs that came out for the MSX standard could run on all machines.
There were many manufacturers: Philips, Sony, Phonola, which, to tell the truth, used Philips, Panasonic, Toshiba machines, all with the exact same characteristics. The shape changed of course, but the processor, RAM, type of Basic was the exact same.
The MSX has had an evolution. The MSX standard starting with MSX1, released in 1983, had a large diffusion in Japan but in Europe, let's say, it had medium success. In Holland it had a good diffusion thanks to the fact that Philips was Dutch and directly produced the machine. In Spain it had a very good diffusion, unfortunately in Italy, in England and in other European countries it did not have this great success and this also limited the release of the games, which then made the real success of the machine.
The successor to the MSX1 was the MSX2. This one at the bottom. This is the Philips NMS 8220 model, the year of production is 1987. This is not very common, am I wrong? This is a rather uncommon version, the NMS 8235 and 8245 versions were more famous, which were sold much more in Italy. This was almost unknown. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her. It is practically the same machine, the same body as the Philips VG-8020, but with the MSX2 chips. It had a different graphics chip, the processor was still the same, this version has 64k of RAM. In truth, the MSX2s almost all had 128k of RAM, with the floppy disk also integrated. So it was a bit of a zapped version of the MSX2, but I brought it because it's very rare to find, even in this good condition, it's hard to find. This has the floppy disk in it, you said? This one doesn't have a floppy disk. In fact, it doesn't even have the Basic disk ROM, which the other MSXs do have.
Then the successor to the MSX2 was the MSX2 Plus, therefore the last official MSX version and we don't even have a single example of it here. Then there was a version of the MSX, let's say in quotes, unofficial, which is this version here: the MSX Turbo R. It changed the processor, as it no longer has the Z80, but has an R800, which is a more powerful, faster processor, compatible with the Z80. It was only released in Japan and was produced by Panasonic. This is the only type of MSX Turbo R with these features, there are no others. I see that it has a dual language keyboard, therefore with Japanese and also Latin characters. Of course, absolutely the Japanese MSXs had dual languages too, especially the MSX2s. Obviously the European version, therefore the Philips MSX, such as the Fenner, the Goldstar, which were MSX oriented to the European market, did not have the double language on the keyboard. Instead these Japanese MSXs, especially the MSX2, the 2 Plus and, of course, the Turbo R had a dual language keyboard, so it was possible to write in kanji.
Even the text in the Turbo R's demo mode which features a small word processor, rather than small tools, is all in Japanese. Yes, that's right, you see everything in Japanese: you don't understand anything. Oh God, it must be said that this is katakana, hiragana, so in truth if one learns a little bit of Japanese maybe he will understand a little, but in short it always took a good effort, it wasn't very simple.
There are also a couple of games here, the Konami Football one, one of Konami's first football games. So we can say that it is the grandfather of PES, of Pro Evolution Soccer, of Konami. And this is the first, one of the first versions of Castlevania, in the MSX version it was called, in the English version, Vampire Killer, while the Japanese name was identical to Akumajo Dracula, which was a little different from the version released for Famicom, and therefore for the NES, but basically it was the same game, with a slightly different dynamic. And that was the first version, I wanted to bring these games a bit because they were a bit of symbols of what modern games have become, because even now Konami produces PES and there are still Castlevania games that are still being released today, so they are sagas that began with the MSX or almost... They began thousands of years ago, 40 years ago, and they still continue. Almost 40 years ago and now they are still continuing, with great success!
Well, a curious thing about the MSX machines, compared to other, let's say, more widespread retrocomputers, such as the Commodore 64 and the Spectrum, is that in the retro collectibles market these machines are acquiring a value, which is hard to understand why it is so high! Because finding a good MSX in the used market now doesn't go below 100 euros. Yes, there are many machines that have acquired value especially in the last two years, they can be... the Commodore PET comes to mind rather than the Commodore SX-64. No, no I'm talking... Here the SX-64 is a bit of a special case, but here the MSXs were home computers that had a certain diffusion, it's not that they can't be found. They are found! Yet they had a value, they have a high value. Despite having a large diffusion, they maintain a fairly high value. Exactly, let's not talk about some games, for example Metal Gear which is a saga born on the MSX, Metal Gear especially Metal Gear Solid, which is the second chapter of Metal Gear, have simply unattainable prices, from the point of view of retro collecting.
A copy of Metal Gear Solid 2, in fair condition, cannot be found for less than 800 euros at the moment. 800 euros? 800 euros for a game! You have to put your salary in there! Exactly, this is why I don't have it. Or you took it first! Not much, 10 years ago you couldn't find it for less than 300.
Ok, but now you would have tripled! Now I would have tripled it, but I didn't have 300 euros before and I don't have 800 euros now to spend on a game. So that's it. But, in short, let's say this is a small selection of this particular standard, MSX, which among other things was a standard founded by Kazuhiko Nishi's ASCII Corporation and by Bill Gates with Microsoft. In fact, MSX Basic is Microsoft Basic. MSX Basic is basically a modified GW Basic for MSX machines. Yes, maybe when you turn the machine off and on… it starts in Basic. Absolutely yes, the machine when you turn it off and start up with Basic. In the MSX1 version 1.0, in the MSX2 version 2.0 and so on. Here, in fact, in this version of the MSX, that of the Turbo R, the Basic is still from Microsoft, in version 2.01. So, in short, a Basic that had excellent potential. In fact, the MSX is a computer that has had a huge diffusion in schools in Japan. That's why it was so widespread, that's why companies like Konami decided to invest so much in the production of games and Konami, obviously, like all Japanese productions, was among the few houses that, when they produced a game for MSX, did it in native mode, therefore exploiting the machine. While the European software houses mainly made almost equal conversions from the Spectrum games, because obviously it was a little easier for them, due to the Z80 CPU.
The time to market was faster, as they say, but in reality they exploited the potential of the machine less. Not only that, the game was even slower than on the Spectrum, because while on the Spectrum the graphics were drawn directly by the CPU, they were written to the RAM and then read by the video processor, on the MSX to write to the video memory you have to use specific functions, which however slow down, so the result is that, more often than not, a game on the MSX, converted directly from the Spectrum, was slower than the Spectrum itself. Yet the processor was the same (Z80), there was this thing that MSX owners have never forgiven the European software houses. There has always been a bit of a bad taste left in the mouth, so much so that many MSX fanatics still maintain that the MSX was actually more powerful than its rivals Spectrum and Commodore 64. Let's say that, compared to the Spectrum, it was decidedly more powerful, on the Commodore 64 it had different potential. However, if used well, the MSX is a machine that did some good things. He could have done a lot more. Certainly, but the lack of diffusion has not created a market and, if there is no market, there is no one who will invest in it.
However currently there is still a very good MSX homebrew market. A lot of enthusiasts still develop it, with excellent results, because naturally producing something, software for an old machine, nowadays is much simpler, thanks to emulation, thanks to the possibility of debugging, thanks to the fact that the machine is known, now we know what a single bit is. And, above all, thanks to the internet, because now information travels very quickly. Before finding technical information on the MSX... to recover the MSX technical manual you had to know someone who had it and who would photocopy it for you, then it was fine and you managed to have a nice document in your hand, which helped you do good programming. But otherwise you had no information. You had no information and you had to try, you tried, you tried anyway. But it was very difficult. Instead, now the information and the possibility of testing is much more immediate, so producing a game or homebrew on an MSX is faster and also costs less in terms of time. Even if one, in fact, does it out of passion and the results are exceptional. Thank you very much, Fabio Massa. Thank you. Nice to meet you as usual, it was a great presentation, keep following me for more videos on vintage computers and see you! Bye bye. HI.