The history of MSX computers 

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 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.

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!!

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.

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

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..

Another great video, Thanks x

Love MSX games there loads of classics but sadly never owned a MSX computer.

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.

Nice comprehensive story about the MSX! I knew the computers from my youth, but never heard so much about them!

I was only 16 when I got an MSX. Congratulations and thanks for the video.

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!

MSX? you just got my subscription. I had a MSX from Gradiente from 1987 to 1994 in Brazil.

Yes MSX is still very popular in Brazil until now

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.

I loved my MSX1 from Philips :)

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 🙌

Excellent video. These machines were almost unknown in California and the Silicon Valley.

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. :)

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!

You showed off an interesting collection of MSX units! Very cool!

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

Thanks!

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.

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...

Z80 was a great chip, I really enjoyed coding it. Easily my favorite 8 bit CPU. Had a really good Register setup.

Thank you, I never knew all this about the MSX machines.

Nishi is very active on twitter! hes always answering questions about msx3

Thanks for shedding light on the MSX computers. 👍And I like your shirt, Grendizer (Duke Fleed) and The Great Mazinger, Kugji Abuto and others. 😁

Fantastica! :) I have several MSX machines, love them to bits, my HitBit Mezzo is my favorite. Love the shirt! ciaooo

Preservation of computer history at its finest, thank you.

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.

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!

Thanks for presenting the history of the MSX computers.

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.

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!

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! =)

What a great piece of retro history. Thank you Eleonora.

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。

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.

10:45 That Phonola looks dangerously similar to my Philips MSX...

Keep up the great work ❤

you deserve more views! lovely video, thanks for posting!

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 😉

Looking forwards to this. I have a Yamaha CX5m II/128. Nice machines..

Thank you for your video. Helping to explain the beginnings.

Love the T-shirt, not many people know Grendaizer nowadays even in Japan.

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.

I really enjoy your videos. This one is really well researched, keep up the good work 😀 Also... Cool tshirt!!!

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.

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.

Good video, thx; looking forward for the next ones 👍

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.

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.

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.

Awesome to see people covering the MSX! Great video! 😊❤

Awesome coverage of important computing history!

Great video, thank you very much!

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!

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 😊

So many good memories of the msx and msx 2 still have the Philips msx 2, thanks for the video and information

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.

Great channel! Thank You!

Great video! Love the Mazinger shirt.

Thank you for another informative video. I didn’t know about those latest msx standards. Very cool, indeed.

I enjoy learning about PCs that were popular outside the US. I hope you get your hands on a Yamaha CX5M.

my first computer Yaschica YC-64 MSX 😄,btw great vid👍🏻

Your ending slideshows make me sooo jealous 😜 hope you find time to play with it all.

Growing up in the 80s in Germany, I've never even heard of the MSX. Fascinating... 🤨 Great video, keep it up! ❤

Love seeing these

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.

thanks for making us remember the history of computers

Great video. Thanks. Very interesting info.

The MSX version of Final Fantasy has the BEST music of any port of that game.

Amazing models you have

Great work thanks for sharing this video...😊 awesome work

Grazie per il video! Molto ben fatto.

The directional keys were great, like a huge joypad, I don't know why anybody hasn't produced a USB keyboard like that.

If I remember correctly MSX computers were quite popular in Finland especially models made by Spectravideo.

Never heard of it, now I learned something :)

Thank You for an Informative and educational 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. 👍

Nice hope you show more of the MSX capabilities in next videos

Thanks for another great video 👍

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?

I don't remember when I first noticed your channel, but I enjoy having it among the few tech repair and retro tech channels. Compared to some of your other posts the audio on this one is a bit muffled, particularly the mid and high range frequencies, making it just a little more challenging to listen. Thanks and best wishes.

Manzinger FTW! Great video and your lab is pretty nice, too! I wish I had set up like that, instead of a dirty garage.

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.