MSX (#1a)

Picture of the Toshiba HX-10 MSX This here was my first computer. I was 6 years old and this mighty machine was standing in a corridor on my old school. Because we had nothing better to do, my best friend and I began playing with this MSX-1 system. This HC was actually ours, because we were the only ones who knew how to operate it. All we did was program in the MSX-Basic language (there wasn't anything else to do, we didn't have any games or something).

CPU	Z80A 3.58MHz
RAM	64kB
ROM	32kB (containing BASIC programming lanuage)
video	TMS 9929A with 16kB video memory; connectable to monitor or TV capable of displaying 40x24 text, or upto 256x192 (16 colors) graphics
sound	PSG AY-3-8910 (8 octaves, triple chord); far ahead of any PC-speaker
I/O	FSK 1200/2400 baud audio cassette interface. An external diskdrive could also be connected.
input	MSX-ROM cardridge on top of the case (just like NES cardridges) keyboard 73 keys build-in on system case
ports	2x joystick/mouse port (9pins female) Centronics parallel printer interface (we had a leet matrix printer; woot!)
monitor	12" greyscale (black-green) most of the time; sometimes a TV (big screen, colors..)
power	AC240V 50Hz 17W power consumption
size	width 37.0cm; height 6.0cm; depth 24.5cm; weight 2.8kg!!!

MSX-2 (#2)

When our school fused with another, we got access to a new HC: a real MSX-2 system! This was an improvement! This HC had even got an in-buid 720kB floppy drive! This way we could save our programs a lot faster than on those slow cassette tapes. But we also got our first MSX-ROM cartridges with full games like Nemesis 3 which were better and would run instantanious. Later we also got floppy disks with (mostly Konami-)games like Hyper Rally.

CPU	Z80A 3.5MHz
RAM	128kB
ROM	64kB (48kB MSX2, 16kB BASIC)
video	YM-9938 VDP with 128kB; connectable to monitor or TV capable of 80x24 text, or upto 512x212 (16 colors) or 256x212 (256 colors) graphics
sound	PSG S-3527 (about the same as the AY-3-8910)
I/O	FDD build-in 3.5" DS/DD 720kB! No more tapes! FSK 1200/2400 baud audio cassette interface
input	MSX-ROM cardridge on top of the case and one on the back keyboard 73 keys build-in on system case
ports	2x female 9-pin ports (joystick/mouse) Centronics parallel printer interface
monitor	Another green-black 12" monitor or TV.
size	width 40.1cm; height 8.2cm; depth 27.7cm

Like the Toshiba MSX it's also very small and light. Take it anywhere you want. Then: connect it to a normal TV or monitor (normal coax connection on the back, as well as a monitor connection), give it some electricity, and you're ready to go! Very easy. I've moved it a lot from school to home and back, I wonder how it could survive (well, the floppy drive didn't )-:

This text ain't finished yet: I'm gonna tell you something about MSX-emulators....

boxes (15.IV.99) created in 0.09s -- Valid HTML4