10 Amazing MSX2 Facts

Runner [Music] this episode represents the first time I've done a follow-up to an existing amazing facts video as I previously looked at the original MSX computer back in June 2021 as always I've linked this in the description I'm sure many will find this surprising but I'm well aware of how passionate the MSX Community is so I have to say I wasn't all that shocked you might even see more MSX related episodes in the future too if you consider that I could also look at the MSX Turbo R and the zemix console too although the msx2 won its respective pole due to those votes from its many fans it was pushed very hard by the clico atom which was a huge surprise when you consider how much for a failure that computer was and its North American only release I think we'll definitely be coming back to that machine again in the future interesting maybe Adam Hardware is extremely close to the MSX standard itself so that would have very much been a related video too but before we get into those amazing facts I just want to round off a little bit of info to get us started the original MSX machines arrived in 1983 has the first attempt to create a common home computer standard and soon dominated the Japanese Market before experiencing a great deal of success in parts of Europe too particularly the Netherlands and Spain as well as Brazil Korea and even more surprisingly North Africa a joint project between Microsoft Japan Spectra video and the ASCII Corporation the hardware was rather unique for the time in that it was licensed out to different manufacturers to make their own machines almost the moment the MSX came out on the market the designers and Engineers started work on the follow-up but by the time the msx2 arrived on the scene two years later in 1985 the hardware was in full control of the ASCII Corporation Spectra video had dropped out during the development of the original MSX and Microsoft had taken a backward step to focus on the emergence of the IBM PC compatible and their own MS-DOS operating system now we've got that bit of History out the way it's time to expand on the meat of the matter a bit more as we look at 10 amazing msx2 facts [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's a song probably the most obvious thing to point out with regards to the msx2 is the fact that it's fully backwards compatible with the existing MSX Hardware this was part of the forward-thinking philosophy of Bill Gates and kazaneshi when they were developing the ms6 standard creating a lineage of compatible Hardware much like the modern IBM PC standard of course upgraded 8 Bits with backwards compatibility weren't a new thing by any means we have seen similar examples from other parts of the world like the Commodore 128 amstrad CPC plus and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k but most of these were merely after thoughts rather than upgrades being planned in advance with a clear road map like we saw with the msx-2 many of the main players who produced msx1 micros also released new versions of the hardware too as the likes of Philips Sony Mitsubishi Panasonic and Yamaha produced msx-2 compatible computers not as many manufacturers bought into the new standard as before foreign mentioned the msx2 offered a pretty considerable upgrade on the existing MSX standard putting it more in line with 16-bit computers of the era like the FM towns NEC pc98 and the Atari St ack but how much of an improvement I hear you ask well let's look at that a bit closer now shall we so let's start with the graphics as that's the most striking Improvement the the widely used Texas Instruments VDP has been replaced with a new Yamaha v9938 that offered up new bitmap video modes without the attribute Clash of msx1 higher resolutions including 512 times 212 with 16 colors and for palette of 512 and 256 times 212 in 256 glorious colors there's also more advanced Sprite Engine with support for 32 on screen and 16 colors with a maximum of 8 per horizontal line although less obvious features include the hardware acceleration for copy line and fill Hardware interlacing to double up the vertical resolution a vertical scroll register and a display offset register however there is still no horizontal Hardware scrolling which is undoubtedly the biggest floor of the new hardware and this left consumers and critics feeling quite amused although the zylog z80a CPU is exactly the same it does have a higher amount of ram to call on at least 64k but usually 128k and u48k ROM with extended basic amongst other things considerably higher 128k video RAM a slightly different but functionally the same sound chip and a new clock chip these many improvements were certainly very obvious when you look at those games foreign were the msx2 still had his critics people were most miffed by the lack of a new upgraded sound chip and the incomprehensible lack of horizontal Hardware scrolling as I mentioned in the last entry so the engineers went back to the drawing board briefly to create a new ms62 plus setup which many MSX fans will argue is exactly what the msx-2 should have been in the first place the ms62 plus standard included version 3 of MSX basic an upgraded VDP in the form of the new Yamaha v9958 which featured several new video modes as well as the all-imported horizontal scrolling and the option of a new Yamaha ym-2413 sound chip which is usually referred to as MSX music this offered up FM synthesis across nine channels and was found in many arcade Machines of the era as well as the Sega Master System FM unit and many Yamaha keyboards of course unfortunately the msx2 plus standard came far too late to make a difference arriving in 1988 some three years after the first msx2 machines because of this it was only ever found in Japanese versions of the hardware although there were upgrades available to people in Brazil and Europe who wanted to enhance their existing Hardware the original MSX machines soon gained a reputation for being gaming computers above anything else and the msx2 upgrade was very much the same in this regard especially as the vast majority of the hardware improvements were made with video games in mind the MSX is often credited with being the original home of many famous franchises including the likes of Antarctic Adventure Bomberman parodius Xanax and Adventure Island by the ms62 is also particularly important in this regard but doesn't seem to get the same level of credit amongst the famous franchises that were first seen on the new improved Hardware are Poyo Poyo space manbo metal gear lsday and Castlevania although the last two on that list could be argued as Castlevania released first on the famicom disc system in Japan but the MSX version known as Vampire killer was first in Europe although both versions were developed concurrently in the case of a less day the sake of our system version was released a month earlier with the ms62 iteration add a lot more content including two extra stages again both versions were developed at the same time of course there are many other hugely popular franchises that appeared on the ms6 too as well as other machines including the likes of Contra ease Dragon Quest Final Fantasy and Lupine the Third the plus wasn't the only follow-up to the msx2 hardware there was also one final hurray in the form of the MSX Turbo R which was released in 1990 in Japan only the Turbo R was actually the replacement for a planned msx-3 which was originally scheduled to be released in 1990 but delays in the development of its Yamaha design VDP caused it to miss its production deadline and it was subsequently canceled due to the declining popularity in the MSX range in its Homeland called Souls like the Nintendo famicom PC engine and the new 16-bit Sega Mega Drive had very much taken over the gaming market and PC compatibles were beginning to dominate The Home Computing sector the new turbo oil computer was developed by Panasonic who by this time the only company left producing MSX hardware and was the only MSX to not be an 8-bit as it was based on a new custom 16-bit r800 microprocessor developed by ASCII Corporation this was originally intended for the msx3 and offered up a good degree of backwards compatibility with the zylog z80 sadly the Turbo R was far from a success and was discontinued in 1993 so Panasonic could concentrate on the launch of their new 32-bit 3DO console one of the key features in the design of the MSX computer was the built-in cartridge pool which was one of the main reasons it became so well known for its gaming capabilities aside from cartridges it was also possible to connect disk drives and tape decks but ROM carts remained for the preferred format well in its homeland of Japan anyway but the most noticeable design feature of the new msx2 computers was the addition of a disk drive on the side both of the new models featured a built-in 3.5 inch floppy disk drive although there were a few cheaper variants that didn't and that meant that support for disk based software very much became more prevalent and aside from a few die-hard companies like Konami and taito most software houses switched to releasing their games on the much lower cost disks rather than expensive carts it's also worth noting that the new version of MSX dos could not only support CPM but also had a file system compatible with MS-DOS its user commands were also similar to early mss.versions too and with this Microsoft could promote the MSX for home use whilst also promoting its ms-dos-based personal computers for more serious office environments whilst all msx2 computers are essentially the same with them all being based on the same Hardware standard of course there are some individual features that set different models apart a lot of these are pretty superficial such as the pizza box design versus a traditional all-in-one unit but there is one particular model that offers something pretty special Panasonic's msx2 models have the unique ability to overclock the CPU allowing you to run it at around 1.5 times faster than the standard speed this new 5.37 megahertz mode is only available through software though and is not documented as a standard feature of the computer however hackers encoders have certainly found some interesting uses for it over the years especially in the demo scene this of course makes the Panasonic models the most sought after amongst hardcore msx2 collectors so expect to pay a bit more for them on online auction sites like eBay foreign X by now a Korean only MSX based console for those that aren't I suggest watching my Standalone video on the system which I'll link in the description like the MSX computers the Cemex also went through several different Hardware revisions and amongst those you'll find the Deus cpc61 also known as the xemix Super V which is an msx2 based version of the console released in 1990 for those wondering Cemex translates to it's fun and the V at the end stood for victory there are two color variations of this console the white which is the cpc61w and the black which is the cpc61b the super fee has a single cartridge slot two joystick ports and a standard RF output it's also possible to add a specialty designed keyboard the cpk30 and a disk drive interface can also be added via the cartridge slot as such it can be upgraded into a regular msx2 computer which is why the machine has the msx2 logo proudly displayed on the cartridge slot flap unlike the original xemix which didn't have any MSX branding at all one of the latest developments in the MSX Community is a smooth scroll routine for the msx2 plus that can be applied to existing MSX games to get rid of that horrible jerky scrolling the lack of Hardware scrolling on the original MSX machines has long been a bug wear of Gamers and a lot of people have put off the MSX because of the way many of its famous games scroll so far this patch has only been applied to the MSX version of Nemesis 2 but there is already talk of adding the routine to a version of its follow-up and other games especially shoot mops that suffer from character block scrolling this new enhanced version of the game doesn't just feature smooth scrolling however it also adds extra color on msx2 and above and improves the game speed slightly too on those machines you can see in this video how much better the game looks with these new fixes applied so I can't wait to see how it can be applied to other MSX games to make them more attractive and ultimately a lot more playable too foreign attempts to rebuild and relaunch the MSX computers over the years and bring them to the bottom generation including the likes of the zemix Neo great bit and mini IQ 3000 QT but by far the best of these reimaginings is the MSX virtualizer AKA msxvr this new computer is compatible at software and Hardware level with the MSX standard and its entire family including the msx2 and Turbo R as well as other Machines of the same era such as aesthetic Spectrum amstrad CPC Commodore 64 clecovision and Sega sg-1000 like the Cemex Neo this is also based on a Raspberry Pi with additional custom circuitry so you can connect the original MSX peripherals because of this Hardware base it also offers up a perfect game development environment for The Homebrew Community with tools for programming both VR basic and VR script a very Vibrant Community has now sprung up around the MSX VR and I've dropped a link in the description to the official website so you can find out more for those wondering this new MSX computer costs just under 400 euros so it certainly isn't cheap sadly [Music] everybody everybody [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and that rounds out my look at 10 amazing MSX 2 facts which of these fabulous facts was your favorite or can you think of any other tantalizing tidbits of trivia that I didn't include we'll also love to hear the thoughts and views of my audience so please get Topic in that comment section before I go though I must thank 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Channel: The Laird's Lair

Views: 13,935

Keywords: MSX, MSX2, Microsoft, Panasonic, Toshiba, Yamaha, Casio, Sanyo, Mitsubishi, Turbo R, 8-bit, MSX2+, ASCII Corporation, Kaz Nishi, Bill Gates, MSX Music, PSG, Facts, Trivia, Fact Hunt, MSXVR, Zemmix, Disk, Super V, Daewoo, Nemesis, Gradius, Metal Gear, Castlevania, Vampire Killer, Sony, Hit-Bit, Philips, Parodius, Hudson Soft, Bomber Man, Virtualizer, Konami, Contra, DOS, Japan, Final Fantasy, Space Manbow, Korea, Cartridge, Tape, Advert, Commercial, Hitachi, FM Unit, MSX3, BASIC, Outrun, 1942, Pac-Mania, Tetris, Hardball

Id: Ob0QOuWyddY

Length: 18min 4sec (1084 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 31 2022