Any collectors of MSX or X68000?

[TheRogue]

Ok here's some pics. The X68000 just arrived today, and the monitor hasn't arrived yet (tracking says it's waiting for delivery so it should be here either tomorrow or Thursday since tomorrow is a holiday and I don't know if there is delivery service or not) , so I just have pics of the machine and accessories, no pics of it running yet. When the monitor arrives I'll post more pics of the X68000 XVI, but till then enjoy these pics of the MSX and X68k. They're both zip archives to make saving easier.

X68000 XVI Pics

http://www.divshare.com/download/9289652-5e6

MSX Pics

http://www.divshare.com/download/8987805-281

[Ed Oscuro]

Out of curiosity, what did the XVI cost you? Mine was basically new in its original box, twist tie around the monitor cable, bags around everything. $1000 give or take $100 (worked out a small price cut because I was getting another item at the same time).

And I still don't have a working X68000 monitor. Still hopeful I can get that tuner to work.

[TheRogue]

The XVI, monitor, keyboard and so on was 40,000 yen, the total cost of the computer including shipping was $1300.00 Canadian dollars, cause I had it shipped in 2 boxes (one for computer and such, one for the monitor) 3 day EMS from Tokyo to Canada. I got it off Yahoo! Japan.

[Arkhan]

pretty nice setup! Did you get that from bas, or did it just happen to be one he worked on?

[Battlehork]

The XVI has the power to make your dreams come true

[TheRogue]

pretty nice setup! Did you get that from bas, or did it just happen to be one he worked on?

You nailed it, I bought the Turbo-R from Bas over the summer. Cost a pretty penny but it was worth it. For all those out there who say having a Turbo-R isn't worth it I challenge you to actually use one and say that again. I don't mean go try an emulator, I mean actually use one. When you switch into R800 mode, games that suffer from slowdown are suddenly beautiful, MSXDOS runs so smooth without pausing for a split second after printing each line, it's wonderful.

[Ed Oscuro]

games that suffer from slowdown are suddenly beautiful,

Rats.

I don't play Undead Line all that often, though...

[TheRogue]

Undead Line runs great on a Turbo-R. I'll take some video and post it one of these days.

[Arkhan]

Undead Line runs great on a Turbo-R. I'll take some video and post it one of these days.

flying into R800 mode only works on some games (non-interrupty ones, ones that support the R800, hacked up versions of games), and sometimes doing so brings glitches and weird crap.

[Ed Oscuro]

Undead Line runs great on a Turbo-R. I'll take some video and post it one of these days.

If I recall right (going through the posts on the last few pages again would give me a headache), Arkhan said it wouldn't make a difference. I am pretty sure I read some time ago that UL does great on a Turbo R, but I recently checked the package and there's no mention of it. UL suffers some hideous slowdown on even the 2+ so it would be great to have. S-Video would also be amazing.

The day when I look for a Turbo R is far off, though; I have a lot of stuff with higher priority. I also wouldn't sell or trade the 2+ unless I can find that the Turbo R has the autofire and speed sliders, which I find pretty handy.

[Arkhan]

theres a way to switch on R800 mode, and some games will play faster but they werent DESIGNED to do that. Even the ones that were designed to, it doesnt really make or break the game. If it did, everyone would own a Turbo R


some were designed for it but its not a necessity.


Undead line had a hacked up version you could load that takes care of it. Not that its a big deal since the slowdown isn't even bad

[Ed Oscuro]

Not that its a big deal since the slowdown isn't even bad

I can't say I agree, and neither does the most dedicated Undead Line player I know of. The Cave gets it particularly badly, and so does that palace place. It's usually pretty smooth slowdown and frames don't seem to be dropped, but having the game playing at slower than full speed cheapens the intended experience.

[TheRogue]

The day when I look for a Turbo R is far off, though; I have a lot of stuff with higher priority. I also wouldn't sell or trade the 2+ unless I can find that the Turbo R has the autofire and speed sliders, which I find pretty handy.

Both models of Turbo-R have Ren-Sha turbo slider built in. They also have RGB out, which is far superior to s-video. I use the RGB out on mine, it's very effective and gives a beautiful picture. Also, UL doesn't mention any Turbo-R compatibility on the package because it doesn't contain any R800 specific code or anything designed specifically for the Turbo-R, it just runs very effectively on the R800 processor (the R800 runs at 7.16MHz, but it takes about 1/4th of the number of clock cycles to execute most Z80 instructions, so it runs at a relative speed of 28MHz, which many games benefit from)

[Arkhan]

but it doesn't use the R800 mode unless you explicitly kick it into that mode. Undeadline out of the box doesn't benefit unless you use the modified version of the game, or if you type the necessary commands in at the BASIC prompt to get it into R800 mode.

I can't say I agree, and neither does the most dedicated Undead Line player I know of. The Cave gets it particularly badly, and so does that palace place. It's usually pretty smooth slowdown and frames don't seem to be dropped, but having the game playing at slower than full speed cheapens the intended experience.

The first time I completed Undeadline was on an MSX2, not even a 2+. The slowdown is NOT that bad, and anyone who says otherwise is prissy and high maintenance.

The guy mentions MSX slowdown one entire time and thats to say it was removed in the X68000 version. BFD. If you can't cope with slowdown, stop playing old games on old machines.

the games from an era where slowdown occured in many great games. Everyone at the time dealt with it. Like I said, if the R800 makes or breaks the whole experience, more people would own Turbo Rs.

Since they don't its safe to say that nearly the entire MSX community can handle intermittent slowdown when it occurs in games.

Hell a lot of people play it on a European machine and don't complain when the game in its entirety plays like 6% slower than it was designed.

[TheRogue]

You are right that you need to switch the machine over to R800 mode, however there are MSXDOS2 programs that will do that automatically without you having to type commands in basic. And you're right it doesn't make or break a game, but it does make good games even better. Also, it's not true that everyone would own a Turbo-R, because they are bloody expensive. I frequent the MSX forums and many people say that they would love to own a Turbo-R but the cost is prohibitive in many cases. I had to save for a long time to get mine, but it's absolutely worth it to me.

[Arkhan]

yes theyre costly, and also foreign to the Eurofolk at msx.org

when the thing was current, it wasn't even a hotseller because the usefulness of it wasn't really enough to make it worth replacing what people already had. Its still the case now. Everything is fine without it and 500+$ for a Turbo R isn't really worth it just to speed up a few games.

Itd be like paying 500$ to have an NES hacked up to work faster so Contra and crap dont slow down sometimes.


with all that in mind though, the Turbo R still kicks the piss out of all the other machines. Amiga's got nothin' on MSX!

[TheRogue]

It does kick the piss out of all the other machines. It's a wonderful machine. I love it. It's pretty on top of it all . I have fallen in love with my X68000 XVI though. Now that's a sexy machine.

[Arkhan]

I've always been more partial to the MSX, probably because im a sucker for digital-comic games.

and Fray.

[TheRogue]

I've always been more partial to the MSX, probably because im a sucker for digital-comic games.

and Fray.

I'm a fan of digital novels too, but there's not too many in English on the MSX. Can you recommend any?

[AB Positive]

This thread went from me being curious, to being entirely informational, to now making me jealous because I'm broke.


But now I know - if I can get ahold of a MSX2 or a X68000 I definitely should do so.