I think that was mainly because of the monitor though...
IIRC in 1986 ot 1987 the philips nms8250 was roughly 1600 guilders....

Yeah, I remember my parents paid a boat-load too... The 'state-of-the-art' NMS8245 was so darn expensive they didn't want to shell out the cash for a color monitor, so I was stuck with one of those Philips green-monochrome thingies... ^_^

I was lucky. My dad got us a proper philips monitor from his work. He said it was green...and we tought so until we hit that particular button on the front panel; that was a pleasant surprise ^_^

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Wasn't Unix the very first OS for 8080/8088/8086?

Are you mad!??
What are you thinking here?

Actually, what do you mean?
A: there was no other OS for 8080/8088/8086 than UNIX when those chips came out.
B: UNIX was originally written for 8080/8088/8086.

I guess you mean A. But I'm quite sure that UNIX vendors at that time were not interested at all in 8080 and stuff. No, UNIX was never ported to these architectures at all, even! Unless you count Minix, but that's an educational OS. Actually, BSDI is the first UNIX for the Intel architecture and dates from 1991.
UNIX is an OS for servers and mainframes, originally written for the DEC PDP-11/20 in 1970. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX

CP/M is the main operating system for the 8080 machines, same as for its follower the Z80
For the 8088 and 8086 mostly CP/M and several DOS clones were used.

I was just remembering using SCO's XENIX on an IBM PS/2.

"Microsoft purchased a license for UNIX 7th Edition from AT&T in 1979"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

But I agree with the fact that the PC was dominated by MS/PC-DOS, although some were running for example CP/M-86. DRI had their success with CP/M-80 running on 8080/Z80.

Facts of MSX:

-One of the first homecomputer systems that used 3,5 drives.
-Backward compatibility.
-Cartridge based; like NES or SMS (and it is a computer, of course).
-Huge amount of devices due to its exchangeability.

And considering videogame history there's no doubt MSX had a major influence, a lot of japanese famous games started on MSX (and Famicom... )

In France when I had my MSX in 1986 none of my friends in school knew about MSX, even the existence of MSX was ignored. They all had Amstrad CPC (CPC was a huge success in France, even C64 was blown away).

if I'm not mistaken one thing that was quite unique on MSX were the "dual slot" tricks like in Konami's (and the fact it had 2 slots). Actually, the DS is using that very same old trick right now; Sega's Project Rub has unlockables when you enter Sonic Advance (1,2,3) or some of their other games into the GBA (=secondary) slot.

..and lets not forget about Metal Gear. The limitations of the MSX2 resulted in one of the best-selling, most famous gaming series ever

well, it sure had its impact on the prices....

by now, I've been able to (re-)acquire quite a bunch of MSX carts, but the original two Metal Gears (and especially the second one) are traded for such high prices that I can consider them "beyond reach"
I have all the MGS'es though

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Add to that things like the VDP and the intention to give single chips multiple capabilities/tasks and I can't help but think there was a vision behind MSX that was later embraced by other platforms as well

Mmmm... And what about custom video/audio/mapper chips from A8 computers? Atari 800 was mass-produced starting with 1978... That makes it at least 5 years before MSX introduction.

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Quote: I have to disagree with my MSX friends, the Russians used MSX in there schools and colleges. Only 6000 computers and only in and around Moscow. I'm sorry but that's almost nothing. These 6000 computers were manufactured by Yamaha in Japan. The Russians didn't even bother to copy the MSX. No MSX computer or even a clone was build or sold in Russia, never. Influence? I think not, not in Russia that is.

Well, I had access to Yamaha KUVT classess in both Surgut (Siberia) and Chisinau (Moldova, near Romania). So it was fairly popular. And due to limited alternatives and their often inferior quality (AGAT-7, AGAT-9, CM-5, BK-0010 etc.), literally all folks who are now in their late 20-s / early 30-s had some exposure to those computers. But not many remember the details. After all MSXes appeared right before the onslaught of cheap clone XTs and 286-s in 1990/91. So the only window for large Yamaha use was 1988-1990.

And there was an attempt to clone MSX1 - a computer, called SURA, was a semi-working MSX1 clone. It had no PSG and a very crude approximation of V9929 made from discrete basic ICs. It was good enought to run MSX BASIC 1.0, but wasn't any good for games. It was produced by one of numerous start-ups ( "kooperativ" ) of soviet "perestroika" era (1987-1990), and as such is nothing you want to be associated with

IMO, MSX hasn't left a big footprint in home computing history (at least in western countries) because, beside for the idea of compatibility and standard, it never really innovated in anything. When it came to the marked, it was not more powerfull than anything existing already, it was merely a pimped up Colecovision or a standardized SVI328... Back in the eighties, all that mattered was CPU speed, resolution, number of colors, sound channels.

According to me it's also a big succession of Marketing failures... Deciding not to sell in the US, the biggest home computer market at the time, also where the biggest videogame editors were present was a mistake. The pricing of MSX was also a big mistake, early MSX models were truly overcharged, price of a disk drive was also ridiculously high compared to the price of an Amstrad CPC.

Also, MSX vendor didn't realize the importance of good software support, and dedicated press. For the first 2 years of existance of MSX in Belgium/France, good games were really hard to find, and there was perhaps one MSX dedicated magazine, published once every blue moon... When the first really good games came (end 85-86), all the other platform already had a huge user base, tons of games and magazines. Many of the MSX vendors were already leaving the boat (this isn't giving a very good image), and much more powerfull computers were coming to the Market (Atari ST/Amiga/PC AT). Again, this is when MSX2 was marketed, without any game or proper applications or capacities outstanding compared to new systems, and not cheaper either...
Truly, it makes you wonder if the people in charge of MSX in Europe had any clue about how to market a home computer...

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Only 6000 computers and only in and around Moscow. I'm sorry but that's almost nothing.

Pardon my french ?

Tens of schools on Sakhalin island had Yamaha MSX2 classes.
About 10 of MSX classes - only in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk where I lived.

Schools and universities in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine now),
Nalchik, Novosibirsk, Blagoveshensk, Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Abakan (cities all around ex-USSR) - those I saw myself or talked about with my friend from there while participating various computer olympiads and "schools of young programmers".

You say "Moscow only" ? You are so wrong. The whole generation all around USSR was exposed to MSX, and because they used computers in schools and universities, there were many users for every single machine.

MSX is a legendary computer, and if we were able to buy it then, we were doing so.

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The msx could've been bigger if the system was a bit more powereful. A faster cpu, a major faster VDP with DMA and fm-pac built-in orso, would make a major difference..

Even with the specs it had it was already one of the more expensive computers... So I don’t know whether that was feasible.

Also, specs alone don’t make a system. Look at the PS2, less powerful than the XBox but the games available for it appeal to a larger audience.