You know what.......After all these years of MSX Revival......I guess the MSX should just stay what it is.

MSX is commercially dead and a "revival" in the market would be extremely difficult.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but let's face it, we are living in a "PC and Mac World".

i agree whith you latok. And besides i think it's far too late to start it all over again.
And after all these years my love for my first (pc) (which is a nms 8255) did not die and it will never will.
Even if a new msx will appear i will not be the same.
Our gloriedays were in the eighties not in the 21st centurie and we better keep it this way.

I agree glory days were in the 80's and nothing like "MSX beats PC" can happen ,
it is even ridiculous to think/write something like this.
and i agree it is irrational to try "revive" MSX....
......
... but all this msx is irrational from the begining : why switch on this computer,
why trying to "revive" once again some souvenirs, why collecting some konami
cartridges ... and so on, i mean we can't be just half crazy : it is just like being
half pregnant
....
So we should accept ourselves as completly not reasonable people
and go ahead lets have fun , it is all about this...

Trying to "Revive" MSX? The mere fact of stating this sentence is a nonsense, since MSX is not dead, we are using it!

Trying to bring MSX to the commercial arena again is a waste of time and effort. As I once said in a retrocomputing fair I was interviewed (together with Prodatron, he must remember it), Linux guys have infinitely more people and resources than us, and they have a very hard time to gain a small place in the market, so how many chances have we?

Moreover, the only way to compete with today's computer, is to build a today's computer. Would you use a MSX with the same brute force power and complexity as a modern PC? I would not. The nice thing about MSX is that it is simple and easy to program and expand by amateurs.

Of course a new MSX that reasonably enhances the current standard would be nice. I am thinking on a Z380 CPU (32 bit linear addressing space, yum!), more memory and speed, and a better (at least faster) VDP, for instance. But event this is an impossible dream at this point, unless Bill Gates suddenly decides to donate 6,02x10^23 $ to us for some reason!

So the best we can do is to keep the MSX alive ourselves by releasing new hardare and software, just like we are doing since the early 1990s. At the end this is the point and the reason why this and other MSX-related sites exist and we are reading and writing here.

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But event this is an impossible dream at this point, unless Bill Gates suddenly decides to donate 6,02x10^23 $ to us for some reason!

I'm pretty sure that some really nice hardware guys (like Erikie, Dennis Koller, Pazos, Rob Hiep, Ademir Carchano, Victor Trucco, and etc...), with proper financial support from an unite community (pre-orders for example) and some project management, could perfectly create a "super-msx" with something like a z380. C-BIOS team could provide a good bios to support the enhanced hardware and another team could port MSX Basic to it!

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Moreover, the only way to compete with today's computer, is to build a today's computer.

You already can by it! So better to build a tomorrow's computer to compete with today's ones.

There´s no point to offer msx to nowadays masses. It may work as a very-low-price-famicom-clone-like-machine thought, if one doesn´t except more than marginal (or any) profit (means that if you don´t care about very poor sales and very likely big money loss, but who knows, there have been sales for atari 2600 joysticks and oldies arcade gaming joysticks, but I guess those games are better known and more liked than msx?).

If someone thinks sony or whatever giant can do it, yes, they can if they want, but think further, think about the day when they give first hype about this new-old platform...


sony: we will publish new-trend-msx (you can imagine a better name if you want)

masses: is it any good? is it better than playstation 3 or xbox?

sony: yes, I mean no.... it is based on msx computer which was published in 1983 and it´s partly based on mid-1970s technology...

masses: what the Fxxx?!?!? That´s complete shit!!! So it was designed in a stone-age!!!! My parents weren´t born yet!!!!!!!!

sony: wait, it has a bit better chip too which allows you to play just a few late 1980s and early 1990s msxturbor games too!

masses: Never heard of fxxxxxg turbor!!! What a lame old shit machine!!!!

sony: hey, wait, you can use it as a modern day pc too.... hey, where you all did go?? Hey?


After reading this little imaginary conversation, you can imagine how this crap oldies machine can affect sales of sony videogaming machines, when customers start to think sony´s new machines are pure shit!!!!


If one wants "msx revival", forget ocm-like-solutions, ocm is only for hardcore collectors and "built-it-by-yourself,-if-you-can´t-forget-it"-type people. Most people want ready-to-use-msx which looks exactly like msx and not strange looking box, so ask everyone msx-freak around the world what they want and then build 1980s look-a-like plastic cover which looks like authentic 80s msx and insert your msx chip(s) there, chips which has every msxs from msx to r. And about z380 or whatever, something like that is probably needed to hardcore users, but I wonder if such new add-ons may "scary"-off "old-timers", so maybe those z380 and anything else may be sold as "options" which are assembled inside when ordered. Maybe same can be done to msx models, that "old-timers" can select only msx-1 and/or msx2 chip inside and others can select everything to get their supermegadeluxe-msx. And everybody will get msx machine of their dreams which looks just like 80s msx! This way (almost) everybody could be happy? Only minus side would be that it probably would get too expensive to make new plastic covers for every msx model, so every msx would look exactly the same, no matter which chips are inside, thought maybe one could stick different sticker to different "models"? Or pay more to get new spray-paint, or do it by himself at home?

If someone wants "msx revival", then design and built new msx which looks like real msx, if you want one. Of course you can wait forever if some ex-msx-manufacturer-electronics-giant gets idea to make some retro-msx machine, and of course everything can be possible, but I won´t spend my life for waiting that miracle to happen.

One problem is, that if you design and built 1980s style msx which looks and works just like msx, can you call your product MSX because of copyright reasons? It´s not just msx trademark, you may get problems if you want to use existing msx plastic cover as a model for your new 21st century msx product.

Maybe ''revival'' is the wrong term. It does not necessarily mean ''competing with today's computers'', of course.

Your concept of masses is wrong. Check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market

Anyway, the idea is not to "make money out of msx", it's just trying to build something that could probably have been the natural MSX evolution... Something like, calling Michael J Fox and Christopher Loyd to shot Back to the future IV...

If someone republishes msx today, it is aimed mainly for "few" msx freaks, like us.

Of course you can get some sales outside of msx-freak inner circle, but I showed just a tentative example because I don´t wanna be too optimistic. MSX generations are not NES or SuperNES.

Maybe if Sony makes all-new Playstation "80" which includes "80s msx-generations" built inside, with lots of games burned to same chip, with no extra price, then of course it would sell well, but you can guess what they are really buying!! But of course some people may really get happy to see some "laughable oldies stuff" in their living room.

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A real MSX revival?

Isn't the 1chipMSX real?

We have failed to make it available outside Japan.
And, as you can read in this forum thread, the people behind Bazix got exhausted trying to bring it to Europe/rest of the world and lost interest.

Most (active) MSX users could posssess some faults ... like missing the support for the official products. But in the case of developers and publishers, maybe it is not their only fault. After all, I do not think that a lot of users submitted the games to the official MSX-MAGAZINE to be included into the collection of SMALL MSX-BASIC games!!!

Some years, ago there was a [official] request for original (short) games for the MSX line of microcomputers!

Yukio, I agree. There were quite some chances to contribute, but practically no response. During those 'days' there was a lot more revival news, though. Then things like these are easy forgotten.....

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Of course a new MSX that reasonably enhances the current standard would be nice. I am thinking on a Z380 CPU (32 bit linear addressing space, yum!), more memory and speed, and a better (at least faster) VDP, for instance. But event this is an impossible dream at this point, unless Bill Gates suddenly decides to donate 6,02x10^23 $ to us for some reason!

It is said that since ancient times...the MSX users are fighting for a new MSX computer .

I would be satisfied with a faster MSX but, of course, without losing the MSX essence. I don't need different CPU, VDP or soundchip. I would like the same architecture but faster:

- Z380, eZ80 CPU... I don't know which one would be better.
- About graphics, I don't need 3D or something like that. Maybe double V9958. Do you remember
Goblin and its capabilities?
- And for the sound the current soundchips are enough for me.

In the MSX scene there are a lot of qualified people capables to design a new hardware, maybe the solution would be distribute the work.