ASCII decides not to produce One Chip MSX

Source: Gigamix weblog

According to Gigamix weblog it has been decided by ASCII that their company ASCII Solutions isn't going to commercially produce the One Chip MSX computer. The required 5000 pre orders haven't been met and therefore, production by ASCII isn't going to take place.

Gigamix weblog states they have received an e-mail from ASCII in which the discontinuity of the One Chip MSX merchandizing is announced. It seems there have been 3414 pre orders by mainly Japanese individuals. It further reads there haven't been enough pre orders from overseas and from schools and companies to reach the required 5000 pre orders.

Where does this leave us now? Fortunately, Gigamix weblog also writes not to lose hope. MSX Association is currently investigating alternatives which should make possible the production of the One Chip MSX computer after all.

Relevant link: Gigamix weblog

Relevant link: ASCII One Chip MSX information page

Relevant link: Bazix One Chip MSX information page

Comments (50)

By BiFi

Prophet (3142)

26-08-2005, 16:50

I wonder if they would've made the 5000 when Bazix and ASCII started taking orders at the same time. Bazix started taking orders about halfway... :/

By DarQ

Paladin (844)

26-08-2005, 17:03

pffff, poor! although the latest design is not like the one presented in tilburg years ago, i'd like to see the thing working and maybe then even buy it.

and of course, what bifi says. if they focused on the international market from the beginning, there would probably be at least a bit more pre-orders

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 17:09

i already tought so........

im happy with my real msx

By viejo_archivero

Hero (566)

26-08-2005, 17:23

Sad news for the commercial MSX revival...

By viejo_archivero

Hero (566)

26-08-2005, 17:24

But, hey, we're still here and a lot of amateur productions are coming for this year!. Everybody keep MSXing!

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 17:39

there's still a little hope....

By Grauw

Paladin (1010)

26-08-2005, 17:42

Sniff...

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 17:44

i would say cheer them up a bit post what you think on gigamix.... and wish them good luck

By Sonic_aka_T

Prophet (2365)

26-08-2005, 18:00

no way! me sad

I must say I did not see that coming, and expected more from ASCII... Pity...

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 18:03

dont cry

be stong

By Latok

msx guru (2045)

26-08-2005, 18:04

viejo, for me, this is the amateur revival. The commercial revival is this:--->> http://www.tweakers.net/nieuws/37353 Sorry, it's in Dutch, but it's the 100$ PC Nishi has been talking about for ages. The MIT he works for has continued this project and already 6 million machines have been ordered. It is THIS development which has derived from Nishi's ideas. The One Chip MSX ASCII which was about to be produced has come from the scene itself. It's a damned shame the production of this machine now looks a lot further away from reality...

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 18:09

eeh latok the link you provided does not work

By BiFi

Prophet (3142)

26-08-2005, 18:10

remove the last . in the url.

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

26-08-2005, 18:10

Poisonic, delete the "." at the end ....

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

26-08-2005, 18:14

some how it workz

By [D-Tail]

Prophet (3142)

26-08-2005, 18:21

This was sad news indeed, like Sonic says, I hadn't seen this coming either. Now that we should wait patiently for alternatives to show up -- let's speculate about how things would take place then. Will Bazix promote and sell this device after all? Will there be a nice casing wrapped around the PCB, as no commercial company looks after it anymore? Questions disappear, new questions rise!

By Latok

msx guru (2045)

26-08-2005, 18:35

Possibly. But for such a project, you need a certain cash flow and that's why we needed a larger organization such as ASCII. I don't expect Bazix to have such a cashflow to make production possible. Maybe they should combine forces with other MSX organizations such as Sunrise. They also have experience with releasing MSX hardware. Anyway, being way too premature now, it's upto the MSX Association to take the next step. Let's hope for the best.

By Latok

msx guru (2045)

26-08-2005, 18:38

/me laughs......I never noticed it before, there is even already a website on the MIT servers itself

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

This is everything Nishi wants, really.

By Thom

Champion (387)

26-08-2005, 19:25

In my opinion it's a bit strange ASCII contacted Gigamix Online by e-mail instead of announcing the news on its own dedicated OCM web page. Although I do think the news is true, it's dodgy journalism to consider this a fact without checking elsewhere.

By dvik

Paragon (1517)

26-08-2005, 19:25

I really wanted one

Can't MRC buy the remaining 1600 msxes and use as prices in upcoming challenges

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

26-08-2005, 19:55

>In my opinion it's a bit strange ASCII contacted Gigamix Online by e-mail instead of announcing the news on its own dedicated OCM web page

No, it seems that each Japanese guy or girl that had pre-ordered on the Ascii site has received this e-mail.

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

26-08-2005, 19:59

Excite translation :

ASCII delivered the report of this details to those who reserved it about single-chip MSX in E-mail on August 26.

By jltursan

Paragon (1150)

26-08-2005, 20:15

uh?, only 3414??. I've always believed that Bazix pre-orders would be added when the period expires. Where are the overseas orders?, it's hard to believe that outside Japan there are only a few hundreds of orders.
I agree with the fact that the commercial campaign has been (as usually in the MSX history

) a bluff; but the machine has been spreaded mouth-to-mouth in a lot of forums. Again, I don't understand the numbers...

By SLotman

Paladin (880)

26-08-2005, 20:29

Sad news, but everyone saw this coming...

Again, if ASCII makes the OCM MSX2 with the "update" cable for the same price - and of course the VHDL source GPL, it would sell all 5000 and maybe even more.

And of course, more improvements like the USB implemented for something, not just being there or MSX2+, stereo output (not mono), two joy ports (or even a pc-compatible joy or mouse port), will make it even more interesting.

That's whats happen when you don't listen to the community

By Thom

Champion (387)

26-08-2005, 20:45

No, it seems that each Japanese guy or girl that had pre-ordered on the Ascii site has received this e-mail.Ok, that's more convincing.

By Unicorn

Expert (72)

26-08-2005, 21:46

To be honest I myself have looked into this project with only a mild interest. It was well intended, I have no doubt about that, but it was poorly executed.

By dhau

Paragon (1452)

26-08-2005, 21:47

Hello to all vaporware lovers! Get the real modern MSX from real hardware vendor: EMSX. Stop bitching how sad the OCM flop is. There are too few nerds interested to get a realistic market going.

By wolf_

Ambassador (5677)

26-08-2005, 22:03

ASCII != MSXA
MSXA != ASCII

Things became harder now, but as far as I can see the 1cm isn't doomed yet. .. it's harder.. yes, harder..

By Sama

Ambassador (1262)

27-08-2005, 03:15

ASCII now has officially confirmed this news, by the way. The ASCII pre-order site mentions that ASCII has decided not to produce the OCM's and that MSX Association will look for other options to get the OCM produced anyway.

By spl

Paladin (856)

27-08-2005, 14:58

Why don't OFFICIALLY support EMSX like ideas?

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

27-08-2005, 15:51

well EMSX is dead...... the z380 is not made any more btw emsx and it costs to much >600,-

By spl

Paladin (856)

28-08-2005, 03:29

Yes, EMSX costs a lot, because of it's LOW production. But if you made thousands of EMSX like (yes, EMSX like) computers, costs will be absolutely LOWER. You can say: z380 is dead. But actually, EMSX is not a z380 machine, as z380 is OPTIONAL. It's a z80 machine. And... Zilog still made a lot of z80 variants....

Yours

By spl

Paladin (856)

28-08-2005, 03:30

http://www.zilog.com

Yours,

By selios2000

Champion (266)

28-08-2005, 13:03

It was clear that it wouldn't be produced... hahahaha. God save my TR!! Keep the spirit up! We are the truth MSX world! hahaha

By [D-Tail]

Prophet (3142)

28-08-2005, 13:15

You know, I don't get this sort of thing. Things like folks laughing at a failing MSX project. Are you guys real MSX-users or what? You don't hear anyone laughing at Sunrise either, for them not being able to produce Video9000 anymore, do you? Grow up, dudes, and let's have at least some fun in this already too small world.

By sunrise

Paladin (800)

28-08-2005, 13:40

Anothe one with stupid comparisons.

By Arjan

Champion (504)

28-08-2005, 13:45

sunrise: the comparison might not be completely correct, but the point is: did anybody laugh when the video9000 couldn't be produced anymore? Nobody did. So why laugh because there's a big chance OCM won't be produced?

By [D-Tail]

Prophet (3142)

28-08-2005, 13:50

Sunrise: I honestly meant not to offend you, Arjan explained my point right (thanks mate

). My point was exactly this: why should we laugh at oneanother when promising projects fail, or cease to continue? The current MSX-world is small, we should support new initiatives.

By sunrise

Paladin (800)

28-08-2005, 13:52

Because always it seems that something must be compared with Sunrise, seems to be a custom here !

By Arjan

Champion (504)

28-08-2005, 13:57

maybe that's because sunrise is the best hardware producer in the MSX scene? I wouldn't know who else to make a comparison with....

By sunrise

Paladin (800)

28-08-2005, 14:02

Small fantasy ? Adriano , Padial events that happen daily name it ..

By [D-Tail]

Prophet (3142)

28-08-2005, 14:06

Let's leave it at this, back on topic. You know now my point of view

By Arjan

Champion (504)

28-08-2005, 14:15

I know those names sunrise, but I wouldn't dare to compare them with Sunrise...

ahwell, it's just sad people laugh at these kinda failures

Even though OCM isn't what everybody wanted it to be (which is impossible...), there are lots of people who like it... Maybe it's some kind of envy: "I can't have it, so they shouldn't have it either...".

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

28-08-2005, 14:35

There's indeed no reason to laugh if a MSX project is stopped, frozen or delayed.

But on the other side, many people, not only in Japan, but also outside Japan, don't understand ASCII's strategy. It was an evidence that a MSX1 OnE Chip should not satisfy a great part of the MSX community : in Europe and Brazil, a MSX2 is considered as a must and in Japan, the Turbo-R is like a god for the MSX fans.

Even if I can understand a different attitude, my personal position/strategy is coherent with my choices in the past. For example, I've waited for the NMS8280 release before replacing my MSX1 by a MSX2. If I had pre-ordered the MSX1 One Chip, I should have been in contradiction with myself.

So, now, all depends from the choice of MSX-Association, but if the offer doesn't change, my position/strategy will remain the same. It's always the buyer that makes the final decision, not the seller ...

By selios2000

Champion (266)

28-08-2005, 14:44

Oh my god... hahah. I laughed 'cos the entire project of the OCM was a complete senseless. Please, think about that so called revival with a bit of "distance" and you will see that in these days, an new MSX1 is not what we are anxious for obtaining... MSX3! That would be the real revival, not that thing that I preordered. But my friends, it was nothing to do with a good marketing solution for a new computer that has to born... And I won't cry its death beause being realistic, that hardware architecture was already death decades ago.

By flyguille

Paragon (1611)

28-08-2005, 21:45

if it is happening and MSXA/ASCII then comes with an 1CM bigger, with MSX2+ by default.... and at a reasonable cost for that bigger fpga..... so, if this is happening for to happen that, IT IS COOL....

By POISONIC

Paladin (883)

28-08-2005, 23:20

SPL do you realy think massproducing EMSX is cheap??? its to expancive BTW they use real msx chips they are so rare that EMSX never will be mass produced..... BTW the one chip was cheaper to produce at a price you never can mass produce a EMSX count the expancive EMSX PCB's....................

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

29-08-2005, 18:29

Page of MSX-Association is now updated : http://www.msxa.org/

It confirms that they find an alternative solution to satisfy all the people that have pre-ordered the OCM.

Remarks and suggestions about the OCM can be made by e-mail, but they don't guarantee an answer : onechipmsx@msxa.org

So, only Bazix site is still not yet updated.

By mars2000you

Paragon (1848)

29-08-2005, 18:31

Correction : MSX-Association is searching for a solution ....

By Yukio

Paragon (1235)

02-09-2005, 05:32

So until now, no One Chip MSX.
Maybe with more games and software this would be cool !