Internal of several MSX Computers: Canon V-8, V-10, V-20 / Toshiba HX-33 / YASHICA YC-64 / PHILIPS VG-8020/19

By konamiman

Paragon (1198)

29-05-2015, 16:35

That's retro-porn!

By gdx

Enlighted (6207)

30-05-2015, 01:23

Thank you for sharing the info on your armada with us.

By Tolvatar

Paragon (1037)

30-05-2015, 16:58

Nice work.
I like those photos.

By gamemastermaarten

Master (164)

30-05-2015, 18:06

That are really nice MSX computer systems. But they like as rare. Sorry I have bad Wifi connection I am on vacation.

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

31-05-2015, 16:38

Now that HX-33 is a beautiful machine, heh? It seems to have a very sturdy
construction too.

Some unusual characteristics got my attention though:

1) The LVA510 TV-Encoder! This is very awkward for two reasons:
1a) AFAIK, the LVA510 has component-video inputs. This is why it was
frequently used on MSX1 machines. They probably have done a RGB->YPrPb
conversion at some stage.
1b) The LVA510 is being used on a NTSC machine! Leonard will be
thrilled with that, since he thought that this chip could only do PAL.
This circuit certainly can help him with the PAL->NTSC conversion of
many machines.

2) Very unusual MSX-Engines by Toshiba: TCX-2001 and TCX-2002

3) Is the TCX-1008 the PPI of this machine?

4) It seems to have been designed to support 128KB of RAM, as there
are spaces for the extra DRAM chips on board. The engines then would
have the memory mapper and the rest of the glue logic, including the
DRAM controller.

5) There seems to be the space for a connector in the northwest side
of the board. You mentioned earlier that it's for the RS-232.

6) There's a TC5516AP-2 (2KB SRAM) on board, probably used by the
wapuro. OpenMSX will have to emulate this too, but MSXMEM hasn't
detected it in any of the slots. It doesn't mean that it isn't in any
of the slots, but maybe MSXMEM isn't designed to detect such a small
amount of RAM.

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

31-05-2015, 17:03

Some considerations about the Canon V-10 and V-20:

1) It's usually said that the V-10 is a V-20 with less RAM, but that doesn't seem to be true. The board of the two machines is totally different.

2) It's curious that both machines feature an extra 14MHz crystal. I wonder what's that used for. If it's for the CPU clock, here's another pair of machines that will not play well with games that play "racing against the blitter" kind of programming, just like those based on the TMS9928/9929 chips. But that would be a waste, because AFAIK the only VDPs that require this kind of design are indeed the TMS9928/9929 because they lack the CPUCLK pin. All other Texas VDPs of this family feature their own CPUCLK output pin.

3) It's said that the Canon V-20 had a digital port to connect some Canon DSLR cameras, but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe it was a cartridge that could be connected to any MSX?

4) Albeit the cursor keys resemble the ones of the Hotbit and the side slot cover is at the left side, the similarities seem to end here as the cases seem to have very different dimensions. Could you please take a picture of both side by side, for comparison?

By wernerkai

Champion (357)

31-05-2015, 17:10

About Canon DSLR, the only one I know is the Data Memory Back (DMB) interface, sold only for T90 camera.

It was marketed together with V-20, but it is MSX Standard compliant and should work for any MSXes:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

31-05-2015, 17:18

I like the Canon V-8 design a lot. Is it even smaller than the Casio PV-7 & MX-101?

I also find it curious that it has a more modern & lean circuit board when compared to the more expensive V-10 & V-20 siblings:

1) It has the TMS9118 VDP instead of the clumsy TMS9918

2) I features a S-3527 MSX-Engine, instead of a forest of 74xx TTL chips

It's for sure a low cost design, but a very clean and effective one in that category. The Casio PV-7 was certainly much more expensive & laborious to produce than the PV-8, and probably had the terrible keyboard to try to compensate for that. Is the keyboard of the PV-8 good?

Casio fixed their PV-7 misdoings in the later MX-10, but only on the MX-101 they seem to have reached the same level as the PV-8 in clean design and cost effectiveness to produce.

By wernerkai

Champion (357)

31-05-2015, 19:11

sd_snatcher wrote:

Some considerations about the Canon V-10 and V-20:

4) Albeit the cursor keys resemble the ones of the Hotbit and the side slot cover is at the left side, the similarities seem to end here as the cases seem to have very different dimensions. Could you please take a picture of both side by side, for comparison?

pictures, PICTURES ? Did you say P-I-C-T-U-R-E-S ?