[HN Gopher] My Sony HB-F1XV
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My Sony HB-F1XV
Author : ingve
Score : 73 points
Date : 2024-05-16 06:03 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thefoggiest.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (thefoggiest.dev)
| anonzzzies wrote:
| It is a great machine: I have multiple of them and they are my
| favorites.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| It seems MSX doesn't exactly have Atari joystick ports but
| instead PC-Engine compatible.
|
| (of course, this platform came later)
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| So disappointing not being able to click the images through to
| high res versions
| detritus wrote:
| What did you expect? It's an 8-bit machine.
|
| - ed: Turns out this one's a 16-bit machine? Anyway.
| mrandish wrote:
| No, the CPU is still an 8-bit Z80. It does have an upgraded
| graphics card in an expansion slot with a Yamaha v9990 - the
| next version of the v9958 graphics chip built into all MSX2+
| machines. Both chips have some clever display modes which can
| generate "16-bit type" graphics (really 15-bit + overlay (if
| supported in hardware)). Those modes work by using YUV-like
| encoding and are similar in concept to the Amiga's HAM mode.
| Remarkably advanced stuff for an 80s 8-bit home computer!
| forinti wrote:
| It's a bit disappointing that Sony made the beautiful HB-101 and
| then decided to make this model look so industrial.
| totetsu wrote:
| I walked past a shop in Yokohama selling things like this in
| their new boxes once. Then never saw it open again. It was like a
| time slip.
| samdung wrote:
| The beauty about this is it was made in 1989 and it still works.
| Planned obsolescence was not discovered then.
| gambiting wrote:
| And 99% of these are in landfills somewhere, you are seeing one
| preserved example. It's a survivorship bias in its full glory.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Sure some of these ended up in landfills. But way, way less
| than 99%.
|
| ~10y after release, such old computers had use-value. Broken?
| Repair or use for spare parts.
|
| As they get older, owners understand they have collector's
| value. And they do - see eg. eBay prices. Even a lowly ZX
| Spectrum _easily_ fetches >$50 these days.
|
| On top of that: the machine discussed never was a cheap one.
| Not when new, not now. Not that many MSX2+'s were built.
|
| Never mind that most old home computers are Robust. It's
| usually mechanics like connectors (easy to fix), keyboards
| (not so easy) or power supplies (many options there).
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > Sure some of these ended up in landfills. But way, way
| less than 99%.
|
| It's a guess as good as anyone's, but I'd say the 99% is
| pretty close to the truth - either in landfill or forgotten
| in the attic, unused for many years/decades. Only a small
| number of enthusiasts would continue using them.
| gambiting wrote:
| >> Even a lowly ZX Spectrum easily fetches >$50 these days.
|
| _Because_ there are fewer and fewer of them left. Look at
| something like Pokemon Yellow GBC carts - huge collector
| item, yet still selling for very cheap on ebay. Why?
| Because Nintendo made 500 billion of these things and they
| generally don 't break down. Old computers however do, and
| while it's usually something "simple"(if you know how to
| use a soldering iron) like a burst capacitor, most people
| wouldn't even bother.
| raymond_goo wrote:
| Please make a Video about it!
| xgkickt wrote:
| I'd like to see Microsoft turn the xbox into a new MSX. Define a
| min spec, provide the OS and infrastructure, and let others build
| them.
| Narishma wrote:
| What would they get out of it?
| xgkickt wrote:
| I don't know, get out of retail hardware and potentially
| increase market share by allowing manufacturers to tailor
| devices to their respective markets? I'd just like to see
| more variety tbh (look at the plethora of handheld PCs),
| brought with a heavy dose of nostalgia for the home computer
| days.
| Narishma wrote:
| See my reply to the other post.
| glimshe wrote:
| The "OS and infrastructure", alongside whatever certification
| program to call it a "XSX", would require the use of
| Microsoft's XBOX game store. Microsoft would make a cut on
| any sales plus their own first party titles.
| Narishma wrote:
| So basically the Steam Machines or the 3DO concepts. We
| know they don't work for the manufacturers because they
| can't be priced competitively against regular consoles that
| can subsidize hardware with game sales.
| toast0 wrote:
| Maybe it could work if you're a registered XSX
| manufacturer, you get a cut of game sales. Since it'd
| probably be a digital only system, it's possible to
| administer in a way that the 3DO couldn't. AFAIK, Valve
| didn't do this for Steam Machines.
| internet101010 wrote:
| If anything they will build a competitor to Steam Deck and
| Switch.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| That was the original business plan but no one wanted to do it
| at the time:https://youtu.be/yT_i6hXf9WU&t=275
| dtagames wrote:
| What a beautiful piece of kit. I lived in Spain as an exchange
| student in the 80's and these high-end MSX machines were always
| in my dreams.
| mrandish wrote:
| Very nice! As a collector of classic all-in-one 80s home
| computers, I think the MSX2+ platform was the ultimate evolution
| of the 8-bit computer. I own a dozen or so MSX machines including
| a couple MSX2+ (including the Yamaha with music keyboard
| peripheral!). It's truly a shame the MSX3 platform never shipped
| as it would have been fascinating.
|
| I think your expansion choices do get you very close to MSX3.
| Sadly, there's virtually no software that uses the enhanced
| capabilities of the v9990 graphics chip or the OPL4 audio chip. I
| don't use my MSX machines much as I also don't understand
| Japanese. I wish the MSX platform had shipped in the US so the OS
| was localized and more English software created. I'm sure MSFT
| must have built full English ROM versions in parallel with the
| Japanese ROMs - but there was no machine to ship them in.
|
| In the realm of alternate-reality machines which _could_ have
| existed but never did, my pick for "Ultimate 8-bit" would be a
| machine very much like you've assembled: v9990 for graphics, OPL4
| for audio but instead of a Z80 for CPU, it'd have a Hitachi 6309
| at 3.58 MHz (a compatible but enhanced version of Motorola's
| fantastic 6809 with an expanded instruction set (DIV!), higher
| clock and faster IPC). The 6809 is clearly the legendary Motorola
| 68000's immediate 8-bit ancestor, so it had a similarly elegant
| architecture with a highly orthogonal instruction set, powerful
| indirect addressing modes, excellent interrupt architecture as
| well as separate user and system stacks. This made it ideal for
| position-independent, re-entrant, multitasking code. It had much
| of the same DNA that led to the 68000 later being revered as "the
| most fun to program 16-bit CPU". I think it's pretty inarguably
| the best of the 8-bit generation - and the 6309 was the best
| version of it. Apple even initially planned for the Mac to be a
| 6809 machine, writing early versions of the Mac OS and apps on
| it. Unfortunately, none of the 6809 consumer machines that
| actually shipped (Radio Shack, Dragon, Thompson, etc) paired the
| CPU with anywhere near then-current state-of-the-art graphics or
| sound chips.
|
| That would have been some machine if it had shipped in 1988 -
| basically an inexpensive 8-bit Amiga Jr. I imagine the demo scene
| would _still_ be having a field day with it.
| Keyframe wrote:
| I own quite a few, what's now called retro, machines and a lot
| of games. However, I still "need" to get two - msx(2) and x68k.
| If you could have one MSX2+, like the ultimate MSX, which one
| you'd get? I was eyeing hitbit XV and pimp it out. as for x68k
| it'd be a XVI machine (not compact of course).
| mrandish wrote:
| Since MSX was a standard licensed platform, the machine's
| internal hardware (CPU, VDP, Sound, RAM) were the same
| because they needed to all run the same software. This is
| aside from any expansions or peripherals the manufacturer may
| have chosen to bundle in the box. In general, such add-ons
| can usually be added via external cartridge anyway. The other
| thing would be retrofitting any video mods such as S-Video or
| component out. As with most 80s machines, that's mostly
| handled by modern kits you buy online, so you'll just want to
| check that your chosen machine is compatible with any add-on
| kit you want to hack into it.
|
| Otherwise the key difference is down to which external form
| factor, design, colors and keyboard ergonomics you prefer. As
| for x68k, that's not an all-in-one so it doesn't fit my
| collecting profile. So, I know little about it (though I'd
| certainly love to have one anyway). It's a pity I was
| selective in my profile because I acquired my collection in
| the late 90s when most of these machines were free or near-
| free. :-) As it is, I managed to get clean, complete, working
| examples of every Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, Amstrad,
| Dragon, Thompson, Radio Shack, etc that were all-in-one - as
| well as most of the MSX machines and many clones and one-
| offs. Well over a hundred unique models and I never paid more
| than $20 + shipping for any of them. In fact, I haven't
| acquired any retro computers in the last 20 years since my
| collection was already complete by then. :-)
| Keyframe wrote:
| Almost the same story. I mostly stashed away computers I
| had like comodores, amigas, spectrums etc or exchanged with
| fellows in same hobby. I also had luck that I worked with
| SGI machines, even though I love my amigas (3d work at the
| time). My primary interest are consoles, of which I managed
| to get a full set of few (snes, n64) in time. I think "I'm
| done" though, except these two. Maybe Sam Coupe as the
| ultimate in Spectrum story, don't know. When you say every
| Commodore.. surely not the 65 too?
| mrandish wrote:
| The Sam Coupe is cool. IIRC, I have two, one of which is
| some kind of special red one they sold. I'd have to go
| dig it out to know for sure but I do remember being fond
| of the Sam Coupe's funky looks (especially since I never
| used, or even saw one, back when they were on the
| market). I have all the Spectrums and, yes, a C65 (I was
| deep in the Amiga space and still stay in touch with some
| of the OG devs, so my Amigas are now signed on the bottom
| :-)). No Apple 1 but it wasn't sold in a case anyway. But
| I do have all the Apple 2 and 3 flavors.
|
| Of course I never imagined these machines would actually
| become valuable collectors items someday. They were just
| worthless trash that I was 'weird' for wanting to keep.
| According to my daughter, who looked up selling prices of
| some of the machines, the value of the collection is
| easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oddly,
| this news didn't make me happy. Instead, it feels weird
| and somehow makes what started as a quirky nerd hobby a
| lot less fun. Now people act like I'm some kind of savvy
| investor who was secretly acquiring under-priced assets
| ahead of "the market". I liked it better when this was
| all junk no one wanted, and I was just eccentric for
| loving the stuff.
| YawHawHawn wrote:
| The thing does seem awesome, except I don't see any mention of:
|
| 1. Hardware sprites (except in Wikipedia in regard to one TI
| chipset)
|
| 2. Redefinable character sets
|
| 3. Fine scrolling
|
| 4. Mixed graphics modes
|
| These are what made the Atari 8-bits so powerful. Did the MSXs
| have some of those (or similar) features? Given all the other
| cool things mentioned, it would be odd for them not to.
| mrandish wrote:
| Yes, it's a little confusing because these Yamaha VDPs were a
| mostly backward compatible product line which evolved over
| time, starting with the v9918 in the TI 99/4. The MSX2+
| featured the v9958 which did have 8 sprites (with rotation),
| tilemaps plus line, row and column scroll.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_V9958. It didn't have
| specific hardware for per-scanline mode switches (ala Amiga's
| Copper chip) but you could still accomplish such effects by
| old-school "baby-sitting the beam". Technically, the 6309 was
| specced running at up to 3.5 MHz, so we'd be overclocking it
| by .08 MHz to get it at the NTSC color burst frequency, but
| we already know it'll easily run at that.
|
| The confusing part is that, while the v9990 was the last,
| most advanced chip in the line - it ended up being
| artificially compromised because it was _supposed_ to ship as
| the backward-compatible v9978 chip that MSX3 was going to be
| based on. But that chip ended up being late, so as a stopgap
| MSX2+ was created instead with more RAM and an additional
| RISC CPU bolted on but no new VDP. Shortly after, the market
| moved on and MSX3 was cancelled. ASCII (who controlled the
| MSX platform rights) was still pissed at Yamaha for being
| late on the design (which they blamed for largely killing MSX
| 's chance at survival by delaying MSX3 to death). So, when
| Yamaha asked if they could offer the now complete v9978 to
| other manufacturers, ASCII required them to remove some of
| the backward compatible aspects, including the sprites,
| tiles, scrolling and some bitmap stuff. So, the v9990 ended
| up shipping with more advanced features in some ways but in
| other ways nerfed by the arbitrary removal of some
| capabilities which were already in the base v9958 design
| before the v9978 improvements were even added.
|
| As it turned out, the v9990 chip was never adopted by any
| computer platform and was only used in some low-volume MSX
| expansion cards made by small third-party add-on companies
| (which is what OP has in his system). Thus, the only
| computers that actually have a v9990 are MSX2 machines which
| have also have v9958. So those systems have the best of both
| (since one can overlay on the other).
|
| So, when we talk about the fantasy "Ultimate 8-bit", what
| we'd _really_ like to spec is the v9978 which existed as
| finished prototypes in Yamaha engineering but never actually
| shipped in volume. If we want to stick with a hard "must
| have been a shipping part" rule, then we'd be left with
| speccing a v9958 + v9990 (as the OP has). The v9978 was
| basically just the intersection of those two feature sets,
| except in one chip. The nice thing about the fantasy
| combination of a CMOS 6309 running at 3.58 MHz with a v9978,
| is that CPU had a fast interrupt, which made it especially
| good at baby-sitting the beam-type tricks with low overhead.
| So, Amiga Copper-like tricks should be possible without
| stalling the CPU to do the pixel counting.
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