Have you ever seen one of these before? Maybe, maybe not. This is the second MSX I've ever seen in real life, I only knew of one back in the day, and that's it. This one was bought for £2.50 from a car boot sale
The MSX was a computing standard announced in 1983 by Microsoft, and many manufacturers made compatible machines, most notably Toshiba, Sony, and Panasonic amongst others. The MSX system was inspired by VHS, and could either stand for Machines with Software eXchangability, or MicroSoft eXtended. The hardware went through many upgrades during it's life, including MSX2 and MSX Turbo R
This version has a Z80 processor running at 3.6MHz with 64K of RAM, offering a maximum of 256 x 192 with 16 colours and 32 hardware sprites. Sound is provided by an AY-3-8910 Programmable Sound Generator
Lets have a look around the unit...
Here is the top of the unit with the keyboard and cartridge slot. The keyboard has five function keys, which can be shifted for an additional five, a red STOP button, a CODE button, and a cluster of cursor keys. The CAPS key illuminates a green LED next to it, and there's a red LED that means the computer is on. The bottom just has the label stuck to it. On the left is the power switch, and the right are two typical Atari compatible joystick ports and a printer port with a silly wire catch that doesn't fold flat against the unit. I believe this is a Centronics compatible printer port.
On the back of the unit is an expansion bus, composite video and mono audio out, a RF socket, and a DIN socket for a cassette recorder, the unit can control a cassette recorder similar to the BBC Micro, and the BASIC commands to do this are MOTOR ON and MOTOR OFF. The power lead is fixed to the machine, no external PSU's are used here
The more observant of you will notice I have the box for the computer
In terms of software, I have three boxed Konami cartridge games, here they are with the manuals for the computer.
The cartridges have a spring loaded dust cover which covers the board's edge connector
So that's Track and Field 2, Ping Pong, and Boxing
The cartridges slot into the top left of the machine while it's powered off like so
Then switch the machine on and the game loads instantly, as you would expect, although in my case they didn't until I did the magic air blow into the cartridge slot...
Booting the computer without a cartridge in will take you straight to the Microsoft BASIC interpreter via a short splash screen
The commands along the bottom are mapped to the function keys, and pressing shift switches to another set of commands
Here you can see the power and CAPS LOCK LED's illuminated and inside the cartridge slot, I think I need to clean it
?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR