On The X68000's Obscure Majesty

Thanks to NFG for its newly published in-depth feature on the Japanese X68000 computer/games system. The author explains: "The X68000 is an unheard-of gem from Japan. Released around the same time as the Amiga and Atari ST, it was leagues ahead of them both in terms of design and capability. Originally released in 1987 with a 10MHz 68000 CPU and 1MB RAM, the series finished six years later with a 25MHz 68030, 4MB RAM and a 80MB HD." The piece ends with a gallery of X68000 game screenshots, often near-perfect arcade conversions, as well as referencing the previously mentioned X68000 floppy disc game warnings.

Comments

Y'all feelin me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Growing up just north of san fran there was always some lucky kid in the neighborhood who had one of these fancy import devices. I'd salivate over its spot-on arcade ports........and he'd never let me play it.

bastard.

wasnt MG originaly on that thing?

[cyrax777]

IRC the Original Metal Gear was on this thing then ported to nintendo. yeah its its what im thinking of. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/data/7936.html

Re:wasnt MG originaly on that thing?

[ag0ny]

The original Metal Gear was an MSX2 cartridge released in 1987, so the NES and MSX2 versions were released (more or less) at the same time.

Konami at the time had lots of developers working on MSX, so I guess it would be a safe assumption to say that the MSX version was the main one, which was then ported to the NES. There's even an MSX computer in Metal Gear Solid 2: In the tanker sequence, in the room where Metal Gear is, there's a computer terminal that you must use to upload some photos. This terminal displays "MSX 5.0" or something like that when used (it was long time ago since I played that game, sorry).

Also, if I recall correctly, the "MSX Metal Gear team" is greeted in the ending titles at the end of the game.

Re:wasnt MG originaly on that thing?

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

Seems like a lot of NES games were also on that system... Lots of shots of Castlevania on the screenshots page, as well as one that's unmistakeably River City Ransom. Also some shots of Image Fight; compare this to the crappy NES version that I played as a kid.

Gallery Page two has 1 NSFW pic

[Kris_J]

Just a quick heads up.

Re:Gallery Page two has 1 NSFW pic

[B1LL_GAT3Z]

...and traffic to the site immediately quadruples.

"leagues ahead" ???

[udif]

Released around the same time as the Amiga and Atari ST, it was leagues ahead of them both in terms of design and capability. Originally released in 1987 with a 10MHz 68000 CPU and 1MB RAM, the series finished six years later with a 25MHz 68030, 4MB RAM and a 80MB HD.

Considering the fact that the Amiga was released in August 1985 with a 8MHz 68000, I find it hard to claim that a 10MHz 68000 machine released in 1987 is "leagues ahead". Also knowing the Amiga custom chips and its OS, I also find it hard to assume the X68000 was "miles ahead". Ofcourse the last Amiga modek had a 68040 chip vs. the claimed 68030 for the X68000.

Re:"leagues ahead" ???

[PD]

The magic of both the Atari and the Amiga wasn't their CPU power. The 68000 at 8 Mhz was roughly as fast as the 80286 chip, which had been used in the IBM AT and clones since before the Atari and Amiga were released.

What made these machines special was the hardware support for accelerated graphics and better sound. I am not an Amiga expert, but I had an Atari ST. The thing had some very decent sound hardware in it. It also had MIDI ports which made it very useful for controlling more advanced instruments. These were built-in to every ST made. The graphics were better than the IBM EGA graphics, and there was a blitter chip which accelerated the process of moving blocks of memory around. Since the screen was relocatable to any address in the system, the chip worked on all the memory. That blitter could be used to move memory that wasn't currently on the display at the time.

The Amiga also had its magical hardware which I'm sure someone else can explain in detail.

This X68000 appears to have had some advanced features too, which in some ways was more advanced than earlier machines. The disk interface was SCSI, capability to run 4 floppy drives, 1024x1024 screen resolution, hardware scrolling, hardware sprites, advanced sound, and a socket for a math coprocessor.

Re:"leagues ahead" ???

[Malor]

I sold Amigas from 1987-1989, and our store sold both kinds... I would often send people over to the ST side of the store, depending on their needs. That said, I didn't like the ST very much; I KNEW the Amiga was a lot better, and it really annoyed me when ST people would insist their obviously inferior machine was the best. :-)

The ST was actually a very simple machine, in comparison to the Amiga. It was designed and assembled very quickly, and IMO, it showed. That simplicity gave the ST a big advantage early in its life, as NOBODY understood what the heck to do with a multitasking operating system at the time. (and the fact that the early AmigaOSes were pretty unstable didn't help much either :)).

The ST's two main areas of advantage were MIDI and desktop publishing. DTP was a really big new idea at the time... being able to lay out a page, graphically, and then print out what you could see and have it look the same but be in high resolution (not just screen resolution) was a BIG DEAL. They actually coined the WYSIWYG acronym at the time... "what you see is what you get". This is kind of funny to me now, why WOULDN'T you get what you see? But at the time, it was a big step forward. Anytime someone asked me about DTP, I pointed them at an ST. The ST had a very nice monochrome, high-resolution screen... it was nicer than a Mac for a LOT less money, and there were emulators that let you run most Mac software.

It also had a built-in MIDI controller, so for a long time I pushed musicians toward the ST also. I think there may still be some STs in production use for MIDI. And of course, the first true multiplayer games in the home were on the ST ... Midi Maze was HUGELY popular at our company parties. You could hook up to 16 STs together by daisy-chaining them with MIDI cables. Midi Maze was a very simple game, but a very addicting taste of what multiplayer Quake would someday be like.

The sound was weak, though. I don't remember the details, but I think it was just a slightly-enhanced version of C64 sound. And the graphics were very simple; you had 320x200 in either 16 or 32 colors, 640x200 in 4 colors, or 640x400 in monochrome, and that was IT. Nothing else. The main CPU had to do all the work, there wasn't much of anything hidden away to take advantage of. This simplicity made it easy to program initially, but it meant the system didn't have much headroom.

The Amiga, on the other hand, was probably the single largest advance ever taken by 'home' computers. The Mac's big deal was a GUI, which was important... but the Amiga offered 4096 colors, a sprite engine, video processing (with overscan capabilities), the ability to have several separate screens at different resolution and color depth showing on the same monitor at the same time, incredible graphic flexibility (anything from 320x200x1 color up to about 680x450x4096 with smoke coming out of the video chip :) ) four-channel stereo sound, multitasking, and VAST expandability, all at once. It was actually the logical offshoot of the Atari 8-bit processors. It was kind of amusing -- the Commodore Amiga was the grown-up Atari 8-bit, and the Atari ST was the grown-up Commodore 64.

The Amiga was SO advanced, in fact, that nobody really knew what the heck to do with it for probably the first whole year... everyone was lost in the complexity, and of course, the 1.0 version of the operating system was really weak and crash-prone. But after that first year, things just kept improving and improving. Without a doubt, it was absolutely the most capable computer you could buy in overall terms for a number of years.

If Commodore had had a bloody clue, and had treated their genius tech staff with the respect and awe they deserved, there would probably still be Amigas being made today (I mean, for real, not just a fringe offshoot), and if Apple had owned this technology, they would probably be where Microsoft is today. It was that s

Clarification on original MG

[ReyTFox]

The MSX version is in fact totally different from the NES one in level design, though the gameplay is basically identical, right down to the pixel-level. This is evident from the very beginning, where you start with an underwater entrance rather than the paradrop of the NES version.

I don't know what happened there, but the MSX one is definitely the original, as are Castlevania and Dragon Quest 1.

How much blacker could the image be?

[Dr. Smeegee]

And the answer is none: None more black.

I have scoured the links and can find no actual clear images of this supposedly beautiful hardware.

Anyone know of a nice shot of one of these devices?

Re:How much blacker could the image be?

[gklinger]

Rather than making a snarky post calling you a lazy bastard who should search Google (oops, I guess I did just make a snarky post) I will provide you with what you seek. Here are some decent images.

I've worked with the X68000 and they are/were very cool and quite advanced for their time. Trying to compare different platforms is ultimately pointless so I won't say it was more advanced than the Amiga or Atari ST but it certainly was a peer and shouldn't be overlooked.

Running Unix on the X68000

[hubertf]

Of course there's a port of NetBSD to the X68000 platform.

NetBSD/x68k is the port of NetBSD for the Japanese personal computer SHARP X68000/X68030 series. It runs on some models of X680x0 with MMU and FPU. NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable UNIX/Linux-like Open Source operating system available for many platforms, from 64-bit AlphaServers and desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices. Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent in both production and research environments, and it is user-supported with complete source. Many applications are easily available through The NetBSD Packages Collection.