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Japanese Vintage Computer Collection
Blog History

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The HX-10D wasn't really on my radar, but I found a good deal on Yahoo Auctions for an odd-couple type auction. The machine was boxed and in pretty good condition, but it came with a digital RGB monitor. There is only one MSX machine that I'm aware of that can use digital RGB, and this definitely isn't it. This kind of mismatch often makes for a good deal, and this time was no exception. continued ⇒
It's really hard to beat the aesthetics of the early gray FM Towns towers with the vertically aligned CD-ROM drives. But the FM Towns II HR20 is also a really slick looking desktop re-imagining of the tower. continued ⇒
There are many things that can be done on the Sharp X1 Turbo Z, and one of those things is running CP/M and compiling C programs for it. I picked up a legit copy of CP/M designated as being for the X1 Turbo series, and Lifeboat's C programming language for use on CP/M (I believe the C compiler would work on non-Turbo versions of CP/M). Both came in original boxes, and the C compiler came with the manual as well. continued ⇒
The MS-G5 might well be the rarest system I own. It's remarkable for a number of things. First, it's a rebranded Toshiba Pasopia 1600, itself not a tremendously successful system, although it did have a foot in the business market. Also, it was among the first machines on the Japanese market to have an architecture similar to IBM PC and compatibles. Indeed, it can load and process MS-DOS executables, but due to not having the same memory mapping for CGA or EGA, game titles are basically out. continued ⇒
I bought a PC-8001 a while back, and it came with a couple of extras in it. One was a four-bank EPROM daughterboard that fit in a single socket on the motherboard. This is an option ROM that you can use to enhance your computing experience on the PC-8001 in an endless number of ways. In this case, we couldn't figure out how to get the code on the board to execute, but a fellow meetup member has dumped the contents of it at great effort. continued ⇒
I believe I sold a friend one of my bubble memory cartridge, or for some other reason I ended up with a single cartridge, so I wanted to get a second one, but I didn't want to pay too much money. I had a good plan, but executed it poorly, so it ended up more expensive than I had imagined. But I do at least have two bubble memory cartridges now! continued ⇒
When I picked up the PC-9801 DO+ a while back, one included item was this SCSI board and RAM board joined to use only a single slot. It looks like it must have been a lot of work! But as the PC-9801 DO+ only has one slot, it's quite clever and beneficial. The workmanship looks neat and well done, to my amateur eye. I tested it to at least bring up the SCSI initialization screen, but I don't currently have anything to map the extended memory. continued ⇒
Talk-bun Tool is a tool for the X1 that provides Japanese text to voice synthesis. It doesn't necessarily sound too natural, but creating the Japanese spoken language on an 8-bit PC is relatively easy compared to creating the English spoken language. There are about 100 unique sounds, including blends, and they can be linked together without concern for stress placement. The PC-6001mkII even had the speech generation built into the hardware. continued ⇒
The SR-1000 is a data recorder designed specifically for the SC-3000 or SG-1000 with SK-1100, a keyboard expansion. You need one or the other to have the audio input/output ports to connect to the data recorder. Sega, at least in its 8-bit era, has a history of aesthetically pleasing but cheap-feeling consoles, like the plastic could crack if you look at it funny (that said, I've yet to come across a damaged console). continued ⇒
The VIC-1010 is a multi-port cartridge expansion device for the VIC-1001. It allows up to six cartridges to be plugged in simultaneously. Of course, the cartridges must be programmed in a way that they will work with one another, or at least be able to co-exist peacefully (not step into one another's memory space being the primary concern, I believe). So where it works well is memory expansions combined with programming expansions. continued ⇒

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八　ビ　ッ　ト　hachibitto