Japanese invasion is almost here
THE Japanese micro invasion — eight machines, (six pictured here), all running the same MSX operating system and software — is almost here.
The computers — from Sony, Yamaha, Canon, Fujitsu, Sanyo, Pioneer, Toshiba and National — were paraded before the major retailers last week, prior to their arrival in the UK. All of the machines are now on sale in Japan and are shortly to be launched in the US.
The UK versions — adapted to work with our own PAL TV system — now seem quite likely to appear in the Autumn, all priced around £200.
As well as being shown to the buyers from the high street chains, six of the machines were also brought together so that a major European manufacturer — Philips — could finalise details of its own micro entry, also adopting the MSX standard.
MSX is a detailed machine specification adopted by the seven Japanese manufacturers designed to solve the continual problem of software incompatibility. By making all the machines broadly the same, MSX cassette, cartridge and disc software will run on any MSX machine. The idea is the brainchild of Microsoft’s Japanese subsidiary — all the machines will run a version of Miscrosoft Basic (MSX Basic) and MSDos.
Each MSX machine will be Z80 based (running at 3.6MHz) with 32k Rom and 64k Ram of which typically 28.5k is available in Basic. Display is 32 x 24 characters with 16 colours and a high- resolution graphics mode of 256 x 192 pixels. Each micro will have three-channel sound over eight octaves.
Provision is made for twin joystick ports, a Rom cartridge port and a parallel printer interface.
To maintain software compatibility across the MSX machines, the memory maps are the same, as are the details of the external expansion bus and disc interface. All MSX machines have 10 function keys.
The MSX specification leaves very little to be decided by the individual manufacturer except the external styling.
The Sony Hit-Bit is the only machine not to feature a ‘professional’ quality keyboard. The Yamaha YIS 503 offers an add-on music synthesiser and music keyboard option. The Sanyo can be used with a video recorder and can capture video frames from tape or off-air. The Pioneer machine is designed to fit in a racked system together with a hi-fi. The National CF2tXX1 has twin Rom cartridge slots. And only the Canon V10 and Yamaha YIS 503 have printer interfaces included as standard.