it's got to be red. the PCB is visible at some angles and choosing the same red would make for a classic MSX look (there were red ones) and not clash with the visible insides.
It looks good so far. I would change out those wood screws for truss head sheet metal screws. That would allow you to tighten them down without risk of cracking the PCB.
Looks great! It's hard to find Commodore or Atari 8-bits here in Tokyo, but there are loads of MSX machines and cartridges! I'd been wanting to get one, but couldn't decide on which one to get. Now I'm thinking I need to build one of these instead. Looking forward to the third video!
I love your channel! I was a former owner of the Yamaha version of the MSX2. Let's answer your question about what color should you paint the computer case. I am thinking the following: 1. The speaker grills should be black, and the rest of the case blue color. 2. If you don't like the color choice mentioned above, then try the grey color like the Atari Xe/St line up. What do you think?
Looking good. I'd go with black or gun metal black for the case. For the screws instead, I'd replace the one you used with pan head or flange head ones as these are the ones you normally find keeping retro gear together.
Since it’s an open source project the easier (and cheaper) will find someone there printing them. IDK how expensive will be buying it from China but it will be a wonderful chance to start a tinkering group at UK…
Great video, thanks. Also thanks for the ‘Monkey Island’ reference, probably my favourite game series ever. I did once have a Sanyo MSX, but only because it was being sold at a practically giveaway price in a local music shop. I don’t remember too much about it, so I was probably unimpressed by it. I believe I had a BBC Micro at the time, which I preferred.
Nice keyboard... as for the case I was thinking more towards grey 'ish' to match the key caps.. standing by for the third act.. wishing you happy new year.. and as always....... stay safe.
It really starts to look the part! My favorite wedge shaped 8 bit computer as far as cases go is the nms8235 and 8245 systems (philips msx-2 computers, so that's my suggestion for the case, dark gray. That would really make the keyboard pop I think.
My very first MSX computer was a Goldstar FC-200. The second one I owned was a Toshiba, which sadly never made the move to our new home for some reason. I currently own a Philips NMS-8255, as maxed out as can be. This project really makes me want to build my own. Although I was already familiar with Sergey's project and have been trying to fit all the components onto a Mini-ITX board. Keep it up!
It is really starting to look good. I have no idea what colour you should paint the case because, as my wife would tell you, I really don't have much colour sense!
That's looking mighty impressive! I think you should leave the case the color that it is; maybe have some accents here and there for a visual pop, but nothing too extreme.
HNY! That thing starts to look like a banger. I'm a Commodore guy, and never knew I wanted an MSX until now. Not sure about the case color tho'... Blue maybe, more specifically, find the complementary color to those orange keys? Just an idea...
I think the case would look good if it was darker than the keys, maybe a mid/dark grey? Or gunmetal? Or even a mid-dark blue? The MSX manufacturers weren't afraid to step outside the grey/biege box. :)
Are you going to be prepping a second board and cables for the joysticks? I assume you're going to have something mounted on the right, and the ones on the motherboard are well out of the way!
Was there any indication of why that case was designed so deep, front to back? It looks as if you could take off almost 10 cm of depth by moving the keyboard further towards the back, to sit on top of the motherboard. I've got eight different models of MSX machines, and I don't think a single one of them is anywhere near that deep.
These is no need for special switches for CAPS and CODE keys. Standard Cherry MX switches have a place for a 3 mm flangeless LEDs. So you just put a regular switch and an LED...
I prefer to choose keycaps after I know what color the case will be, but to each their own I guess. Orange though would NEVER be a choice. Trauma from the 70's burnt orange period. Ugh.
And FPGA emulations are good as documentation for these parts, never a true replacement if all these infos about the emulated/sinthetised part aren’t totally disclosure. Msx has a lot of that info since it was a standard but people should know these little drawbacks about FPGA. In other hand there’s Mister project where they are working on msx1 core (based on svi328) that project has mostly all the parts in their own board fr the amazing cores they are supporting (amigas et al) so different beast. The aim of the omegamsx was more on “real chips” than other proposals. Note aside there’s a version from MerlinKV with some smd chips replacing discrete ones also…
AFAIK, open source FPGA implementations of Z80 are available, but there is no open source VDP implementation. Otherwise there are non-open source FPGA MSX implementations. The point of my design was to make it DIY friendly, and most current FPGAs are not...
@@SergeyKiselevA, the photo at that timing has low resolution, and looks like gray keys aren't labeled, but anyway MSX has one more key in ASDF and ZXCV rows, and block of 4 keys must be block of 5: ins, del, home, select, stop. If we count all the keys here, we'll get 73. If we remove duplicates (like Shift), it is even less. MSX keyboard matrix is 88 keys normally, or 104 keys with numpad. So it is hard to say which are missing because of low photo quality, but at least 15 are. Most likely Stop, Kana(Code), DeadKey are missing.
Stop, Code/Kana, Dead key, Stop, and Select are there. There's no numpad. Not all MSX machines came with one. And I personally almost never use it. The keyboard has two Shift keys, and one of Alt and Ctrl keys. The keyboard indeed uses PC keycaps, because they are readily available. With that being said, the schematic and the PCB layout for the keyboard and the computer are in the project's GitHub repo (see description of this video). I'll be more than happy if people would contribute to the project, including improving the keyboard.
@@SergeyKiselevA, my mistake, 72 to be without numpad, and 88 with it (I was also confused writing 104, but yet posted that, heh). It's a pity I cannot see the buttons I asked about though, but looks fine in numbers, so they exist, I believe. But layout isn't MSX still. I see two single-width keys between «L» and «Return», while 3 expected, and 3 between «M» and «Shift», while 4 expected. That's because Japanese language needs much more glyphs than Basic Latin does, so they extended it a little. Great for Russian too, for a pity PC keyboards in Russia are based on American, not Japanese layout, so punctuation locations are out of any sense of comfort. MSX keyboard based on Japanese layout, good for Russification and languages that use diacritics and modified Latin (Turkish, Spanish etc.). MSX keyboard is about 1 key wider than this. This is a typical PC layout, Amiga also has something alike.
Why is there an Acorn Electron style or Mac like, or certain PCs like Function key?! Why didn't you remove this? The MSX computers have five physical function keys, plus another five with SHIFT! Why aren't there diamond shaped or even just larger cursor keys? As for your case, it doesn't look very MSX to me. If PCBway can actually print them, then why not scan a real MSX case and get them to print that instead? I think that you could have used a first generation MSX case design or an MSX2 case design. I've owned the Yamaha CX5M MSX and Philips VG-8235 MSX2. I think that some of the Sony Hit Bit MSX computers with red cases look really nice, but not the black Hit Bit sold in the UK. I think the MSX2 style computers with separate keyboards and "Pizza box" style main units look better, though. Now I'm going to watch your next video in this series.
it's got to be red. the PCB is visible at some angles and choosing the same red would make for a classic MSX look (there were red ones) and not clash with the visible insides.
I quite like the idea of it at least having Red accents :) :)
I thought red too and saw your comment.
That's going to look rubbish with the orange keycaps, though...
@@Xoferif agreed, and it wouldn't honour the hardware inside it. I would give it a more serious look.
@@Xoferif good point
Red & Green for Xmas of course. I don't see the community survey.
That's weird - it's had over 140 votes so far so it's definitely there :)
Looks really good, can't wait to see it working.
Lol - Me too! :) :) :) :)
I love that intro. Brilliant.
It looks good so far. I would change out those wood screws for truss head sheet metal screws. That would allow you to tighten them down without risk of cracking the PCB.
Yep, they were only temporary placeholders and only in very slightly to hold it in place - all proper screws in the final build :)
Blue case would look great with the yellow and white/gray
The deepest red blue can offer
That’s hurt my brain :)
@@TheRetroShack yes. Colors matters. Hue djz
Metallic blue! Ms Mad Lemon style!
Looks great! It's hard to find Commodore or Atari 8-bits here in Tokyo, but there are loads of MSX machines and cartridges! I'd been wanting to get one, but couldn't decide on which one to get. Now I'm thinking I need to build one of these instead. Looking forward to the third video!
Go for it - it's a fun project - and hopefully all works in the end :)
@@TheRetroShack it’s not a matter of hope, just works. Check my other comments and Happy New 2022!
Gun Metal Grey or flat black.... Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! :) :)
When you finish it you should try running SymbOS on it.
I love your channel! I was a former owner of the Yamaha version of the MSX2.
Let's answer your question about what color should you paint the computer case. I am thinking the following:
1. The speaker grills should be black, and the rest of the case blue color.
2. If you don't like the color choice mentioned above, then try the grey color like the Atari Xe/St line up.
What do you think?
Thank you again.
Glad you're enjoying it :)
YAY.... more MSX content :-D
The device should be nicotine-stain beige!
All of my retro-hardware is of this color. Even originally gray Spectrum +2 and black IBM, for some reason.
Why do I feel if I’d put that as an option (even jokingly) it would have won! :)
Paint it Glossy Black with a slight dark blue metalic
I think it should be a semi-gloss black with trim and highlights that match the grey and orange keys.
that would look great
Nice new MSX computer.
3:10 okay that startled me LMAO
Looking good. I'd go with black or gun metal black for the case.
For the screws instead, I'd replace the one you used with pan head or flange head ones as these are the ones you normally find keeping retro gear together.
Got to be Dark grey or black, will off set the keyboard nicely.
Roughly how much would it cost to get that case 3D printed and delivered to the UK, then?
Since it’s an open source project the easier (and cheaper) will find someone there printing them. IDK how expensive will be buying it from China but it will be a wonderful chance to start a tinkering group at UK…
Gorgeous... can't wait for third episode :)
I think a dark colour would go well with it, similar to some of the other MSX systems.
You can make it look like Brazilian MSX from Sharp: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotbit
Great video, thanks. Also thanks for the ‘Monkey Island’ reference, probably my favourite game series ever. I did once have a Sanyo MSX, but only because it was being sold at a practically giveaway price in a local music shop. I don’t remember too much about it, so I was probably unimpressed by it. I believe I had a BBC Micro at the time, which I preferred.
that case looks amazing.. as do the different keycaps..
Nice keyboard... as for the case I was thinking more towards grey 'ish' to match the key caps.. standing by for the third act.. wishing you happy new year.. and as always....... stay safe.
looking good......shame purple wasnt an option lol.....roll on part 3 and all the best for '22👍
It really starts to look the part! My favorite wedge shaped 8 bit computer as far as cases go is the nms8235 and 8245 systems (philips msx-2 computers, so that's my suggestion for the case, dark gray. That would really make the keyboard pop I think.
I’ve got a Philips MSX2 sitting here waiting for a full refurb - it is lovely!
I agree dark gray.
Agreed, although I own a nms8250 :) But I also love the colors from the Panasonic - FS-A1ST (turbo R).
@@TheRetroShack I'm looking forward to that one too :)
My very first MSX computer was a Goldstar FC-200. The second one I owned was a Toshiba, which sadly never made the move to our new home for some reason.
I currently own a Philips NMS-8255, as maxed out as can be.
This project really makes me want to build my own. Although I was already familiar with Sergey's project and have been trying to fit all the components onto a Mini-ITX board.
Keep it up!
It is really starting to look good. I have no idea what colour you should paint the case because, as my wife would tell you, I really don't have much colour sense!
That's why I'm asking the community this time - did you see the Lemon Amiga episode? :) :)
@@TheRetroShack Yes I did!
Yes, I'm in for 3rd episode. Delays happen, especially holidays, so thats okay
I would go with some nice hammer-tone paint in gun-metal gray with red accents, but that's just me.
I see MSX -> I click Like
I got a bit too "Merry" last night (New Years Eve) - paying for it now though.
Me too :) :)
metalic dark grey
A clear top case would look fantastic.
That's looking mighty impressive! I think you should leave the case the color that it is; maybe have some accents here and there for a visual pop, but nothing too extreme.
I think you should go for a medium grey/blue but erring on the slightly darker side.
Maybe this will make the keys 'glow' slightly!
I do like the 'Philips MSX2' look - metallic grey :)
@@TheRetroShack Yeah that's a good choice too.
That case design absolutely screams MSX.
Doesn't it though! I love it :) :)
I hope the colour settings of the Sony HB-F1XD can inspire you.
Btw your twitter address on top of this page seems to be incorrect.
That’s odd - if I click on the little twitter bird it takes me to the correct page. What are you getting?
Colors? Two tone, black and grey/silver. OR Red and Black like the Sony HitBit MSX HB-101
This HitBits were super sexy looking!
Colour?
Black maybe.
The cartridge slots need a spring loaded trap door.
But otherwise it looks great.
Not sure about the lettering on the keys, they look faaaaaded (I know they are brand new).
Strange to say that I've also come to dislike the grey keys - I feel a change is in the air :)
HNY! That thing starts to look like a banger. I'm a Commodore guy, and never knew I wanted an MSX until now. Not sure about the case color tho'... Blue maybe, more specifically, find the complementary color to those orange keys? Just an idea...
Anybody else getting brain-itch looking at that wonky caps lock key? :D
Aaaaaargghhhhh! You’re right! I’ll get that sorted! :)
Yes 😏
@@TheRetroShack My sanity thanks you! Looking forward to part 3 now!
you killed that z80.....poor soldier
I think the case would look good if it was darker than the keys, maybe a mid/dark grey? Or gunmetal? Or even a mid-dark blue? The MSX manufacturers weren't afraid to step outside the grey/biege box. :)
The vote is looking close. I wonder if we will see a two-tone case if there is no clear winner. :-)
purple!
Very cool
Are you going to be prepping a second board and cables for the joysticks? I assume you're going to have something mounted on the right, and the ones on the motherboard are well out of the way!
Yep - extension cables to side mounted ports :)
Was there any indication of why that case was designed so deep, front to back? It looks as if you could take off almost 10 cm of depth by moving the keyboard further towards the back, to sit on top of the motherboard.
I've got eight different models of MSX machines, and I don't think a single one of them is anywhere near that deep.
That looks awsome!!!!! :-)
blue
Chrome plate that thing ;)
Now that would be very interesting! :)
These is no need for special switches for CAPS and CODE keys. Standard Cherry MX switches have a place for a 3 mm flangeless LEDs. So you just put a regular switch and an LED...
It's gotta be be Matt Black.
I know it's not in ya poll, but it's Matt Black ftw
Maybe I'm dumb or blind but where can I find the poll?
If you go to the channel homepage, there’s a tab called ‘Community’ it’s on there :)
Why is there connectors under the keyboard hidden
I prefer to choose keycaps after I know what color the case will be, but to each their own I guess. Orange though would NEVER be a choice. Trauma from the 70's burnt orange period. Ugh.
Paint it purple
I would, but I’m scared of Purple Tentacles trying to take over the world :)
I have to agree with the other comments, a darker case would be nice. As a matter of fact, I'd paint it black.
Like a Rolling Stone :) :)
@@TheRetroShack Retro Rock'n'Roll :)
What about FPGA versions of the original chips, why could we not have gone with the ZILOG Z800 CPU which is compatible with the ZILOG Z80A
I guess we could - but we didn’t need to :) Z80’s are still available brand new and very much cheaper than an FPGA alternative :)
And FPGA emulations are good as documentation for these parts, never a true replacement if all these infos about the emulated/sinthetised part aren’t totally disclosure. Msx has a lot of that info since it was a standard but people should know these little drawbacks about FPGA. In other hand there’s Mister project where they are working on msx1 core (based on svi328) that project has mostly all the parts in their own board fr the amazing cores they are supporting (amigas et al) so different beast. The aim of the omegamsx was more on “real chips” than other proposals. Note aside there’s a version from MerlinKV with some smd chips replacing discrete ones also…
AFAIK, open source FPGA implementations of Z80 are available, but there is no open source VDP implementation. Otherwise there are non-open source FPGA MSX implementations. The point of my design was to make it DIY friendly, and most current FPGAs are not...
Black case I reckon.. dunno?
How do I order the PCB board?????
Creme like the BBC
i just brought an msx2 for 5 bucks.
4:29 it does not look MSX-ish at all, it looks PC-ish: many MSX-specific keys missing, and the layout is similar to PC.
Yes, what MSX keys are missing? :)
@@SergeyKiselevA, the photo at that timing has low resolution, and looks like gray keys aren't labeled, but anyway MSX has one more key in ASDF and ZXCV rows, and block of 4 keys must be block of 5: ins, del, home, select, stop. If we count all the keys here, we'll get 73. If we remove duplicates (like Shift), it is even less. MSX keyboard matrix is 88 keys normally, or 104 keys with numpad. So it is hard to say which are missing because of low photo quality, but at least 15 are. Most likely Stop, Kana(Code), DeadKey are missing.
Stop, Code/Kana, Dead key, Stop, and Select are there. There's no numpad. Not all MSX machines came with one. And I personally almost never use it. The keyboard has two Shift keys, and one of Alt and Ctrl keys. The keyboard indeed uses PC keycaps, because they are readily available. With that being said, the schematic and the PCB layout for the keyboard and the computer are in the project's GitHub repo (see description of this video). I'll be more than happy if people would contribute to the project, including improving the keyboard.
@@SergeyKiselevA, my mistake, 72 to be without numpad, and 88 with it (I was also confused writing 104, but yet posted that, heh). It's a pity I cannot see the buttons I asked about though, but looks fine in numbers, so they exist, I believe. But layout isn't MSX still. I see two single-width keys between «L» and «Return», while 3 expected, and 3 between «M» and «Shift», while 4 expected. That's because Japanese language needs much more glyphs than Basic Latin does, so they extended it a little. Great for Russian too, for a pity PC keyboards in Russia are based on American, not Japanese layout, so punctuation locations are out of any sense of comfort. MSX keyboard based on Japanese layout, good for Russification and languages that use diacritics and modified Latin (Turkish, Spanish etc.). MSX keyboard is about 1 key wider than this. This is a typical PC layout, Amiga also has something alike.
Why is there an Acorn Electron style or Mac like, or certain PCs like Function key?! Why didn't you remove this? The MSX computers have five physical function keys, plus another five with SHIFT! Why aren't there diamond shaped or even just larger cursor keys? As for your case, it doesn't look very MSX to me. If PCBway can actually print them, then why not scan a real MSX case and get them to print that instead? I think that you could have used a first generation MSX case design or an MSX2 case design. I've owned the Yamaha CX5M MSX and Philips VG-8235 MSX2. I think that some of the Sony Hit Bit MSX computers with red cases look really nice, but not the black Hit Bit sold in the UK. I think the MSX2 style computers with separate keyboards and "Pizza box" style main units look better, though. Now I'm going to watch your next video in this series.