I think the purchase for a collector is a must. Preservation of this platform and style as a snapshot of the era in that market is VERY important, considering it's impact on SO many facets of our market - most of which we remain unaware of.
The Japanese answer to Amiga, with a ton of arcade perfect ports. Quite like the HUMANOS - it was quite ahead of its time. Would have loved to have seen a proper release in the West of this machine. Legendary! This system is capable of a ton of different video-modes. The OSCC is indeed the way to go. I have one of these to be able to have all sorts of weird / off the beaten track video signals out to HDMI.
@@simonebernacchia From what I have seen of every game side by side it seems often more than cosmetic? There are a few in depth side by side comparisons and its pretty visible but again no doubt it was as close as most were going to get :)
Great job making this video! As far as monitors go, I use a NEC 71v LCD and it works great for 99% of all software. These monitors are not very easy to find but it’s not impossible either.
Wow. This thing really blows the Amiga out of the water. I'd love to see a video comparing games released on both platforms. I doubt a single amiga port would run nearly as well as the game ports do on this thing. You could even compare the top rated games on the x68000 compared to the best rated games on the Amiga to see if the Amiga can make some ground back there.
Most games can go to 31kHz if you hold a certain key on the keyboard. The Dell U2410 works perfectly with my machines. I bought like 6 them about 7 years ago and now you can't find them anymore...they also work with Amiga etc.
In terms of retro computers, the X68K is the holy grail for me. Both the sound and graphics are completely unparalleled, unless you count the NeoGeo, which wouldn't really be fair. Is it an 'Amiga Killer'? Yes, definitely. At least technically, it is far superior. Completely puts the Amiga to shame. I grew up owning an Amiga which I loved dearly, so I'm qualified to say this.
This is why some computer companies never took off because of price and ease of use. I still look back at the potential that Amiga and Commodore had and they squandered their future because of the idiots running the company. Idiot isn't a harsh enough term to describe them though.
One of the reasons the arcade conversions were so good on this machine is that a lot of the big arcade manufacturers used them as development machines due to the similar architecture of many arcade boards of the time so the home conversion was relatively easy to port. I must say, the sound this thing outputs is amazing, way ahead of any machine in the west until the advent of decent pc soundcards and cd based consoles. The music sounds so rich and punchy compared to most amiga soundtracks.
Yup! It was either this machine or the PC-88/98 systems basically. These machines were practically for enterprise use until their prices with newer revisions came down enough to be affordable for the high-end consumer market during Japan's bubble economy
That export control legislation probably didn't apply to Australia, New Zealand, North America or Western Europe. It probably kept them from selling to the USSR, CCP, Warsaw Pact, North Korea and Soviet-friendly countries such, as India and Egypt.
Almost bought one of these when I still lived in the UK (early 90's). I was excited to get hold of it as I could see a lot of potential with a quick look at the specs and the games available. I was using my Amiga at that time for creating images and videos with ray tracing and terrain renderers and thought with the spec I was seeing that I would be able to use this. I was supplied with what was considered the best applications and games available for the system, and while many of the games were well done the same could not be said about the rest. I didn't like the OS, Office type applications were few and lacking, the only graphics software I used was glitchy and missing many of the features of DPaint, Music software seemed to be limited to MIDI without any Mod music applications, zero ray tracers and the only terrain renderer was useless. At this point I was waiting for some programming applications to arrive but ended up just telling him not to bother as it wasn't going to do what I needed anyway. As a game console it was great, but it was supposedly a computer and for that it was useless compared to other systems.
Looking at the front, the right side is the CPU board, GPU and expansion slots. The left side is dual 5.25 floppy drives, PSU and hard drive if fitted. Bottom portion contains crossover, clock, some io, some of power management. You'll eventually want a monitor that will support 15khz and 31khz. 24khz is a nice to have but not absolutely required. They are awesome machines. Well worth the effort to keep them running. Have fun!
Thanks for sharing your experience with the X68000! What an amazing computer for its time. Some of those ports are better than arcade, like Bubble Bobble with its exclusive Sybubblun mode. You access that by holding one of the special keys while booting IIRC. Imagine having one of these at home back in the late 80's/early 90's! Just insane how powerful it was for its time.
I’m working on getting an X68000 and planning on using it with my FM Towns monitor. It’s tri-sync like the X68K. It even uses the same connector, but with a different pin out, so I’ll have to build an adapter.
Blowing my mind- that 65K color photo kicks the amiga's ass. Amiga RTG is clunky as it needs 2 displays. Sharp Japan really messed up not marketing it in US (that export ban was likely to Russia/other unfriendly countries).
I remember hearing about these when I started getting interested in early Japanese anime. A lot of artists created cartoons, games, and early gifs on these machines, and to play the games on PC, you needed a conversion layer of sorts to get the double-byte Kanji characters to display properly. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't!😜 Pretty cool to see that you have a SCSI storage adapter of sorts that you can load multiple copies of drives to boot from, which I'm sure is much quicker to load than even an early compatible hard disc. I have probably 20 or 30 of those early SCSI adapter cables for various peripherals that I can hook to some old HP PA-RISC machines that still work!😉 *EDIT:* I am *REALLY* impressed with how well that thing handles the old arcade game graphics and sound. No glitches, no hanging. They just work!! Amazing for a 30+ year old computer.😁
Thank you for making a video about this. There aren’t that many I just recently got mine and I’m waiting for the scsi board and now I know what to do. Thanks again.
It's weird hearing someone call the graphics portion of the X68000 a "GPU". It's technically correct, of course, but nobody called the graphics subsystems of personal computers a "GPU" back in the day. That term didn't come into mainstream vocab before, what, the origiinal GeForce 256 or even later.
Yup Nvidia coined that term with the OG GeForce cards. I remember the demo of the hardware with Doom 3 and the per pixel lighting. Looked amazing back then.
@@andreyansimov5442 in the msx days, different manufacturers used different terms. But on msx, it was called the "VDP". Stands for Video Display Processor
The arcade perfect conversions aren't an accident. I believe Capcom used a version of this system as the development platform for its CP arcade system. Its sound chip and video chips are a found on a lot of arcade boards from the late 80s to the 90's
I was aware of the X68k existence thanks to Akumajo Dracula (Castlevania) music in late 90s early 00s, I was obsessed with a Castlevania music album called "Perfect Selection Dracula Battle II" that featured many tracks rearranged from "Akumajo Dracula" X68000 version, that later I played on PS1 thanks to the compilation "Castlevania Chronicles", so I knew the X68k was a beast at least Audio-wise. You just confirmed that with the last part of your video demonstrating its audio capabilities rendering those timeless classic songs ! Thank you for sharing man, I really loved it :)
Akumajo Dracula on the x68k has some amazing music. It's even better when the machine is hooked up to an external MIDI synth. I didn't show the game in this video because I had previously used it in an older episode but it's still worth a listen just because the music is so good! th-cam.com/video/BlNY_oHtcas/w-d-xo.html
FWIW, the Apple Lisa had soft-power back in 1983. When you pushed the power button when the machine was on, it would go through a clean shutdown before actually turning off. I *think* that included parking the heads on the Profile Hard Drive.
I'd love to see a deep-dive into the operating systems and the GUIs - SX-Window was probably more widely used, but there also was an earlier interface called “Visual Shell”, which looks uncannily Mac-like.
If you have used a MS-DOS PC, then you'll find the HumanOS command line an almost exact duplicate. There are some subtleties like having drivers installed in nvram, but it's basically nothing special; virtually all of the commands are the same.
The word you're looking for is "Latin letters". Also, it turns out that Compact Flash cards are pretty slow, even when used natively on an IDE bus. So SD card adapters are usually faster, despite intrinsically needing more translation to the target system.
Thanks for an awesome video. Love seeing the X68000 in real life. I enjoy it through the MiSTer core which is fairly good. My favourite game on the platform is Akumajo Dracula (Castlevania). I love using the mt32pi support in the MiSTer core for hot MT32 action. Thanks again. Cheers 😊
Glad you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun exploring the system for the first time. Agreed, Akumajo Dracula with MIDI is awesome on the system and the MiSTer core makes it super accessible. I need to find a real MIDI card for the system but the prices are crazy and the modern reproductions aren't being sold anymore :(
Great video, I've always been fascinated by the X68000. Something about the sleek design and the ahead of its time hardware. Now, hope you're considering adding an MT-32 to it. 😉
Definitely on my radar! I've been keeping my eye on MIDI boards for the system but they're all going for high prices at auction. There have been a number of modern equivalents made so that may be an option.
Ever wish you could go back in time and slap an executive upside their stupid head? If this system had been world-wide, there's no telling how different things would be now! Thank you for your expense and effort putting this video together, it is truly appreciated!
The X68000 was an amazing feat of engineering, and it's a perfect example of a no compromise arcade machine for the home. The weird video modes requiring a custom designed monitor, the obscenely overengineered internal hardware etc. You can tell that the goal was to design a system very specifically for playing arcade games perfectly. It had very impressive capabilities for its time. I'm not sure it's a better general purpose computer than other computers at the time though, but as a pure gaming machine? Probably the best you could get. It would've been really interesting to see what a later version with 68030, more RAM and an internal HDD could've done in terms of more typical "home computer" type tasks. How good was the software library for it? Was this an Amiga killer? Hard to know. The thing that keeps impressing me with the Amiga, is that even without any modern hardware, meaning, simply using contemporary expansions, like accelerator cards, PCMCIA network adapter etc. You can effectively turn an Amiga into a much more modern feeling computer than it has any right to. Just the fact that you can get modern network access, up to date web browsers, great integration with PCs etc. It shouldn't surprise me if the X68000 can do that as well, but with only hardware available when it was still relevant? Thanks for the excellent video. It's a very interesting system, and there's not that many videos about it.
Capcom used these as workstations to make games for their CPS-1 arcade hardware (Street Fighter II and a ton of others). Same sound chips as well (YM2151 + OKI6295); I imagine all music was composed via keyboards connected directly to the X68ks running sequencing software. Apparently the port of Kyukyoku Tiger has trackball support, which is the only version of it to do so. Cho Ren Sha 68k is the best indie sky-stage-style shmup I've ever played (via the Windows port, which is freeware and still runs on modern Windows). Thanks for the demonstration, this is a really cool machine.
With something that old it's always a good idea to at least take it down to where you can see all the parts, not to figure out what they are because that doesn't even matter at this stage. You want to look inside to make sure there's no liquid damage or component failures, and that everything is at least visually in working order before putting power through it.
Cool machine and video. Very stylish design. I would suggest cutting the whole bit about the upscaler "hack" out of the video entirely. Until about 2 years ago I never knew of the X68000 machine.
This machine would easily be an 'Amiga Killer' if Japanese sold it worldwide back in the days! Used to have 'Speccy' back in '82. and C64C im '87. and dreamed about Amiga 500... ;-)
Doubt it, the cost of this thing likely would have dwarfed the cost of either the amiga or the atari ST, or any IBM or IBM clone. I think at best it would have been like the neo geo of home computers. Nice if you could afford it but 90% of the market sticking with the amiga, ST or IBM's.
Fun fact: Geograph Seal was developed by EXACT who went on to develop Jumping Flash for PS1. You can really tell that since the gameplay is so similar.
Cool, thanks for sharing! I haven't played Jumping Flash before, but the game felt a lot like Gundam on the Saturn (of which I've only really played 10 minutes of).
Whenever I see videos introducing old computers, I feel that they can do pretty good works even compared to modern computers. Today's computer has 2GB memory, 128GB storage, 2K resolution true color monitor, and 2GHz CPU at least, but it often becomes unstable, useless and its OS has many glitches. The quality of program/programming must be deteriorated drastically compared to the 1980's when all the professional programmer can read machine language.
Well the x68000 did not have Dpaint so no would not traded it for my beloved Amiga! 😂😂😂 To be honest I have been very curious of this system so thank you for showing us. I never heard of it back in the day. I guess the closest would be the NeoGeo which I alwayst wanted, still I have so many awesome memories of my Amiga 500 and then my Amiga1200 (with an FPU and 4 MB fast ram and 120MB HDD) so I am very grateful I got to experience the Amiga computers.
In general I think the productivity software aspect was overlooked in this video. The Amiga had so much of it that an Amiga killer would have to work really hard to match it. In terms of hardware the X68000 seems much better for typical arcade games of the era.
@@storerestore There was definitely no shortage of productivity software on the x68000 in Japan, including even paint programs (don't really know if they stack up to Deluxe Paint though). It's true it's known for arcade ports among retro gaming fans in the west, especially shooter fans, but that's only a small part of the full story. Rather than a consumer-oriented computer like Amiga it had a bit more of a "prosumer" and luxury focus, and it was also used by game developers (e.g. Capcom who used it for development on CPS games). Buying such an expensive computer just to play games when the Mega Drive and PC Engine were 10 times cheaper was a luxury afforded by only a very small subset of wealthy gamers and computer enthusiasts. As a consumer product I feel the Sharp x68000 was much less of a computer for the average computer-interested teen than the Amiga(s) no matter what the somwhat similar hardware specs might suggests.
@@Mogura87 No reason why the x68k couldn't have had a DPaint killer; every model supports 31KHz 512x512 in 32768 colours out of the box (yes, all the internet info says '16bit' support, but in reality it's a 555 pixel format with a separate 'intensity/brightness' bit). Even with the 15/16bit colour modes you've got 256 colour packed-pixel screen modes with enough vram for several pages of video. Or you can trade off the colour depth and do crazy (for 1987) high-res productivity modes, again in 31KHz. Really the only place the Amiga wins is in the digital audio space with the 4 channels compared to the mono channel of the Sharp (albeit with the YM chip as well). I say that as someone with a 500 and 1200 on his desk, and a X68000 Super sitting next to them ... and two broken X68000 Pro units killed by bad caps and battery leaks :(
There is at least 1 rpg game for the x68000 that is playable in English. It's called Lagoon. It was ported and localized into english for the snes. But that port plays very differently. The original version utilized a combat system very similar to the Ys series where you walk into enemies to damage them, though in Lagoon you hold the attack button before doing so. The snes version used a standard press attack button to "attack" like zelda or other action rpg games. But this version of the game is inferior in most if not all ways because the hitbox for your sword was not changed to match the new combat system. The snes version also had a very different storyline. A few years ago, somebody translated the x68k version so one can play it in English. I definitely recommend checking it out. The snes version is also worth trying out to see the different story.
When the music starts at 12:29 I really panicked because I thought it was the disk drive doing that clack clack sound drives do when the internal mechanics are busted and they're about to kill whatever floppy was inserted lmao
Damn when you said expensive i didn't think that expensive! I remember looking at them like 3 years ago and they were going for around 300$ insane how much they are now WTF!!
While I understand the comparisons to the Amiga it makes no sense to call it an "Amiga Killer". This Sharp computer cost 3x what an Amiga 1000 cost and the Amiga didn't really take off in sales until the cost reduced Amiga 500 was released.
where did you get this nonsense? It was a true Amiga killer, the price of the X68000 at introduction was 2500-3000USD (sources claim both) and that was including monitor, keyboard, mouse convertible to trackball, two FDDs, SASI controller, 1MB RAM, TV tuner, two upgrade slots, GPU declassing Amiga, faster CPU. While A1000 price including mouse, keyboard, monitor, 512KB RAM and second FDD was 2300USD. And that was it, no SASI/SCSI, no 1MB RAM...but much lower specs. Even if you bring in the A2000B, since the X68000 came out in 1987, dollar per dollar, the X68000 wins.
@ChrisP-C64 - Still makes sense to call it an Amiga Killer from a purely shock & awe perspective, just because the graphics and audio specs for gaming purposes was so much better than the Amiga. X68000 specs is what Amiga should've evolved into by 1988 if Commodore weren't so inept. Instead, we had to wait until 1992 for AGA, which still kept the same boring 4-channel audio from 1985.
The "GPU board" will almost definitely not be on a different side than the CPU. Keep in mind that this is not a modern GPU, it's a console/arcade-like VPU. It's not connected over a multi-link serial protocol like PCIe (something that is designed to be carried over some distance, giving the possibility of long riser in tower cases, and external enclosures on laptop and even interconnects on HPC). It's directly talking to the CPU over it's main address/data bus (and this is something not trivial to carry over very long distance. Making external ISA enclosures was still possible in the early PCs, but by the time this beast came out the CPU's fast bus would be at best across daughter boards on the mainboard, but very difficult to carry over long distance parallel buses).
Such an impressive system from the time the cool kids in the rest of the world where using Amiga's! Matt, if you use a cheap HDMI to VGA adapter (the cheaper the better) with the OSSC you can use an ordinary (later) VGA-CRT-monitor. Just set the OSSC to line double the 15KHz modes and you're good to go. Later VGA-CRT-monitors will sync to any weird timing as long as it's within their spec. The OSSC takes care of the low frequency 15KHz en 24KHz modes and the rest doesn't need any modification. I have a 21"-trinitron VGA-CRT and in combination with a OSSC you can get almost anything to display properly without lag. It can even be made to work with composite and s-video signals but they require conversion to RGB first. You don't need that capability because you own commodore 1084 monitors.
Cool, thanks for the tips! So the HDMI to VGA conversion doesn't introduce any additional latency? Good to know! It might be a cheaper alternative than trying to find a rare VGA CRT that can handle all the different refresh rates.
@@retrobitstv The HDMI to VGA conversion doesn't introduce any latency IF you use the cheapest op the cheapest converter for it. That's because the adapter is basically just a bunch of DAC's converting digital to analog in real time. Strictly speaking there is some latency but this is negligible and takes just a small fraction of a scanline. I even use use mine for aspect perfect display of 16:9 signals by setting the picture height to a low value on the CRT.
Apple also cares more about style than an easy ability to service. The Woz isn't too happy about it, geek that he is, and he was a founder of the company. COCOM was an organization of member companies - including Japan - embargoing certain products from being sold to the Soviet Union and associated states.
I think I could have bought all the original arcade PCBs of the games I wanted on the X68000 back then for less than the price of that machine. It's a shame it cost so much. Arcade perfect street fighter 2 was the dream back then.
Great video! Not a machine I'm ever likely to get my hands on, so really nice you went in depth. Looking forward to you learning to read Chinese for the next rpg special!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I never thought I'd own one and was shocked I won the auction at such a "low" price in the first place. I have no problem when it comes to reading Chinese, it's the Japanese that gets me!
I believe Commodore multisync monitors like the 1950/1960/1962 should work okay with this unit. A 1940/1942 bisync monitor should also handle the 15 and 31khz modes but not the 24khz.
Mine as well. I fully didn't expect to win the auction with such a "low" bid, but here we are :) I feel okay about the purchase knowing I could turn around and sell it on eBay for more than I bought it.
At 15Khz, RGB capable PVM displays should display that system just fine. There are VGA to component and or RGB adapters can help with the PVM. I bet the odd timing was, in part, an artifact of the overall system timing. In the CRT 15Khz era there was considerable slop in what displays would render nicely.
I have a question: The 6-button controller adapter featured on the video enables support for all 6 buttons of the mega drive controller? It's written on the manufacturer's site that only two buttons will work. Thanks for this video!
I didn't see that mentioned when I bought the adapter but I can now confirm that you are correct - only two buttons work even in games with 6 button support like SF2. That's a bummer :(
Hi, your guess about what is in each tower is wrong. On the right tower you have CPU and GPU in 2 different boards sandwitched. The left tower contains power supply, floppy drives and depending on the model, maybe a hard drive or not. There is a board also in the base which is the IO controller.
I had an Amiga 500... while I always thought the X68000 looked really good (and it did), as you said the software available was more limited. Outside of some blockbuster arcade ports, I think I was better off with the Amiga. (Not that I would have been able to afford or even access the X68000 back then.) The Amiga port o f Street Fighter 2 was awful, but I wonder if that's just because it was ported by a third party. Thanks for the video.
I do have an X68000 and both a GBS-Control and an OSSC. Both work. The OSSC actually cuts off the screen a bit but that can be fixed apparently by loading something on the X68000. Yours either has an outdated firmware or something is wrong
I have the latest firmware, but I do not have the external clock generator module. I've read on a forum that some people got it to work and some haven't but it seems to vary by model. The XVI / Compact seem to work with it per this post: nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6971.0
This is an interesting video, and system. I am unsure if GPU is the right terminology? I might be wrong but I feel GPU is a term used to describe modern 3D graphic processors. It seem that the orgianl term was VSOP ( Video processing chip ) or some variant.
Was it possible to make music on the Sharp X68000? The Amiga has amazing music programs for it, be curious to see what possible programs are on the Sharp.
There were at least four different MIDI cards available for the system (not counting recent homebrew) and a bunch of music composition programs. It would not surprise me if the music for Capcom and other arcade titles was composed on the X68000 since it has been well-documented that the game development itself was done on the platform and the arcade hardware was designed around the Sharp's architecture. Long winded way of saying "yes" :)
Just a question and thanks for this cool video. From the keyboard, is there a command to go back to the game list of that V4 HDD image? I don't think reseting the machine to play a different game is the proper way to do it. Let me know if you have figured this out.
If the game cleanly exits to the command prompt, you can start the menu back up by typing "lhes" and hitting enter. If you've patched the V4 HDD image to use the newer launcher, then you could run "mishell hdd_v4.sp1" but it's a little easier just to re-run "autoexec" instead.
The x68000 design is so timeless, never got interested about it before your videos, it's looking so good how can this this be 36 years old already
The CPU itself is 38 years old now.
If nothing else, it's aesthetics were decades ahead! I would feel glad to own a system now, that looked as good on my desk.
Yuzo Koshiro used an X68000 to make the music for Sega's Streets of Rage 2 on the Genesis / Mega Drive.
I think the purchase for a collector is a must. Preservation of this platform and style as a snapshot of the era in that market is VERY important, considering it's impact on SO many facets of our market - most of which we remain unaware of.
Absolutely. We need to do lore to preserve retro Japanese pc gaming.
The Japanese answer to Amiga, with a ton of arcade perfect ports. Quite like the HUMANOS - it was quite ahead of its time. Would have loved to have seen a proper release in the West of this machine. Legendary! This system is capable of a ton of different video-modes. The OSCC is indeed the way to go. I have one of these to be able to have all sorts of weird / off the beaten track video signals out to HDMI.
Would love to see a version of AROS for it, so to have multitasking
*almost arcade perfect*. They were the best for home market but not arcade perfect. Great video!
@@YoreHistory most of the time the x68000 was the development system so assets and code was mostly the same
@@simonebernacchia I believe it was the dev system for capcom CPS1 games and I think the neo geo.
@@simonebernacchia From what I have seen of every game side by side it seems often more than cosmetic? There are a few in depth side by side comparisons and its pretty visible but again no doubt it was as close as most were going to get :)
Great job making this video! As far as monitors go, I use a NEC 71v LCD and it works great for 99% of all software. These monitors are not very easy to find but it’s not impossible either.
Thanks for the info!
Wow. This thing really blows the Amiga out of the water. I'd love to see a video comparing games released on both platforms. I doubt a single amiga port would run nearly as well as the game ports do on this thing. You could even compare the top rated games on the x68000 compared to the best rated games on the Amiga to see if the Amiga can make some ground back there.
Most games can go to 31kHz if you hold a certain key on the keyboard. The Dell U2410 works perfectly with my machines. I bought like 6 them about 7 years ago and now you can't find them anymore...they also work with Amiga etc.
Hello!, do you know if the Dell i2410f is the same or not? Or will work with an x68k? Thank you!
In terms of retro computers, the X68K is the holy grail for me. Both the sound and graphics are completely unparalleled, unless you count the NeoGeo, which wouldn't really be fair.
Is it an 'Amiga Killer'? Yes, definitely. At least technically, it is far superior. Completely puts the Amiga to shame. I grew up owning an Amiga which I loved dearly, so I'm qualified to say this.
This is why some computer companies never took off because of price and ease of use. I still look back at the potential that Amiga and Commodore had and they squandered their future because of the idiots running the company. Idiot isn't a harsh enough term to describe them though.
One of the reasons the arcade conversions were so good on this machine is that a lot of the big arcade manufacturers used them as development machines due to the similar architecture of many arcade boards of the time so the home conversion was relatively easy to port.
I must say, the sound this thing outputs is amazing, way ahead of any machine in the west until the advent of decent pc soundcards and cd based consoles. The music sounds so rich and punchy compared to most amiga soundtracks.
Yup! It was either this machine or the PC-88/98 systems basically. These machines were practically for enterprise use until their prices with newer revisions came down enough to be affordable for the high-end consumer market during Japan's bubble economy
That export control legislation probably didn't apply to Australia, New Zealand, North America or Western Europe. It probably kept them from selling to the USSR, CCP, Warsaw Pact, North Korea and Soviet-friendly countries such, as India and Egypt.
Almost bought one of these when I still lived in the UK (early 90's). I was excited to get hold of it as I could see a lot of potential with a quick look at the specs and the games available. I was using my Amiga at that time for creating images and videos with ray tracing and terrain renderers and thought with the spec I was seeing that I would be able to use this. I was supplied with what was considered the best applications and games available for the system, and while many of the games were well done the same could not be said about the rest. I didn't like the OS, Office type applications were few and lacking, the only graphics software I used was glitchy and missing many of the features of DPaint, Music software seemed to be limited to MIDI without any Mod music applications, zero ray tracers and the only terrain renderer was useless. At this point I was waiting for some programming applications to arrive but ended up just telling him not to bother as it wasn't going to do what I needed anyway. As a game console it was great, but it was supposedly a computer and for that it was useless compared to other systems.
A very enlightening comment
Looking at the front, the right side is the CPU board, GPU and expansion slots. The left side is dual 5.25 floppy drives, PSU and hard drive if fitted. Bottom portion contains crossover, clock, some io, some of power management. You'll eventually want a monitor that will support 15khz and 31khz. 24khz is a nice to have but not absolutely required. They are awesome machines. Well worth the effort to keep them running. Have fun!
Thanks for sharing your experience with the X68000! What an amazing computer for its time. Some of those ports are better than arcade, like Bubble Bobble with its exclusive Sybubblun mode. You access that by holding one of the special keys while booting IIRC. Imagine having one of these at home back in the late 80's/early 90's! Just insane how powerful it was for its time.
You know your getting old when you played a bunch of these back in the day. my favourite was gradius 3. :{)
There's also the X68000 Mini coming up!
I’m working on getting an X68000 and planning on using it with my FM Towns monitor. It’s tri-sync like the X68K. It even uses the same connector, but with a different pin out, so I’ll have to build an adapter.
I really like those soft insert/eject drives, I wish more drives worked like this back in the day.
Blowing my mind- that 65K color photo kicks the amiga's ass. Amiga RTG is clunky as it needs 2 displays. Sharp Japan really messed up not marketing it in US (that export ban was likely to Russia/other unfriendly countries).
I remember hearing about these when I started getting interested in early Japanese anime. A lot of artists created cartoons, games, and early gifs on these machines, and to play the games on PC, you needed a conversion layer of sorts to get the double-byte Kanji characters to display properly. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't!😜
Pretty cool to see that you have a SCSI storage adapter of sorts that you can load multiple copies of drives to boot from, which I'm sure is much quicker to load than even an early compatible hard disc. I have probably 20 or 30 of those early SCSI adapter cables for various peripherals that I can hook to some old HP PA-RISC machines that still work!😉 *EDIT:* I am *REALLY* impressed with how well that thing handles the old arcade game graphics and sound. No glitches, no hanging. They just work!! Amazing for a 30+ year old computer.😁
Sadly, the amount of software that came out for these computers will never be known, an impressive system.
I have wanted this piece of tech in my collection for over 15 years. You see that I'm jealous right?
Thank you for making a video about this. There aren’t that many I just recently got mine and I’m waiting for the scsi board and now I know what to do. Thanks again.
Be sure to use a JIS screwdriver to preserve the original screws.
Up! He should see this
Agree. But also be aware that not all "JIS" screwdrivers sold today are *real* JIS. I trust the Sunflag brand myself.
No use harbour Freight tool's or the ltt screwdriver 🪛 lol 😂
pfft
Wow, the x68000 looks almost a modern device.
It looks more modern than modern devices
it looks like a mindset computer
It's weird hearing someone call the graphics portion of the X68000 a "GPU". It's technically correct, of course, but nobody called the graphics subsystems of personal computers a "GPU" back in the day. That term didn't come into mainstream vocab before, what, the origiinal GeForce 256 or even later.
Yup Nvidia coined that term with the OG GeForce cards. I remember the demo of the hardware with Doom 3 and the per pixel lighting. Looked amazing back then.
I caught that too 😅
How it was called back then?
@@andreyansimov5442 in the msx days, different manufacturers used different terms. But on msx, it was called the "VDP". Stands for Video Display Processor
Great video! Very impressed. I haven’t dove into the x68000 on my MiSTeR yet, but I’m going to have to give it a look!
The arcade perfect conversions aren't an accident. I believe Capcom used a version of this system as the development platform for its CP arcade system. Its sound chip and video chips are a found on a lot of arcade boards from the late 80s to the 90's
I was aware of the X68k existence thanks to Akumajo Dracula (Castlevania) music in late 90s early 00s, I was obsessed with a Castlevania music album called "Perfect Selection Dracula Battle II" that featured many tracks rearranged from "Akumajo Dracula" X68000 version, that later I played on PS1 thanks to the compilation "Castlevania Chronicles", so I knew the X68k was a beast at least Audio-wise.
You just confirmed that with the last part of your video demonstrating its audio capabilities rendering those timeless classic songs !
Thank you for sharing man, I really loved it :)
Akumajo Dracula on the x68k has some amazing music. It's even better when the machine is hooked up to an external MIDI synth. I didn't show the game in this video because I had previously used it in an older episode but it's still worth a listen just because the music is so good! th-cam.com/video/BlNY_oHtcas/w-d-xo.html
OK the mouse being able to convert to trackball is damn cool. 😯
great demonstration, always been curious about the abilities of hte system. The audio is incredible.
FWIW, the Apple Lisa had soft-power back in 1983. When you pushed the power button when the machine was on, it would go through a clean shutdown before actually turning off. I *think* that included parking the heads on the Profile Hard Drive.
Cool, I didn't know that! Perhaps Sharp took their inspiration from the Lisa then.
Really cool video. It's amazing how much potential it had yet the price make it impractical.
I got interested in the games and hombrew
This system look always makes me think on Patlabor anime with grest nostalgia. Great video, Kudos.
Those Export markings were more in place for the trade embargoes on countries like Iran and North K.
I'd love to see a deep-dive into the operating systems and the GUIs - SX-Window was probably more widely used, but there also was an earlier interface called “Visual Shell”, which looks uncannily Mac-like.
If you have used a MS-DOS PC, then you'll find the HumanOS command line an almost exact duplicate. There are some subtleties like having drivers installed in nvram, but it's basically nothing special; virtually all of the commands are the same.
The word you're looking for is "Latin letters".
Also, it turns out that Compact Flash cards are pretty slow, even when used natively on an IDE bus. So SD card adapters are usually faster, despite intrinsically needing more translation to the target system.
Thanks for an awesome video. Love seeing the X68000 in real life. I enjoy it through the MiSTer core which is fairly good. My favourite game on the platform is Akumajo Dracula (Castlevania). I love using the mt32pi support in the MiSTer core for hot MT32 action. Thanks again. Cheers 😊
Glad you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun exploring the system for the first time. Agreed, Akumajo Dracula with MIDI is awesome on the system and the MiSTer core makes it super accessible. I need to find a real MIDI card for the system but the prices are crazy and the modern reproductions aren't being sold anymore :(
This is one amazing video! Thank you for sharing all the info, both pro and con 👍
You're welcome and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Wow, A case beyonf time. Looks Modern Design.
Awesome video, I'm just diving in to this system.
Great video, I've always been fascinated by the X68000. Something about the sleek design and the ahead of its time hardware.
Now, hope you're considering adding an MT-32 to it. 😉
Definitely on my radar! I've been keeping my eye on MIDI boards for the system but they're all going for high prices at auction. There have been a number of modern equivalents made so that may be an option.
Ever wish you could go back in time and slap an executive upside their stupid head?
If this system had been world-wide, there's no telling how different things would be now!
Thank you for your expense and effort putting this video together, it is truly appreciated!
The X68000 was an amazing feat of engineering, and it's a perfect example of a no compromise arcade machine for the home. The weird video modes requiring a custom designed monitor, the obscenely overengineered internal hardware etc. You can tell that the goal was to design a system very specifically for playing arcade games perfectly. It had very impressive capabilities for its time. I'm not sure it's a better general purpose computer than other computers at the time though, but as a pure gaming machine? Probably the best you could get. It would've been really interesting to see what a later version with 68030, more RAM and an internal HDD could've done in terms of more typical "home computer" type tasks. How good was the software library for it? Was this an Amiga killer? Hard to know. The thing that keeps impressing me with the Amiga, is that even without any modern hardware, meaning, simply using contemporary expansions, like accelerator cards, PCMCIA network adapter etc. You can effectively turn an Amiga into a much more modern feeling computer than it has any right to. Just the fact that you can get modern network access, up to date web browsers, great integration with PCs etc. It shouldn't surprise me if the X68000 can do that as well, but with only hardware available when it was still relevant?
Thanks for the excellent video. It's a very interesting system, and there's not that many videos about it.
But there was compromise.
Capcom used these as workstations to make games for their CPS-1 arcade hardware (Street Fighter II and a ton of others). Same sound chips as well (YM2151 + OKI6295); I imagine all music was composed via keyboards connected directly to the X68ks running sequencing software. Apparently the port of Kyukyoku Tiger has trackball support, which is the only version of it to do so. Cho Ren Sha 68k is the best indie sky-stage-style shmup I've ever played (via the Windows port, which is freeware and still runs on modern Windows). Thanks for the demonstration, this is a really cool machine.
Even the on/off button is cool looking in x68000
It would have been interesting to see how the X68000 would have fared in the western market, competing directly with the Amiga and Atari ST.
With something that old it's always a good idea to at least take it down to where you can see all the parts, not to figure out what they are because that doesn't even matter at this stage. You want to look inside to make sure there's no liquid damage or component failures, and that everything is at least visually in working order before putting power through it.
Cool machine and video. Very stylish design. I would suggest cutting the whole bit about the upscaler "hack" out of the video entirely. Until about 2 years ago I never knew of the X68000 machine.
Congrats on your conquest! That thing's been on my list for a long time and I just haven't been able to make myself pull the trigger.
This machine would easily be an 'Amiga Killer' if Japanese sold it worldwide back in the days! Used to have 'Speccy' back in '82. and C64C im '87. and dreamed about Amiga 500... ;-)
Doubt it, the cost of this thing likely would have dwarfed the cost of either the amiga or the atari ST, or any IBM or IBM clone. I think at best it would have been like the neo geo of home computers. Nice if you could afford it but 90% of the market sticking with the amiga, ST or IBM's.
@@maxxdahl6062 Afford my ass, couldn't buy even an Amiga 500... ;-)
Awesome device! Thanks for the video.
47:00 I could listen to passing breeze all day long. Congrats on making such a comprehensive review and hope you can one day find a tri-sync CRT.
Fun fact: Geograph Seal was developed by EXACT who went on to develop Jumping Flash for PS1. You can really tell that since the gameplay is so similar.
Cool, thanks for sharing! I haven't played Jumping Flash before, but the game felt a lot like Gundam on the Saturn (of which I've only really played 10 minutes of).
Love this passion about retro stuff, very nostalgic. Great video!
Whenever I see videos introducing old computers, I feel that they can do pretty good works even compared to modern computers. Today's computer has 2GB memory, 128GB storage, 2K resolution true color monitor, and 2GHz CPU at least, but it often becomes unstable, useless and its OS has many glitches. The quality of program/programming must be deteriorated drastically compared to the 1980's when all the professional programmer can read machine language.
Well the x68000 did not have Dpaint so no would not traded it for my beloved Amiga! 😂😂😂 To be honest I have been very curious of this system so thank you for showing us. I never heard of it back in the day. I guess the closest would be the NeoGeo which I alwayst wanted, still I have so many awesome memories of my Amiga 500 and then my Amiga1200 (with an FPU and 4 MB fast ram and 120MB HDD) so I am very grateful I got to experience the Amiga computers.
In general I think the productivity software aspect was overlooked in this video. The Amiga had so much of it that an Amiga killer would have to work really hard to match it. In terms of hardware the X68000 seems much better for typical arcade games of the era.
@@storerestore well said. Agree 100%
@@storerestore There was definitely no shortage of productivity software on the x68000 in Japan, including even paint programs (don't really know if they stack up to Deluxe Paint though). It's true it's known for arcade ports among retro gaming fans in the west, especially shooter fans, but that's only a small part of the full story. Rather than a consumer-oriented computer like Amiga it had a bit more of a "prosumer" and luxury focus, and it was also used by game developers (e.g. Capcom who used it for development on CPS games). Buying such an expensive computer just to play games when the Mega Drive and PC Engine were 10 times cheaper was a luxury afforded by only a very small subset of wealthy gamers and computer enthusiasts. As a consumer product I feel the Sharp x68000 was much less of a computer for the average computer-interested teen than the Amiga(s) no matter what the somwhat similar hardware specs might suggests.
@@Mogura87 No reason why the x68k couldn't have had a DPaint killer; every model supports 31KHz 512x512 in 32768 colours out of the box (yes, all the internet info says '16bit' support, but in reality it's a 555 pixel format with a separate 'intensity/brightness' bit). Even with the 15/16bit colour modes you've got 256 colour packed-pixel screen modes with enough vram for several pages of video. Or you can trade off the colour depth and do crazy (for 1987) high-res productivity modes, again in 31KHz. Really the only place the Amiga wins is in the digital audio space with the 4 channels compared to the mono channel of the Sharp (albeit with the YM chip as well).
I say that as someone with a 500 and 1200 on his desk, and a X68000 Super sitting next to them ... and two broken X68000 Pro units killed by bad caps and battery leaks :(
There is at least 1 rpg game for the x68000 that is playable in English. It's called Lagoon. It was ported and localized into english for the snes.
But that port plays very differently. The original version utilized a combat system very similar to the Ys series where you walk into enemies to damage them, though in Lagoon you hold the attack button before doing so. The snes version used a standard press attack button to "attack" like zelda or other action rpg games. But this version of the game is inferior in most if not all ways because the hitbox for your sword was not changed to match the new combat system. The snes version also had a very different storyline.
A few years ago, somebody translated the x68k version so one can play it in English. I definitely recommend checking it out. The snes version is also worth trying out to see the different story.
When the music starts at 12:29 I really panicked because I thought it was the disk drive doing that clack clack sound drives do when the internal mechanics are busted and they're about to kill whatever floppy was inserted lmao
Haha that never even occurred to me 🤣
Damn when you said expensive i didn't think that expensive! I remember looking at them like 3 years ago and they were going for around 300$ insane how much they are now WTF!!
While I understand the comparisons to the Amiga it makes no sense to call it an "Amiga Killer". This Sharp computer cost 3x what an Amiga 1000 cost and the Amiga didn't really take off in sales until the cost reduced Amiga 500 was released.
Agreed I was going to comment the same, not saying it's not a neat computer just in a different price bracket.
where did you get this nonsense? It was a true Amiga killer, the price of the X68000 at introduction was 2500-3000USD (sources claim both) and that was including monitor, keyboard, mouse convertible to trackball, two FDDs, SASI controller, 1MB RAM, TV tuner, two upgrade slots, GPU declassing Amiga, faster CPU.
While A1000 price including mouse, keyboard, monitor, 512KB RAM and second FDD was 2300USD. And that was it, no SASI/SCSI, no 1MB RAM...but much lower specs.
Even if you bring in the A2000B, since the X68000 came out in 1987, dollar per dollar, the X68000 wins.
@ChrisP-C64 - Still makes sense to call it an Amiga Killer from a purely shock & awe perspective, just because the graphics and audio specs for gaming purposes was so much better than the Amiga. X68000 specs is what Amiga should've evolved into by 1988 if Commodore weren't so inept. Instead, we had to wait until 1992 for AGA, which still kept the same boring 4-channel audio from 1985.
The "GPU board" will almost definitely not be on a different side than the CPU.
Keep in mind that this is not a modern GPU, it's a console/arcade-like VPU.
It's not connected over a multi-link serial protocol like PCIe (something that is designed to be carried over some distance, giving the possibility of long riser in tower cases, and external enclosures on laptop and even interconnects on HPC).
It's directly talking to the CPU over it's main address/data bus (and this is something not trivial to carry over very long distance. Making external ISA enclosures was still possible in the early PCs, but by the time this beast came out the CPU's fast bus would be at best across daughter boards on the mainboard, but very difficult to carry over long distance parallel buses).
Very interested in why the Japanese gov didn't think this should be exported.
I was playing on an IBM Vector around the time that came out.
Such an impressive system from the time the cool kids in the rest of the world where using Amiga's!
Matt, if you use a cheap HDMI to VGA adapter (the cheaper the better) with the OSSC you can use an ordinary (later) VGA-CRT-monitor. Just set the OSSC to line double the 15KHz modes and you're good to go. Later VGA-CRT-monitors will sync to any weird timing as long as it's within their spec. The OSSC takes care of the low frequency 15KHz en 24KHz modes and the rest doesn't need any modification. I have a 21"-trinitron VGA-CRT and in combination with a OSSC you can get almost anything to display properly without lag. It can even be made to work with composite and s-video signals but they require conversion to RGB first. You don't need that capability because you own commodore 1084 monitors.
If you think at the price range of the x68000 we amigans had it good, very good!
Cool, thanks for the tips! So the HDMI to VGA conversion doesn't introduce any additional latency? Good to know! It might be a cheaper alternative than trying to find a rare VGA CRT that can handle all the different refresh rates.
@@retrobitstv The HDMI to VGA conversion doesn't introduce any latency IF you use the cheapest op the cheapest converter for it. That's because the adapter is basically just a bunch of DAC's converting digital to analog in real time. Strictly speaking there is some latency but this is negligible and takes just a small fraction of a scanline. I even use use mine for aspect perfect display of 16:9 signals by setting the picture height to a low value on the CRT.
Apple also cares more about style than an easy ability to service. The Woz isn't too happy about it, geek that he is, and he was a founder of the company. COCOM was an organization of member companies - including Japan - embargoing certain products from being sold to the Soviet Union and associated states.
glad you got it sorted out, it's a fun computer
Plastic spudger, more like a crowbar!! Its a great looking machine. I'll have to see if i can smuggle one back in my case if i ever get to Japan.
I think I could have bought all the original arcade PCBs of the games I wanted on the X68000 back then for less than the price of that machine. It's a shame it cost so much. Arcade perfect street fighter 2 was the dream back then.
Great video! Not a machine I'm ever likely to get my hands on, so really nice you went in depth. Looking forward to you learning to read Chinese for the next rpg special!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I never thought I'd own one and was shocked I won the auction at such a "low" price in the first place. I have no problem when it comes to reading Chinese, it's the Japanese that gets me!
It is three times more expensive than an Amiga 500. It is not an Amiga killer. Price is a factor.
I believe Commodore multisync monitors like the 1950/1960/1962 should work okay with this unit. A 1940/1942 bisync monitor should also handle the 15 and 31khz modes but not the 24khz.
I was thinking about this too. It would be interesting to see it tested.
Very cool vid. Really nice job. What an awsome machine. It is to bad it never made it hear.
The machine looks very funky. If I was Japanese at the time, I would have bought it just for the looks.
One of my holy grails. I can't justify the costs of them sadly. I hope one day.
Mine as well. I fully didn't expect to win the auction with such a "low" bid, but here we are :) I feel okay about the purchase knowing I could turn around and sell it on eBay for more than I bought it.
I really want one of these but I’m broke AF 😂. Maybe one day…
Super cool system. Would love to try Galaxian 2... And all those other shmups you mention...
Lol imagine a mac owner trying to defend the cost of their system in comparison to this. At least the Amiga was a fraction of the cost.
The Classic II didn't had color, but it had a built-in hard drive, more RAM and a better processor (68030 vs 68000) for the same price.
If i am not mistaken (If memory serves me correctly) the 2005 series of dell 24" display will support a 15KHz signal it also supports composite.
guess i'll need to add one of these to my collection (have amiga, atari, amiga CDTV boxed).. damn expensive hobby.. lol awesome machine!
Congrats for such an amazing vídeo
I live in Colombia, and I know I will never be able to get a hand on one of these. this is the console of my dreams.... :(
At 15Khz, RGB capable PVM displays should display that system just fine.
There are VGA to component and or RGB adapters can help with the PVM.
I bet the odd timing was, in part, an artifact of the overall system timing. In the CRT 15Khz era there was considerable slop in what displays would render nicely.
I believe the GBS control doesn't quite support proper vga-style HV sync. I don't think you can put a VGA source in and get a VGA signal out
Coolest design ever! It reminds me of Bladerunner, don't know why?
I have a question: The 6-button controller adapter featured on the video enables support for all 6 buttons of the mega drive controller? It's written on the manufacturer's site that only two buttons will work. Thanks for this video!
I didn't see that mentioned when I bought the adapter but I can now confirm that you are correct - only two buttons work even in games with 6 button support like SF2. That's a bummer :(
What a beautiful machine!
Hi, your guess about what is in each tower is wrong. On the right tower you have CPU and GPU in 2 different boards sandwitched. The left tower contains power supply, floppy drives and depending on the model, maybe a hard drive or not. There is a board also in the base which is the IO controller.
I had an Amiga 500... while I always thought the X68000 looked really good (and it did), as you said the software available was more limited. Outside of some blockbuster arcade ports, I think I was better off with the Amiga. (Not that I would have been able to afford or even access the X68000 back then.) The Amiga port o f Street Fighter 2 was awful, but I wonder if that's just because it was ported by a third party. Thanks for the video.
I dunno tho, I think the X68000 still had better custom graphics hardware. Who knows.
I do have an X68000 and both a GBS-Control and an OSSC. Both work. The OSSC actually cuts off the screen a bit but that can be fixed apparently by loading something on the X68000. Yours either has an outdated firmware or something is wrong
I have the latest firmware, but I do not have the external clock generator module. I've read on a forum that some people got it to work and some haven't but it seems to vary by model. The XVI / Compact seem to work with it per this post: nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6971.0
@@retrobitstv LOL I am the one that posted that in the forums. I found some settings for the OSSC and will give it a try soon. Thanks for replying!
This is an interesting video, and system. I am unsure if GPU is the right terminology? I might be wrong but I feel GPU is a term used to describe modern 3D graphic processors.
It seem that the orgianl term was VSOP ( Video processing chip ) or some variant.
You found it! LOL!
I didn't remember that it had both Japanese and English!
"Spinning rust." I'll be using that.
To be fair, I didn't come up with it :)
Street Fighter II actually hit the arcade in February 1991.
Was it possible to make music on the Sharp X68000? The Amiga has amazing music programs for it, be curious to see what possible programs are on the Sharp.
There were at least four different MIDI cards available for the system (not counting recent homebrew) and a bunch of music composition programs. It would not surprise me if the music for Capcom and other arcade titles was composed on the X68000 since it has been well-documented that the game development itself was done on the platform and the arcade hardware was designed around the Sharp's architecture. Long winded way of saying "yes" :)
Just a question and thanks for this cool video. From the keyboard, is there a command to go back to the game list of that V4 HDD image? I don't think reseting the machine to play a different game is the proper way to do it. Let me know if you have figured this out.
If the game cleanly exits to the command prompt, you can start the menu back up by typing "lhes" and hitting enter. If you've patched the V4 HDD image to use the newer launcher, then you could run "mishell hdd_v4.sp1" but it's a little easier just to re-run "autoexec" instead.
How did they get the square waves in Mr. Do!?
Glad I had NVIDIA upscaling on for that Lawrence of Arabia clip.
there s a mini one coming this year
along with fighter plane games' twin stick & mouse too
& keyboard. all limited, jp only. look up thorhighheels for a jp pc mostly this one's jp only pc games. amazing
Nice machine. It's funny that it has 5.25 drives instead of 3.5 drives. Were they more common to find at that time in Japan?
Depends on the model. Mine has 3.5" drives
did you have to change settings on the OSSC to get it to work on that LCD panel?
Thanks