Any X68000 collectors / fans?

[lazzeri]

Hi,

 

Does any of you fine gentlemen collect Sharp´s X68000?

 

Amazing graphics, slick design, great audio, arcade-perfect ports. Sexy little machine. :-)

 

I currently own two of them:

 

- An Expert with 6mb, who needs preventive maintenance and an internal CF adapter (already bough it, must install the little fellow);

- A boxed XVI with 12mb, internal AztecMonster with 2gb CF and a SACOM MIDI board.

 

Also I do own an original Sharp monitor who support all the (bizarre) video frequencies and resolution.

 

I had a little obsession for it some four to five years ago and managed to grab some 120+ original, boxed games. Most of the games in my wishlist and then a lot of RPG, adventures and Hentai to "complete the collection". Then I´ve discovered that on the TOSEC alone there´s almost 650 commercial games listed so I gave up hoarding for it.

 

Anyway. Amazing computer. Any other fellow fans out there?

 

Tell us what you got!

 

 

[iKarith]

I could become interested in one if some of those RPGs have Western translation patches. My Japanese is lousy, and my written Japanese is almost nonexistent. Characters often more complex than is easy for me to see well enough.

[lazzeri]

I could become interested in one if some of those RPGs have Western translation patches. My Japanese is lousy, and my written Japanese is almost nonexistent. Characters often more complex than is easy for me to see well enough.

 

Yeah, unfortunately that´s very unlikely.

 

The X68000 community outside Japan is great in spirit but minuscle in size. There is probably half a dozenf guys working on tech documentation translation (specially at the NFGGames forum) but it´s been baby steps on manuals and such. I don´t think there is anyone working on games.

[RobertB]

Duncan M. in The Other Group of Amigoids has an X68000. Perhaps he will exhibit it at the Vintage Computer Festival in August in Mountain View, California.

 

Truly,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

July 30-31 Commodore Vegas Expo v12 -

http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

[carlsson]

There was a X68000 system on display at Retrospillmessen in Norway on May 14-15. Unfortunately it was loaded with some complex looking (oops, I almost wrote dull) flight simulator, so I didn't try to play.

[doctor_x]

Was this strictly a gaming machine or were there apps (terminal programs, bbs programs, word processors, etc?) for it??? I nosed around a bit and it seems like it was only games.. Kind of odd for a machine that (at the time) was so hot..

[lazzeri]

Was this strictly a gaming machine or were there apps (terminal programs, bbs programs, word processors, etc?) for it??? I nosed around a bit and it seems like it was only games.. Kind of odd for a machine that (at the time) was so hot..

Actually there was a decent amount of professional applications for it:

 

http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/index.php?folder=Sharp/X68000/Applications

[doctor_x]

Cool.. Thank you for sharing.. Looks like it could have been a neat machine at the time if it had of been pushed in the USA.. Maybe an amiga competitor.

[Jess Ragan]

An amazing system, but a hugely impractical one. I've never owned one, but I have played games in an emulator, and the dozens of arcade ports are as close to the real thing as you could imagine. Yes, even CPS1 titles like Final Fight that US game consoles could never perfectly reproduce. I also appreciate that its DOS is similar enough to MS-DOS that it takes very little adjustment to use, if you even need to use it at all. On the downside, I dislike the variable resolutions (with two or three triggered by the same game... make up your damn mind!) and the high price of the system ensures that I will never, ever own one. Blows away the Amiga, though, as much as I loved that computer. If I'd played the X68K first I wouldn't have given the Amiga the time of day.

[Greg2600]

100% a fan, but way too expensive and big to own myself.

[carlsson]

As mentioned in the other thread, given that the original X68000 cost ($3000) about as much as four Amiga 500's, I would've been mighty disappointed if the X68000 didn't blow away the Amiga. Today, I'm sure the price difference is even higher, but that is due to collectability more than hardware strength.

 

Although the US public are less sensitive to buying expensive items than e.g. Europeans traditionally have been, I'm not sure the X68000 would have made an impact on the US market at that price. Sharp would've had to translate at least those professional applications suitable for office use, and pitch those vs Microsoft, Wordperfect, Filemaker, Adobe Illustrator and all other sorts of applications you might want to otherwise run on your PC or Mac.

 

It could be an interesting excerise to go through old advertisements to see how much of a 286 or Macintosh you would get for the $3000 that a X68000 had set you back in 1987. Previously I compared 1989 prices between the FM Towns ($3000++) and other various 386 models, and found that the FM Towns wasn't entirely out of range going by price, but its lack of HDD probably had made it fail as a business computer and as a gaming computer I doubt the market was ready.

[lazzeri]

An amazing system, but a hugely impractical one. I've never owned one, but I have played games in an emulator, and the dozens of arcade ports are as close to the real thing as you could imagine. Yes, even CPS1 titles like Final Fight that US game consoles could never perfectly reproduce. I also appreciate that its DOS is similar enough to MS-DOS that it takes very little adjustment to use, if you even need to use it at all. On the downside, I dislike the variable resolutions (with two or three triggered by the same game... make up your damn mind!) and the high price of the system ensures that I will never, ever own one. Blows away the Amiga, though, as much as I loved that computer. If I'd played the X68K first I wouldn't have given the Amiga the time of day.

X68k was the development tool Capcom used to create all CPS-1 games so the x68k versions of them are just 1:1 accurate, arcade-perfect.

 

The video modes are indeed a pain. There are thee different video frequencies: 15hz, 24hz and 31hz. And very few modern monitors can handle them. 15hz specially is a HUGE problem since it's NOT standand (more like 14.96hz or something). So you best guess is to have a decent scaler (about 500 dollars a piece) OR to grab its original monitor.

 

I was so damn lucky that a friend of mine gave up collecting and sold me his. but they're expensive and hard to import.

[lazzeri]

As mentioned in the other thread, given that the original X68000 cost ($3000) about as much as four Amiga 500's, I would've been mighty disappointed if the X68000 didn't blow away the Amiga. Today, I'm sure the price difference is even higher, but that is due to collectability more than hardware strength.

 

Although the US public are less sensitive to buying expensive items than e.g. Europeans traditionally have been, I'm not sure the X68000 would have made an impact on the US market at that price. Sharp would've had to translate at least those professional applications suitable for office use, and pitch those vs Microsoft, Wordperfect, Filemaker, Adobe Illustrator and all other sorts of applications you might want to otherwise run on your PC or Mac.

 

It could be an interesting excerise to go through old advertisements to see how much of a 286 or Macintosh you would get for the $3000 that a X68000 had set you back in 1987. Previously I compared 1989 prices between the FM Towns ($3000++) and other various 386 models, and found that the FM Towns wasn't entirely out of range going by price, but its lack of HDD probably had made it fail as a business computer and as a gaming computer I doubt the market was ready.

One thing we must have in mind is that by that time (late 80s, early 90s) Japan was in the apex of a GIANT bubble. Japanese had sh*tloads of money back then, everything was super expensive in US dollars BUT really affordable to them.

 

Most japanese games had prices printed in the box. It's not rare to find games that costed as high as 150 dollars a piece at retail price. This is insane. MSX games were 50 dollars a piece in Japan and 2 pound in cheap cassetes in UK.

 

I read once that they were buying land in Tokio at 750,000 dollars THE SQUARE METER. Can you imagine that?

 

https://housingjapan.com/2011/11/10/a-history-of-tokyo-real-estate-prices/

 

When the bubble bursted in 1990 Nikkei (Japan stock market) lost 2 TRILLION DOLLARS in one year. They just haven't fully recovered yet.

 

So... Talked too much as usual. My point is, 3,000 dollars was not a big sum at all in 80s Japan.

[carlsson]

Thanks for the insight. But even then, could Sharp, Fujitsu and the others have sold their computers for far less in e.g. the USA than what the exchange rate suggested they should?

[lazzeri]

Thanks for the insight. But even then, could Sharp, Fujitsu and the others have sold their computers for far less in e.g. the USA than what the exchange rate suggested they should?

 

Pretty tough question. I have no idea.

 

Items were made in Japan, with japanese costs (labor, electricity, storage, distribution and a huge et cetera). That´s probably explains part of the cost. Maybe (and a huge maybe) price could be lowered with scale and overseas manufacturing. But I honestly can´t tell.

 

I think the best idea is to seach japanese item made in Japan an abroad. For instance, compare SNES and Super Famicom price tags. That might be a fun research.

[lazzeri]

So...

Super Famicom was released in Japan on november 1990 for 25,000 yen, grossly 200 US Dollars;

SNES was released in USA on august 1991 for 210 US Dollars.

 

Mega Drive was releasen in Japan in october 1988 for 21,000 yen, grossly 165 USD

Genesis was released in USA on august 1989 for 190 USD.

 

I guess that makes not much of a difference.

[carlsson]

I was just about to ask about Genesis, thanks for looking that up. So that suggests that the X68000 and FM Towns likely could not have been pushed in price for overseas launch. I don't think either was overpriced, rather overspeced to the point that not everyone would be able to afford one, but that has happened several times.

 

I've still got to check prices for high end Macs from 1987, to see how much of Apple gear $3000 could buy you. I'm sure though that the X68000 delivers a much better gaming experience than the most expensive Mac.