When Microsoft revealed that it was finally putting its long-running, if disregarded, Windows Phone line out to pasture, it was less roar, more whimper. It was a valiant effort that introduced some original thinking to the smartphone space, but it ultimately was a noble failure. But it got me thinking about a platform with Microsoft’s fingerprints on it, that was a noble and influential attempt at producing a standard, but ultimately fell into obscurity, with the industry choosing a different path. Today’s Tedium is about the Windows Phone of the ’80s, MSX.
The MSX was one of the first computers I used, since a friend of mine had one. I can’t remember what, exactly, we did with it, but I’m pretty sure it was games. The MSX was weirdly popular in The Netherlands, and they’re still relatively easy to come by here.
The one time I remember using an MSX machine was at a school fair to play Gradius.
Hardly a “forgotten platform”. MSX was an 8-bit hardware specification for a set of mutually compatible computer systems running MS BASIC. As the technology progressed to 16-bit and 32-bit platforms, MS BASIC migrated to the new platforms too. Sure, the hardware is long forgotten, but the legacy MS BASIC left is still being grappled by IT technicians today.
Compare it to Xenix, or OS/2, and you’ll realise MSX is hardly forgotten
The123king,
Compare to them, yes, the MSX is forgotten. Xenix and OS/2 comes up in articles and discussions way more often than MSX.
Sounds like selection bias IMHO. If you read articles about operating systems but not home computers of course Xenix and OS/2 would be mentioned more often. It was a widely available system in Europe, South America and Asia. I don’t think anyone could claim the same availability for OS/2 or Xenix.
Quick test using google:
MSX 24M hits
MSX system 13M hits
Xenix 0.8M hits
OS/2 5M hits
The two operating systems are using fairly unique names and so should give mostly relevant hits. MSX alone will catch other uses of the name while “MSX system” seems to be mostly hits about the computer, however this of course reduces hit rate of articles not including system like on most non-English sites.
Megol,
Seems odd, but for all the obscure tech I’ve heard about in my lifetime I think this article is the first time I’ve heard about MSX.
Good on you for coming up with more objective metrics 🙂
I’m not sure how much stock to put in google hits however.
I tried the “MSX system” query and quite a lot were unrelated. I also tried “OS/2” query thinking it would be less ambiguous, however I also found a lot of unrelated hits there too. Google won’t let me go past page 15, but the relevance of matches probably goes downhill from there.
(This has been a gripe of mine with google BTW, it does poorly when you want literal searches)
Wow, did not even know that ever existed. I thought I knew all the early 80s computers since I was always reading computer magazines back then, but it was not ever mentioned that I can recall.
I always love reading about this older tech. I wouldn’t say this is really forgotten (maybe by the normies). Folks in the retro computer scene talk about the MSX from time to time.
MSX was also a failure in Portugal.
I got my Timex 2068 with its 48KB compatibility cartridge in 1986,
Since I can remember, just once in my life did I saw some MSX computer models on sale at a shop on my home town.
There weren’t even properly covered on the Portuguese and Spanish computer press available to us, other than the occasional magazine ad.
That’s odd. MSX was relatively popular on the other side of the peninsula. I was very young, but I remember some of the computer press in Spain covering it. It was a popular gaming platform, since the cartridges were more robust than the tapes the other 8bit platforms were using, and lend themselves to be rented.
This page has an interesting artist’s take on the MSX platform as well.
http://androidarts.com/Amiga/MSX.htm
Canon V-20 MSX, Goldstar FC-200 MSX, Philips NMS 8245 MSX2, Philips VG-8010/00 MSX, Philips VG-8235 MSX2, Pioneer PX-7 MSX, Sony Hit Bit F700P MSX2 and Toshiba HX-20I MSX are the ones I have, and that is just a small sample of all MSX machines. I have heard and read about them in the 80’s, but didn’t have personal experience at that time. I know the ones with genlock were used a lot in east Europe by TV stations and by pirate VHS rental clubs for making subtitles.