Source of the image: elle mundy: "this is the future they stole from us" - Mastodon
Some info, pictures and screenshots: Sony HB-201 - MSX Wiki
Those things were lame even at the time they came out.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Cassette Futurism
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They got an amazing amount of mileage out of an 8-bit design based on off-the-shelf parts late in the 8-bit era. You can build a MSX-compatible machine from parts even today.
I suppose that's the power of an open standard: it's doubtful it would have flown if it was just a Sony (or Casio or Spectravision or...) design, but uniting basically every notable Japanese electronics manufacturer who didn't have a solid platform already (like NEC) made it viabl.e
That doesn't change the fact that the computers were underpowered and technologically obsolete when they came out. Which is why they never got any traction outside of Japan.
So was x86. The strength was that it (accidentally) became the standard, which is what MSX was trying to do. If it had caught on outside of Japan, we'd probably still be running derivatives of that architecture.