Hacker News Reader

Comment by prox | Hacker News Reader

MSX was not a Japanese standard for home computers, although it was the home turf and simply was the most successful there. MSX was meant as a worldwide standard to replace the then current crop of computers with a interchangeable standard. (Atari and C64) were closed technologies.

View on HN

Right. It was also popular in some Arabic language countries and South America at the very least.

Probably more correct to say it was a computer standard launched in Japan.

Philips was a big proponent of MSX.

Also in Europe.

I wrote my first lines of BASIC code on one as a kid.

Was MSX a standard similar to IBM Compatible?

It was certainly marketed and envisioned as an international standard to have interoperability. Most external devices (mostly ROMs) could work between brands.

But remember PCS were for businesses until about the early 90s when games became more popular as the decade rolled on and PCs became affordable as well. IBM compatible was more a necessity for other brands to sell their PC as compatible for businesses, so it became a standard by popularity, not from a top to bottom decision.

People at home bought home computers roughly in the 80s.

I think the games became more popular because the hardware became cheaper and more capable. Before the early-to-mid 90s a PC or compatible might cost $2000, outside the budget for a lot of families. Buying a computer just for games didn't make sense when a specialized game system was so much cheaper.

Kind of, MSX was designed as a standard for 8 bit computers, while IBM compatible happened by accident.

That's how I remember it, too...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com