(This post was "Round One: Software on 3.5"? - the new entry, "The X68000 XVI Great Unveiling," is below.)
I'll be positively drowning in X68000 units shortly. I finally have a working unit though (and no way of outputting its output currently, but that'll change when the second unit gets here), a XVI Compact. Insanely unpopular with retrogamers it seems, due to the 3.5" dual floppies (you can run 5.25" software on it if you find and buy some 5.25" drives, DOS ones almost certainly won't work or even have the right connector I'd assume).
I got it partly because I didn't realize I'd soon find a nice regular XVI, but also partly because it would be a nice way of testing out software that I haven't actually found an original copy of (basically, using teh ROMz, or floppy drive images).
So, I've managed to write MSX floppies from a Windows XP machine with a special utility, and something similar is likely necessary to get the 3.5" floppies working right. Any ideas?
I believe copy protection and capacity won't be at issue here. Should work just fine if all the data is available, same as a regular X68000.
Will update if I find anything interesting out by myself.
X68000 catchall topic, Round 2: X68000 XVI Unveling, almost
X68000 catchall topic, Round 2: X68000 XVI Unveling, almost
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Sun May 17, 2009 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Magic Knight
- Posts: 206
- Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2005 10:00 am
- Location: Japan
-
papa_november
- Posts: 107
- Joined: Sun May 17, 2009 2:14 am
- Location: California
I'll be happy to take any and all busted X68000 units off your hands.
But seriously, I haven't encountered any real problems copying disk images back onto real disks. Use XFloppy and a Win98 machine and you should be good to go even with titles that were supposedly copy-protected. After all, if it's been put onto a disk image and works fine in an emulator, the copy-protection was broken by someone else long ago.
Nobody's tried using XFloppy with 3.5 disks yet- it SHOULD work, but you could wind up needing a 3-mode drive or something slightly wacky like that.
But seriously, I haven't encountered any real problems copying disk images back onto real disks. Use XFloppy and a Win98 machine and you should be good to go even with titles that were supposedly copy-protected. After all, if it's been put onto a disk image and works fine in an emulator, the copy-protection was broken by someone else long ago.
Nobody's tried using XFloppy with 3.5 disks yet- it SHOULD work, but you could wind up needing a 3-mode drive or something slightly wacky like that.
Agh, bear with me - this camera really doesn't like low-light photos, and Imageshack is making the thumbs smaller than I wanted (but maybe that's a good thing). I can get some nice daylight shots when we actually pull the thing out later, however. A new camera doesn't sound like a bad idea at this point, though.
The BACKGROUND, then:
Back around 1987 Sharp followed up with the Sharp X1 (and assorted other machines) with the release of what would become the pinnacle of their personal computer line, the X68000. Pretty dang ahead of its time. A good primer is available at GameSX, and Lawrence / NFG has written up information about it and its games elsewhere. With the assistance of modern information technology (!) I hope to get some more cool information in the coming months - a lot more. With a large selection of original games and classic arcade game ports, running with original code and on a very arcade-like system, there's a lot to like about this unusual computer system which came standard with 1MB of RAM, two 5.25" floppies, and a 10MHz 68000 processor as standard (the XVI, and we will see both incarnations of it, has a switch for 16MHz mode, hence the roman numeral for 16).
Back in 2003 I was getting all excited about getting my very own retro computer, the Sharp X68000 (Ace HD model). With the assistance of an American serviceman, I had the core of what would become the largest X68000 collection on my block (known to me, anyway). Unfortunately in the process of shipping from the U.S.S. Kitty hawk, said system was banged around a bit. The monitor (which I don't remember having tried out until just two days ago, but I probably did) doesn't work, and I quickly (and foolishly) took the system apart for cleaning. What a nightmare. It's still sitting around in some boxes.
Not to get political, but consider that my own X68000 odyssey must've started at least late in the year of the Iraq invasion and continued throughout the rest of that stressful Presidency. Times have changed, though, and finally...springtime is here (but not for Hitler...eh, maybe that's not the best time for a Producers reference)!
Then I bought a Pro from NFG that year. It's still sitting around somewhere in storage in Japan, as I didn't have money to actually ship it out at the time (lol) and we forgot to add it in when I had the rest of my stuff sent to the U.S. It's a nice model - new power supply (the part that fails in these units often, according to Lawrence) and the desktop format makes it easy to add (to paraphrase him) crazy CPU upgrades, RAM, and internal hard drives. I hope to see this one sometime this year.
Anyway, without fanfare - here's some really lousy pictures 'n' stuff to give you a rough idea about the scale of what we're dealing with. This big thing (standard DOLLA BILL for reference) showed up yesterday:
Standard AMERICAN DOLLER BILL for reference.
?! They're multiplying!!
Note: Only the second A/V Famicom was also in the shipping box - all the other stuff was already around here.
Hey, you...if you're a...I don't know what...and, an XVI, sitting out there, then what's...in...the box?!
What darkness lurks in the midst of these packing peanuts? The Shadow knows.
Tune in next time for the next thrilling adventure in high fidelity gaming.
The BACKGROUND, then:
Back around 1987 Sharp followed up with the Sharp X1 (and assorted other machines) with the release of what would become the pinnacle of their personal computer line, the X68000. Pretty dang ahead of its time. A good primer is available at GameSX, and Lawrence / NFG has written up information about it and its games elsewhere. With the assistance of modern information technology (!) I hope to get some more cool information in the coming months - a lot more. With a large selection of original games and classic arcade game ports, running with original code and on a very arcade-like system, there's a lot to like about this unusual computer system which came standard with 1MB of RAM, two 5.25" floppies, and a 10MHz 68000 processor as standard (the XVI, and we will see both incarnations of it, has a switch for 16MHz mode, hence the roman numeral for 16).
Back in 2003 I was getting all excited about getting my very own retro computer, the Sharp X68000 (Ace HD model). With the assistance of an American serviceman, I had the core of what would become the largest X68000 collection on my block (known to me, anyway). Unfortunately in the process of shipping from the U.S.S. Kitty hawk, said system was banged around a bit. The monitor (which I don't remember having tried out until just two days ago, but I probably did) doesn't work, and I quickly (and foolishly) took the system apart for cleaning. What a nightmare. It's still sitting around in some boxes.
Not to get political, but consider that my own X68000 odyssey must've started at least late in the year of the Iraq invasion and continued throughout the rest of that stressful Presidency. Times have changed, though, and finally...springtime is here (but not for Hitler...eh, maybe that's not the best time for a Producers reference)!
Then I bought a Pro from NFG that year. It's still sitting around somewhere in storage in Japan, as I didn't have money to actually ship it out at the time (lol) and we forgot to add it in when I had the rest of my stuff sent to the U.S. It's a nice model - new power supply (the part that fails in these units often, according to Lawrence) and the desktop format makes it easy to add (to paraphrase him) crazy CPU upgrades, RAM, and internal hard drives. I hope to see this one sometime this year.
Anyway, without fanfare - here's some really lousy pictures 'n' stuff to give you a rough idea about the scale of what we're dealing with. This big thing (standard DOLLA BILL for reference) showed up yesterday:
Standard AMERICAN DOLLER BILL for reference.
?! They're multiplying!!
Note: Only the second A/V Famicom was also in the shipping box - all the other stuff was already around here.
Hey, you...if you're a...I don't know what...and, an XVI, sitting out there, then what's...in...the box?!
What darkness lurks in the midst of these packing peanuts? The Shadow knows.
Tune in next time for the next thrilling adventure in high fidelity gaming.