YOU’LL NEED THIS

OPENMSX

For this tutorial, grab openMSX, which is available on Windows and Linux in both 32 and 64-bit versions: 

https://openmsx.org/ https://fms.komkon.org/fMSX/ For advanced users who want BASIC or disk usage, try fMSX:

THIS MONTH’S COMPUTER

is a little different. Rather than being a single system, MSX was actually a Microsoft specification for eight-bit microcomputers. Countless brands produced their own MSX machines, which dominated Eastern markets. The MSX era is a fascinating period of computing history often neglected in the West, which showcases an unusual stage of gaming evolution.

Japan in the early 1980s was flooded with home computers. Despite most machines sharing Microsoft BASIC, these computers were usually incompatible with each other. In June 1983, Microsoft announced the MSX specification: an attempt to standardize eight-bit microcomputers into a unified architecture. Rather than being an invention of Bill Gates, the MSX standard was actually the brainchild of Kazuhiko Nishi, the vice-president of Microsoft Japan and director of ASCII Corporation. Inspired by the VHS video standard, if software could work on one MSX machine, it should be able to work on any other.

The standard was designed around the Spectravideo SV 328, largely because it was built with off-the-shelf parts, and used Microsoft BASIC for an operating system.