Metal Gear started on this.

I'm from Brazil, and I still remember the joy of driving with my dad on his Ford Corcel II to Mesbla department store (kind of Sears clone, check it out on Wikipedia) to buy a computer! The choice was Gradiente Expert DD Plus (also on Wikipedia) MSX1 system with a frontal disk drive on a special sale combo with a 180 columns dot matrix printer. Although the manufacturer did not sold a MSX2 version I managed to upgrade mine with a home brew kit sold by mail catalog!  Good times indeed!

I owned an MSX when I was a kid. They were indeed very popular in Brazil, as they were produced inside the country, and importing electronic goods back then was nearly impossible because of government blockades. I learnt programming on the MSX-BASIC, and owned loads of (pirated) games in 5 1/4" floppies. There were so many great games for that computer.
Once, when I was about 8, my father asked me to write a few little BASIC programs to generate TV test patterns, as he used to fix old TV sets. I realise much of my adult life owes to little moments like those. In fact, programming was one thing I missed a lot when I moved to PCs.

Space Manbow is the greatest name for anything.

What I like best about older systems is when they're clean they can look way better than almost anything these days. Something about the colours and general shape is almost sexy in a way! ^_^

It's me Jaap! Great review Clint, I really appreciate the time and effort you've put into this review.

Let me clarify on the switch on that cartridge. This game (King's Valley II) has a custom Konami SCC soundchip inside. With the switch you can disable the game, while the SCC soundchip remains functional. This way you can use and write software to take advantage of the chip. A relative of mine modified the cartridge for me back in the day.

The MSX was my childhood -- the first computer I learned to write software on.  Although in my case it was the Spectravideo SVI-728.  I still have it in a box.

When I was a kid in the 80s, a friend of mine was lucky that his dad was from Japan and worked at the NEC office in Northern California.  They used to go to Japan all the time.  Beyond having all the cool Japanese toys, his dad used to have all the cool computers and video games.  They had an MSX- I want to say it was before anyone had an NES because I remember it being mind blowing compared to my Atari 2600.  They also had a PC Engine LONG before the Turbografix-16 was released here.

0:59 "Hard disks will soon pack hundreds of megabytes"

Hah! Old times are old.

The MSX2 is probably the best 8bit microcomputer of its generation. These are really coveted by retro hardware collectors. Some of the games by Konami (As the first true Metal Gear, No, the NES version does not count) are true masterpieces.

This Jaap fellow keeps his machines clean and pristine! It looks brand new! In honour of his contribution, I must expect you to keep it that way, Clint. No pressure. None at all.

Laura had an awesome childhood 7:03

I would love to get my hands off an MSX. So many good games!

The music in those games is quite good actually.

Here in Brazil the MSX was the go-to machine for gamers, hobbysts and both casual and professional software programmers alike, and was also seen as a cheaper alternative to the expensive and half business/half-home user-oriented IBM PC. And it remains with a special place in the hearts of the gamers and programmers of that time. What a lovely machine! Here the two main MSX varieties were the Hotbit by Sharp Corporation (a japanese company) and the Expert by Gradiente (a brazilian-owned company) Very nice memories! Thanks for the video. Please continue making videos about MSX.

the z80 was such a versatile chip. it's amazing to see all the different computers which utilitised it in a variety of different ways. especially when it's either coupled with other z80's for offloading either video or audio functions, or as in this case with custom chips and sound/video controllers just how fast everything runs.

Considering you are mostly playing floppy-based games (if you still play the machine at all), you should switch to 60Hz. This is a european system, which therefore runs at 50Hz but all japanese games should run at 60Hz. Before running your game, just type VDP(10)=0 in basic and experience the games like they were intended! It really makes a difference.

MSX case designs are so cool. Imagine having a SONY HB-F1XD on your desk. Its literally as if Akira was a computer.

I remember watching the MSX2 port of Thexder 2 some months back, and despite having the PC version for years beforehand, I'm actually pretty eager to get my hands on the MSX2 version now.  The MSX2 port seems to do just about everything better than the PC port.

These were the computers that Commodore's Jack Tramiel feared would take over the U.S. home computer market, the same way that the Japanese had taken over almost everything else in home electronics. As a result, he rushed a new line of computers into development (the 264 series), including the Plus/4 with MSX-like arrow keys. But after the MSX computers failed to materialize in the U.S. and the new Commodore models failed to generate any excitement at CES, that led to a boardroom shake-up and soon Tramiel was out the door.