Please Destroy My Pipe Dream

[Computolio]

I have a friend who'll be spending a month in Japan later this year. He'll be visiting Akihabara fairly often. Does he have a snowball's chance in hell of finding an X68000, and if so, how much money do we need to raise (to get at least a basic one)?

[NFG]

In the four and a half years I've been here I've seen, precisely, exactly, three X68000 units.  None were reasonably priced.  Not by a far cry.

[Computolio]

   How about Yahoo Auctions Japan? Or is that an even dumber idea?

[blue lander]

I bought my X68000 off Yahoo Auctions Japan for $110(no monitor). Rinkya charged an extra $40 dollars in fees, so it came to a total of $150. Shipping to the US is killer, though.

[Computolio]

   I already have a combo monitor, so that base is covered. I figure if I got desperate I could get one with a busted power supply and fix it using Lawrence's handy-dandy giude. Thing is, that would have to be the ONLY thing wrong with it - because every other part is insanely proprietary. The keyboard and mouse, from all appearances, are NOT of this earth either.

[NFG]

Yahoo's a great source, but you're really taking a huge risk 'cause there's no way in hell to return it if it's broken or - as has happened to me three times the damn thing goes up in smoke fifteen minutes after you get it.  Those power supplies SUCK.

[blue lander]

I already have a combo monitor, so that base is covered. I figure if I got desperate I could get one with a busted power supply and fix it using Lawrence's handy-dandy giude. Thing is, that would have to be the ONLY thing wrong with it - because every other part is insanely proprietary. The keyboard and mouse, from all appearances, are NOT of this earth either.

Most of the  action games I have on the X68000 don't need a keyboard or mouse. Afterburner uses a mouse, and you need a mouse to start Gradius 1 up. The only game I have that needs a keyboard is Parodius Da (to start the game). The joysticks are pleantiful, though, since you can find MSX pads anywhere. A few X68000 games like Castlevania work with FM Towns joypads, though (giving you a pause button), so it might be worth getting one of those too.

What kind of monitor are you using? I'm using a NEC Multisync II for my X68000, PC-8801, FM Towns, and Amiga 500. It works great, but I'd like something a bit larger eventually. It's not easy finding monitors that do 24khz.

[Computolio]

   I use an NEC Multisync 3D. Haven't had the time to dive into hooking up anything that does RGB besides my Amiga 1200, though that will change very quickly in the next few weeks. A good, large RGB/VGA monitor to get would be the Sony GVM-2020- it does everything from 15 to I think 38 KHZ, and has composite and S-video. My friend has one, and it's awesome. They'll pop up on eBay now and then, but at 21 inches the shipping will kill your wallet.

   I think it's a good idea to have the keyboard and mouse just in case a game needs it. That and I might occasionally want to dick around with something not entirely game-related (even though I don't know a word of Japanese, I'm still curious).

[blue lander]

Wow, the GVM-2020 is exactly what I'm looking for. Now I just need to find a way to afford one.

Yeah, It's certainly a good idea to get a keyboard and mouse in the long run. But if you were to find a good deal on an X68000 without one, you could still play a lot of games with it and just buy the keyboard/mouse later (there's loose ones on Yahoo auctions frequently).

Another thing I'd recommend: Try getting one with more than a megabyte of RAM. There are a bunch of games you can play with just 1 megabyte, but in the long run you're going to want to have at least two megabytes.

[NFG]

It's not easy finding monitors that do 24khz.

What do you need 24kHz for?

[blue lander]

Isn't that the "high resolution" mode on the X68000?

[NFG]

Nothing on the X68k uses 24kHz AFAIK.  15 + 31kHz is all you need for just about everything.  My monitor has a 24kHz light that never lights up when using the X68, so I'm pretty confident about it.

[blue lander]

Oh, well then that makes my life much easier, then! The only game I have that seems to default to 15khz mode is Syvalion and I hate that game, so I guess I can just get away with using a VGA monitor.

[Akir]

Heck, If worst comes to worse, then you can emulate it on your computer!