Xvi Compact: Opened And Poked At.

[NFG]

I was mucking about with an XVI today, 'cause I have a ludicrous idea.  There's a ludicrous - but fun - idea that the X68000 is somehow a proper sequel to the PC Engine 'cause the chips and OS were designed by Hudson.  Never mind that we're talking about a $5000 computer versus a $150 console...

I wanted to see if it would fit:



It wouldn't fit.  The XVI Compact motherboard is too big.  It's almost small enough to fit if the SGX was a proper rectangle instead of having the rear corners removed, but...  Still no go.  I had dreams of an XVI inside a SGX with a floppy drive either in the rear expansion port or in the cart slot.  Crazy, me.

Moving on...



This is the system.  The top left is the power supply, super-cute compared to earlier models.  Bottom left is the I/O port housing.  Top right are the floppy drives, and bottom right is the floppy/SCSI port PCB.  In the top right corner you can barely see the KB/mouse/joystick PCB.  Each of these five units is clipped in place.  Once you've removed one screw the whole XVI Compact system can be opened with nothing more than your fingers.  Phenomenal design.



The floppy drives have a sole flat cable providing power and data.  They're soft-eject like the old X68000, and the 3.5" format resembles nothing so much as an old Macintosh.  There's a jumper array for setting the drive ID.



The motherboard.  Lots of fun things on here.  Along the top, three LEDs, power, volume and audio out.  There's a ribbon connector up there for the sub PC with joystick, KB and mouse ports.  There's a RAM expansion port on the right side.   Standard ports along the bottom, but with newer smaller connectors for SCSI and EXT Floppy.  Same ports for printer, monitor and serial.  Gobs of RAM up the left side, and in the middle left is the I/O port riser, and four white connectors for the SCSI and floppy ports, and the two floppy drives.