My X68000 journey

[sananaman]

All,

I'm from the Netherland and I'm an home computer enthusiast and grew up in the 70s/80s with Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, MSX, Sega, Nintendo and so on.
But I never heard about the Sharp X68000 until just 3 weeks ago. It is strange because I still use Amiga computers since 1989 up until now which share similarities on hardware and software.
I got very curious about this machine and discovered a whole lot more systems that realized that Japan had a great home computer era in the 80s-90s with their own brands and product ranges.
Reading more about the Sharp it looks like that the X68000 was way ahead of it's time, with stunning graphics and sound capability and games that blow you away. Somehow this story has similarities with the Commodore Amiga. I consider the Sharp X68000 the Amiga from Japan.

It got me intrigued that somewhere on the other side of the planet there was a machine that had similarities with my favorite Amiga computer.
I would like to dive into this and experience like it was 1987.

Long story short... I'm looking for a decent X68000 machine with original monitor and hope that you guys can help me with this.

What model should I be looking for? Which has the least issues in terms of compatibility and expandability?
Is an X68030 usable or has it too many issues with compatibility?

Any tips could be useful...

Cheers...

ps. had an interesting read here (thanks for those who set it up)

[kamiboy]

Get a Super or XVI, 68030 machines are a waste of money.

Make sure what you buy has been fully serviced. Fully recapped, new battery, clean and tested floppy drives etc.

[leonk]

At this point, 100% of X68K systems that hasn't been serviced has failed.

Here are my personal observations that might help any beginner:

- read the wonderful wiki on this web site!  Lots of good info there
- for the most part any X68K (working) is good enough.  I have an original version and it works great.
- the most important thing is RAM.  The more the better.  2MB+ is a must.
- consider using an SD solution (SCSI2SD) - floppies are a pain and eventually will all fail
- when buying a system - make sure it comes with the keyboard.  It's a must.
- finding a fully serviced system is expensive and rare.  Not many people service these.  Time too high, return low.  No one will want to spend $1250+ on a system.  But for many of these, that's the sort of service required to make it day-1 equivalent.
- you can buy a "junk" system for much less and service yourself.  Good education.  Very frustrating.  I'd be surprised if average success rate >50% at this point.

Good luck.

[famiac]

Yep. It just takes a shitton of time and money, but the people who stay here will tell you it's worth it.

[SuperDeadite]

1.  X68000 is not an Amiga.  Seriously, they are different worlds.  Yeah they both are powered by MPUs, beyond that they are totally different beasts.  The X68K's hardware design is setup more like an arcade board then a conventional computer.

2.  Before you buy, think about your plans for a monitor.  Ideally you need an auto-sync that does 15/24/31khz.  Most people will be happy without 24khz, but you need 15 and 31 or you will not be satisfied.

3.  Get a SCSI based model.  Super, XVI, XVI Compact, 68030, or 68030 Compact.  If it's your first system, I do not recommend an 030, as you kind of need to know what you are doing to really enjoy one.  Personally I hate the compacts as they are a royal pain to service and they are the most fragile machines by far.   So Super or XVI is really the way to go, especially if you are going to spend the money to import one from Japan.

4.  The SASI based machines are cheaper, but you get what you pay for.  Being able to plug in a SCSI SD or CF board and just have it work will save you a lot of pain in the long term.

5.  Pace yourself.  Being a computer there is a lot of stuff you can add to your setup.  More RAM, special controllers, MIDI, etc.  Go slowly, learn about what you have and customize your rig based on what you actually enjoy.  I've seen people drop insane money on a fully loaded system, then dump it within 3 months because they blew all their cash on pure curiosity.

[vanpeebles]

Good luck with your search!

[leonk]

I personally see no issues with the SASI machines (got an original X68K SASI and it works great).  You boot only 1 time from the 5 1/4" drive .. install the SASI 2 SCSI boot loader into SRAM, and then SCSI devices boot great on this machine.

The SASI ports are pin compatible with SCSI .. no surgery needed.  Pretend the external port is SCSI and you are good to go.

[frankmonk]

I totally agree in regards servicing the XVI Compact. But once done with that, it is a great little machine to own.

[vanpeebles]

I guess a plus point with the compacts, is that you have more chance of having/equipping a PC with a 3.5" floppy drive to write discs on too.

[SuperDeadite]

The advantage of having a SCSI based machine, is that you don't need to mess with xfloppy or omniflop ever.  The disk-writing software available for Human68k is very easy to use and very powerful.  And since you don't need SxSI, you don't need a special boot disk when your sram goes.

The only floppies you can't write on the real machine directly are the games with special copy-protection, but xfloppy/omniflop won't work with those either.

[vanpeebles]

The advantage of having a SCSI based machine, is that you don't need to mess with xfloppy or omniflop ever.  The disk-writing software available for Human68k is very easy to use and very powerful.  And since you don't need SxSI, you don't need a special boot disk when your sram goes.

The only floppies you can't write on the real machine directly are the games with special copy-protection, but xfloppy/omniflop won't work with those either.

On a related note, that is on my list to do. Try and write games back to disk on the XVI (booted with the image), to use on the Pro II

[leonk]

I guess a plus point with the compacts, is that you have more chance of having/equipping a PC with a 3.5" floppy drive to write discs on too.

I strongly discourage people from getting compacts. In the past year I serviced 3 (2 redzone editions, 1 regular). Managed to get 2/3 working.  Unlike the older x68k, Sharp switching to SMD capacitors (think game gear) that leak everywhere, eat traces, eat thruholes, it's a disaster!

3.5" floppy is also very finicky. Of the 6, only 1 was good!  Luckily most games came on 5.25"

btw. the 3.5" drive doesn't use 1.44mb discs. It uses 1.2mb discs!! Yes. You need to buy a special PC drive that knows how to write in that strange format. You can't move drives from PC to X68K. X68K floppies are custom with extra signals that PC drives don't have (e.g. eject floppy!)

[vanpeebles]

Ah!!! Best keep away from them

[mqarkcambie]

Hi Paul,

I'm also in the Netherlands, if you find any X68000s over here please let me know - I'm after one again. I regret getting rid of mine in the past.

I'm not too keen on the idea of proxy sites and shipping (I had a FM Towns shipped in the past from Japan and it got trashed).

Mark.

[pstriolo]

All,

My name is Paul and I'm from the Netherlands. I'm an home computer enthusiast and grew up in the 70s/80s with Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, MSX, Sega, Nintendo and so on.
But I never heard about the Sharp X68000 until just 3 weeks ago. It is strange because I still use Amiga computers since 1989 up until now which share similarities on hardware and software.
I got very curious about this machine and discovered a whole lot more systems that realized that Japan had a great home computer era in the 80s-90s with their own brands and product ranges.
Reading more about the Sharp it looks like that the X68000 was way ahead of it's time, with stunning graphics and sound capability and games that blow you away. Somehow this story has similarities with the Commodore Amiga. I consider the Sharp X68000 the Amiga from Japan.

It got me intrigued that somewhere on the other side of the planet there was a machine that had similarities with my favorite Amiga computer.
I would like to dive into this and experience like it was 1987.

Long story short... I'm looking for a decent X68000 machine with original monitor and hope that you guys can help me with this.

What model should I be looking for? Which has the least issues in terms of compatibility and expandability?
Is an X68030 usable or has it too many issues with compatibility?

Any tips could be useful...

Cheers...

ps. had an interesting read here (thanks for those who set it up)

Great.

This picture is one of my computer during a meeting in France. I love it.

Phil

[sananaman]

Hi, thanks everyone for the replies, it has good information to get started!

(Apologies for my late reply I was having a severe flu that kept me 'offline for a while'.)

In the meantime two goodies have arrived.

1) SCSI2SD adapter from AmigaKit and 2) a CD32 controller "Competition Pro / Honey Bee" (was meant for my Amiga, but I understood that it also works on the Sharp).
See attached images...


So now the search continues for an X68000 SUPER or XVI.

I'm definitely looking for an original monitor, preferable a CZ-614D-TN.



On my Amiga's I also have original RGB monitors from that era (Commodore 1084S, Philips CM8833) , and it gives the most smooth and accurate image as it was back in the days.
I want the same for the sharp.

[samaron]

If the controller is meant for Amiga, then you need to modify it in order to make it work. Same plug, but different pinout.

[sananaman]

@mqarkcambie: Hallo! ;-) If I can find more machines I'll drop you a PM.

@pstriolo: Very nice setup! If I could find this it would be great!

[sananaman]

.... and the journey continues...

Hi all, after several years of not being able to find an X68000 system here in Europe, I decided to just hunt in Japan.
This weekend I got myself a X68000 SUPER HD and a CZ-614D-TN monitor in Japan.

Now waiting for all the parts to be shipped to the proxy which will do the relay shipping.

My wish is still a boxed XVI HD or XVI 030, so if someone here has something and willing to sell drop me PM.

[sananaman]

Here is a picture the X68000 set I got recently.