MSX was the name of a standardised home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation. It is said that Microsoft led the project as an attempt to create unified standards among hardware makers.

Despite Microsoft's involvement, MSX-based machines were seldom seen in the United States and Britain (although heavily advertised by Toshiba in the UK), but they were popular in other markets. Eventually 5 million MSX-based units were sold worldwide. This home computer was released in Japan, Middle East, Europe and Brazil.

Before the appearance and great success of Nintendo's Family Computer, MSX was the platform for which major Japanese game studios, such as Konami and Hudson Soft, produced their titles. The Metal Gear series was originally written for MSX hardware.

The MSX had a stripped down version of MS Basic and Microsoft were involved in the whole MSX plan but the machines weren't produced by MS Japan. They came from a variety of familiar Japanese companies - Sony, Toshiba, Yamaha, Panasonic etc. but the MSX system meant they could all run the same software even though there were some specialities in the actual machines (the Yamaha had some extra music stuff built in). A neat idea and the machines were a decent spec for the day but they came too late to make an impact

Our machine is the HX-10 .

CPU : Z80A at 3.6Mhz

RAM : 64Kb

VRAM : 16Kb

Sound : General Instruments AY-3-8910 Programmable Sound Generator

IO Ports : 2 joystick sockets,1 cardridge slot, Tape-recorder plug (1200/2400 bauds),Composite video output, Centronics interface, RF video output & 1 expansion bus

Manufacturer: Toshiba
Date: May 1984

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH15464. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.