Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 03/85 - checked

March 1985

Ever since 1980 there has been a whole boat-load of pundits around, confidently predicting the imminent arrival of the Japanese on the personal computing scene. 'Watch out', the pundits all cried, 'the Japanese are coming and they are going to wipe everyone else off the face of the earth.'

The logic behind this suggestion was quite sound, based on the idea that personal computers, of the home/game-playing variety especially, were high-volume, low-value devices of a domestic nature. This made them the ideal product family for the Japanese to adopt.

That, at least, was the theory. In practice, it didn't work out that way. The Japanese focused most of their attention on the Apple-equivalent market and above, looking to break into the lucrative small business machine area. This required not only good hardware, which they often managed to produce, but good software too. This they failed to come up with. Their operating systems were poor, for one reason or another. It was said, for example, that the OS for the Sharp 3201 machine was truly excellent except for one thing - it was dreadfully slow. It was a full 'belt and braces' system that never got it wrong, it just took forever to do it.

The Japanese missed out on the small business market, which went first to Commodore, Tandy and Apple, and subsequently to IBM et al, and missed the boat on the home computer boom, which went to the likes of Sinclair and Commodore.

Now the Japanese are having a concerted pitch at the home market again with the MSX machines jointly developed by Microsoft and a whole bunch of Japanese companies. These have generally been well received by reviewers, who have been impressed with the machines but less impressed with the price, considering what you get - essentially an old-fashioned 8-bit machine that the likes of Sinclair has left far behind.

The MSX family does have one thing going for it already, and has some interesting possibilities for the future. Its present advantage is standardisation. There are a whole range of machines coming from different manu facturers that can all use the same software, up to a point. This means that the software authors get a large potential market and become interested in writing for it, which in turn means that the users get programs to play with, plus a choice of machines.

Another advantage of the MSX family is its lineage, which comes from roots buried deep in the dear old CP/M operating system. This means that an MSX system, coupled to a disk drive or two, can become a CP/M machine. Not terribly startling, but the home market is starting to drift upwards in terms of capabilities. People now want to do more than just play 'nuke-the-world' games, and that means two things: bigger systems and better software. It also means that the software has to be available, and that's where CP/M comes in: there's a lot of good, low(ish)-cost applications software waiting to be picked up.

This leads the current MSX machines into a number of alternative routes for the future, stretching from home applications through to real business.

At the home end, it's certain that you will see the machines being applied more and more in association with other systems and equipment. One reason for this is that Japanese manufacturers are now working hard to get the production costs of an MSX machine down to the absolute minimum. The latest versions are said to consist of just seven circuits, which means it will be cheaper to make and smaller to integrate into other things. Yamaha has already pointed the way with its new computer/organ and there will be plenty of other combination products of this type in the future, especially in the area of interactive video.

Most of these applications will be ideal for the 8-bit Z80 processor used in MSX for several years to come, and the standardisation of the technology and software will make it increasingly easy for manufacturers to 'bury' such a computer in their products. But the MSX family is unlikely to stop there.

An important aspect of the standard is its file structure when working with disk drives. These are directly compatible with the existing Microsoft industry standard for 16-bit personal computers, the MS-DOS operating system. Although it won't run an MS-DOS program, MSX will read data files written under MS-DOS and vice versa.

This compatibility is important for the future of the standard, for Microsoft and the Japanese companies have designs upon a certain market-place. That market-place is the one that will be effectively vacated by IBM as it moves its Personal Computer family upwards technologically, and in performance.

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, talks quite openly about MSX growing into a 16-bit system at some time. There is little doubt that, from the hardware point of view, it could be done already. The standard is already part way to being MS-DOS, and MS-DOS runs on the 8088/8086 family of processors. An MSX machine based on one of these would not be difficult to engineer.

What is important, therefore, is the market timing. IBM is the key here, for this year will see it move its products inexorably upwards. There is already the PC/AT, which is based on the Intel 80286 chip, and there are strong hints of a replacement for the PC itself in the near future. This could well be based on the 286 chip's close relative, the 80186 processor. Although the company is also expected to introduce a lap-held machine this year, which will probably be based around the new low-power CMOS versions of the 8088 chip, such moves would leave a chink of light in the original PC market which would mark the first openings of a window of opportunity for the MSX range.

As the IBM PC family gets more powerful (though still compatible) it will leave a hole at the bottom of the market. This will be at a time when a new breed of users, the small professional individual and the more advanced domestic user, will want the power and performance of the PC without the expense. For performance it is, of course, important to read the words `working applications software', and that is just what the MS-DOS environment will offer - a wealth of proven applications software. With its existing compatibility and the upward move towards 16-bit processing, this type of machine can be expected.

end