• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

the BEST home computer ever

T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
the best home computer of the late 1980s was not the Atari ST or the Amiga but rather, the Sharp X68000, exlusive to Japan.

x68k_rtype02.jpg

X68000.jpg

x68000.jpg


Arcade
GnG_arcade.png


X68000
GnG_x68k.png



it doesn't get any better than that.

the X68000 could do 1:1 arcade exact or near arcade exact ports of many regular arcade machines, and even decent 50% conversions of scaling-intensive Sega simulators
(Space Harrier, Super HangOn, After BurnerII, ThunderBlade).

Super HangOn
x68_hangon.gif


Thunder Blade
thunb1cdh4.gif

thunb1elp5.gif

thunb1imd9.gif


Detana!! TwinBee
so_x68_detana.gif



home of the exclusive Gradius gamel Nemesis 90:
xn9_t1.gif

Nemesis%2090%20Kai.jpg



a number of Sega MegaDrive/Genesis classics started out on the X68000, i.e. ThunderForce II, Granada and Sol-Feace.

SNES Phalanx also started out as a X68000 game.
 
T

Tain

Member
The Japanese home computer that had hardware similar to arcade hardware at the time.

Home of tons of arcade ports, the Castlevania remake, Geograph Seal (precursor to Jumping Flash and one of the earliest 3D platformers), and other cool stuff like Zugya.

thats a sexy machine. I love how it doesn't even look that dated.
Click to expand...

Seriously, it might as well have come out four years ago.
 
Z

Zweisy1

Member
It's a shame X68000 was never released outside japan.. such an amazing computer. It came out in 87 and easily beats out PC Engine and Genesis as far as graphics go.

It's also the reason Sharp is my favourite electronics company. Sony never did anything as cool.. :)
 
D

DECK'ARD

The Amiga Brotherhood
The Amiga's chipset predated it by 2 years, and while the X68000 had better playfield hardware the Amiga could still do some neat tricks of it's own.

And anyway, by home computer you should want more than better than console arcade ports. The Amiga development community and demo scene put it in a different league.

As did the video digitisers, genlocks, first DTP packages, raytracing packages, Deluxe Paint ... the Amiga was multimedia before the word had even been invented!
 
S

Squeak

Member
speculawyer said:
Amiga 500 was yreat. It's lack of a hard drive really hurt but they were still really expensive at the time.
Click to expand...
For the first couple of years of the Amigas life, that was true. But after about 88-89 a computer really needed a HDD to be taken seriously.
What Commodore should have done was forcing buyers to have a small high quality monitor and a small HDD by bundling it, with the option to upgrade if the customer wished.

Sure, it would have at least doubled if not tripled the price of the machine, but it would still have been far cheaper than an equivalent Mac or PC.

What really started the Amigas long and painful downfall from serious multimedia machine, to console-substitute and finally obscurity and then death, was all the millions of kids hooking it up to their parents TV or a cheap portable with an RF cable, never even touching the Workbench discs and basically treating it as a console with free games.

Having a standard HDD as boot device would have forced the buyer to take better care of his/her machine (by not feeding it with pirate games stuffed with vira) and more importantly made them care more for it because it was their personal space to work in, and not some toaster you just hit reset on whenever you wanted to play a new game.

The monitor as standard would have made it bearable to actually use the wonderful GFX capabilities of the AMIGA to do some work on it.

I know people who used the Amiga professionally back in the day and they still swear to this day, that there is lots of stuff the you could do with the programs for it back then that still is impossible to do today in the same way, if at all.
 
K

Kaitei grunkan

Member
Nash said:
And anyway, by home computer you should want more than better than console arcade ports. The Amiga development community and demo scene put it in a different league.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the multitasking OS itself.
 
I

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
The best home computer ever was clearly Acorn's RiscPC. ARM processor, complete with sex-on-a-stick assembler. A brilliant modular design that allowed you to expand the case based on how much hardware you needed in there. You could start out with a slimline single slice:

rpc233.jpg


Move on up to a double slice if you needed more hard drives or expansion cards:

180px-Acorn_Risc_PC_600.jpg


And then... well, the sky was the limit:

rs-1.jpg
rs-2.jpg
rs-4.jpg
 
A

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Wow, that IS the best computer ever. It cooks, it cleans... I wonder if someone was trying to replace their wife with it.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
this x6800 is definately better than the amiga... just look at it.

sure it might not have had the software support the amiga had, but who knows what would have happened had it released outside of japan.
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
Nash said:
The Amiga's chipset predated it by 2 years, and while the X68000 had better playfield hardware the Amiga could still do some neat tricks of it's own.
Click to expand...

Amiga hardware completion / release 1984-1985
X68000 completion / release 1986-1987

roughly.

And anyway, by home computer you should want more than better than console arcade ports. The Amiga development community and demo scene put it in a different league.
Click to expand...

Id take the X68000 over the Amiga for quality over quantity. both were good. X68000 was a serious machine for arcade ports.

As did the video digitisers, genlocks, first DTP packages, raytracing packages, Deluxe Paint ... the Amiga was multimedia before the word had even been invented!
Click to expand...

true, Amiga was so far ahead of Microsoft/ IBM PC and even Apple Mac, it wasn't even funny.
 
S

Squeak

Member
The Apple II GS was actually also a pretty damn fine machine, especially the sound hardware which was designed by the same guy who did the SID, it just never had that many games written specifically for its Graphics and Sound.

Appleiigs_computer.jpg


tassshot3.gif


airballshot2.gif
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
Parallax said:
i want to see some images of strider running on it...
Click to expand...

Arcade
strider_arcade.png


X68000
strider_x68.png


MegaDrive-Genesis
stridercomp1a.png



X68000 Strider was not 100% exact. it suffered some flicker, but it was near-exact. much much closer to the arcade than MD/Gen, and would have beat out any NEC SuperGrafx version had it been made/completed (and we won't even mention the pathetic PC-Engine Arcade Card CD version of Strider)


Capcom's Strider is one of the most lavishly rendered games of its time. Luscious graphics and incredible atmospheric sound ensure it a place in video game history. I remember clearing it on one credit in the 'cade and thinking it was about the greatest thing ever. The X68000 version is a far more faithful rendition than Sega's MegaDrive/Genesis version, to be expected perhaps when this one used three times as much storage, but remember that the main CPU in the Genesis is the same as the X68k - the Motorola 68000. This version isn't quite arcade perfect, there's more flicker than the arcade version.
Click to expand...

strider7.png


more here: http://nfggames.com/sales/html/EpZpyFpupEpfGBQqfm.html
 
G

ghibli99

Member
Wow... I've only had my peripheral vision on this system over the years, until now. I'm pretty floored by the graphical quality of those games compared to their arcade counterparts. I imagine these are pretty tough to find these days, eh?
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
ghibli99 said:
Wow... I've only had my peripheral vision on this system over the years, until now. I'm pretty floored by the graphical quality of those games compared to their arcade counterparts. I imagine these are pretty tough to find these days, eh?
Click to expand...


yeah, but not too hard. easier than say, NEC SuperGrafx (50,000 consoles made) vs over 200,000 of the X68000 machines. the prices are pretty high or were, but i havent checked lately. the biggest problem is the power supply going bad from what i heard. X68000 emulation is pretty good, and is the only way ive experienced the system.


ironically, the custom graphics chip(s) and OS of X68000 was made by Hudson, the designers of the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 and SuperGrafx chipsets.


IMO, the X68000 is what the SuperGrafx should have been the basis of, in console form, with one major addition, scaling & rotation. but sadly, SuperGrafx shared nothing with X68000 at all.
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
Haunted_One said:
Amiga 500 > X68000
Click to expand...


Ghouls 'n Ghosts on Amiga
amigaghoulslr5.gif



ok to be fair, the Amiga version did not really use the power of the Amiga since it was a port of the Atari ST version. still, the Amiga would not be capable of an arcade-identical port of the game as the X68000 pulled off
 
P

ProphetZG

Member
No. The best early 80's home computer was the Atari 800. :)

But the x68000 was damn awesome, and definitely could've given the Amiga serious competition had it been released outside Japan.

x68000 Castlevania is awesome too. I played it briefly years back, and it was like Super CV on SNES, but also different. I think it had more detailed graphics and more background scroll layers.
 
C

Cosmozone

Member
I really respect the Amiga for it's advanced technology at the time, but the casing really sucked. The Amiga guys should've found better partners than Commodore back then. Commodore sucks BTW.
 
B

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
Nash said:
The Amiga's chipset predated it by 2 years, and while the X68000 had better playfield hardware the Amiga could still do some neat tricks of it's own.

And anyway, by home computer you should want more than better than console arcade ports. The Amiga development community and demo scene put it in a different league.

As did the video digitisers, genlocks, first DTP packages, raytracing packages, Deluxe Paint ... the Amiga was multimedia before the word had even been invented!
Click to expand...
/thread
 
M

Mar

Member
The X68000 looks like a damn sexy beast. Those arcade conversions would have made me cream my pants when I was a kid.

However, the best home computer of the 1980s (in terms of popularity) was the Commodore 64. There's no competition. History has been recorded and set in stone.
 
M

Maya

Member
TheIkariWarrior said:
the best home computer of the late 1980s was not the Atari ST or the Amiga but rather, the Sharp X68000, exlusive to Japan.

x68k_rtype02.jpg


it doesn't get any better than that.
Click to expand...

Wow! It does still look cool!
 
V

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
Best looking PC box ever. I wish that I was born earlier (I'm 19) so I would live into the old personal computer era :(
 
M

MrNibbles

Banned
can anyone say
CASE MODDING?

I should get one of those for the case, and build a PC in it.
It's my idea, don't you dare steal it.
 
V

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
MrNibbles said:
can anyone say
CASE MODDING?

I should get one of those for the case, and build a PC in it.
It's my idea, don't you dare steal it.
Click to expand...
I thought about it an HOUR AGO!, even searched on Google to see if they made some
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
Final Fight

X68000 vs Arcade
final4.png

final5.png

final3.png


obliterates the SNES, SegaCD and GBA versions


Sega CD version still has the best music and animated intro through/
 
xemumanic

xemumanic

Member
The X68000 and the Amiga were both amazing systems. Every X68000 thread I've ever seen on any forum always degenrates into a X68000 vs Amiga battle once some Amiga fan puts in his 2 cents.

Lets try to keep this one from going down that path huh? There's already a good Amiga thread that's been started.
 
xemumanic

xemumanic

Member
Martoo said:
The X68000 looks like a damn sexy beast. Those arcade conversions would have made me cream my pants when I was a kid.

However, the best home computer of the 1980s (in terms of popularity) was the Commodore 64. There's no competition. History has been recorded and set in stone.
Click to expand...

Some AppleII fans may disagree tho :lol ........but agreed, the X6800/Amgia were the best computers of the 90s....it took that long for them to reach their peak of popularity. They were still making C64s in the early 90s in fact.
 
A

anotherworld

Banned
TheIkariWarrior said:
Final Fight

X68000 vs Arcade
final4.png

final5.png

final3.png


obliterates the SNES, SegaCD and GBA versions


Sega CD version still has the best music and animated intro through/
Click to expand...

The Sega CD version had perferct pixels+sprites with the arcade version. It just only output 64 colors on screen but everything animated like the arcade. The Snes had the colors but the sprites where redone with less animation.


arcade
compare-arcade.png


Sega CD
compare-segacd.png

finalfight-segacd2.png

finalfight-segacd3.png


GBA
compare-gba.png

finalfight-gba3.png


SNES
compare-snes.png
 
P

Parallax

best seen in the classic "Shadow of the Beast"
TheIkariWarrior said:
Arcade
strider_arcade.png


X68000
strider_x68.png


MegaDrive-Genesis
stridercomp1a.png



X68000 Strider was not 100% exact. it suffered some flicker, but it was near-exact. much much closer to the arcade than MD/Gen, and would have beat out any NEC SuperGrafx version had it been made/completed (and we won't even mention the pathetic PC-Engine Arcade Card CD version of Strider)




strider7.png


more here: http://nfggames.com/sales/html/EpZpyFpupEpfGBQqfm.html
Click to expand...

thanks... i had heard it was near arcade perfect, but i didnt think it was that close.. looking at final fight, it seemed that capcom games looked beautiful on it.. were there any other ports?
 
C

cartman414

Member
Konami also did their share of ports, including Gradius 1 and 2, Parodius, Twinbee and Detana Twinbee, and A-jax, which I must add looked fantastic from what I checked out.
 
T

TheIkariWarrior

Member
anotherworld said:
The Sega CD version had perferct pixels+sprites with the arcade version. It just only output 64 colors on screen but everything animated like the arcade. The Snes had the colors but the sprites where redone with less animation.
Click to expand...


parts of your statement are just completely untrue and wrong. in no way is the SegaCD/MegaCD Final Fight "pixel perfect".

the SNES version had more colors, but not as many as the arcade. SNES version probably used roughly 128 colors or less, the arcade used somewhere around 256 (CPS1's max on-screen color ability is something like 2048)

X68000 (1987) colors 256 out of 65,536
CPS (1988) colors 2048 out of 65,536
SNES (1990, Japan) colors: 256 out of 32,768
Sega Genesis/SegaCD (1991, Japan) colors: 64 out of 512



the SegaCD version seemingly had all the frames of animation but was absolutely NOT pixel-perfect. besides the far lower amount of colors-on screen, and total color pallete.

First of all the screen resolution was lower - standard Genesis resolution is 320x224. While all CPS games including Final Fight are 384x224. that alone prevents SegaCD version from being pixel-perfect.

Next comes the lower detail backgrounds. while there is much more detail than both SNES versions or the GBA version, the background details on Sega FFCD are not quite as good as the arcade. close, but not as good.


SEGA CD
Final%20Fight%20CD_01.JPG

look at the wood fencing/railing on the side of the staircase, less detail than Arcade or X68000. also the city buildings in the distant background are not pixel-perfect.

Arcade
arcade0040030fs6.png




another example is the detail of the swinging hanger-things in the subway train.


FFCD sprites are pretty close to the arcade, looks like all frames & moves are there, but the punching speed is slower than SNES, X68000 and arcade. only 4 thugs on-screen at once plus 2 players. arcade has 7-8 thugs at once plus 2 players.


The MegaCD/SegaCD is simply NOT capable of doing pixel-perfect conversions of CPS games, its impossible. it's not my opinion, just fact.

sorry to be so...er, anal about it but just wanted dispell the myth that FFCD is pixel-perfect.
 
G

goomba

Banned
iapetus said:
The best home computer ever was clearly Acorn's RiscPC. ARM processor, complete with sex-on-a-stick assembler. A brilliant modular design that allowed you to expand the case based on how much hardware you needed in there. You could start out with a slimline single slice:

rpc233.jpg


Move on up to a double slice if you needed more hard drives or expansion cards:

180px-Acorn_Risc_PC_600.jpg


And then... well, the sky was the limit:

rs-1.jpg
rs-2.jpg
rs-4.jpg
Click to expand...

QFT

I dont think Acorn / Archimedies computers ever came to the US but in their day they were way ahead of anything else IMO. ARM was born from Acorn (Acorn Risc Machines), then renamed to Advanced Risc Machines after Acorn computers died :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

NeoGAF SEGA Community Thread |OT| To be this good takes AGES
|OT| 11 12 13 14 15
718
87K
RayBoy replied
I think there's a reason (other than nostalgia) that 80s and 90s games are "better"
33
3K
Freedom Gate Co. replied
GAF Votes: Sega Genesis Top 10 games
4 5 6 7 8
389
39K
neonxaos replied
March 2014: Year of the Saturn - Shoot-em-ups
2
60
17K
holymoly replied
The most technically-advanced game for each year
18 19 20 21 22
1K
174K
nOoblet16 replied
Top Bottom