The Sharp X68000, often referred to as the X68k, was a home computer released only in Japan by the Sharp Corporation. The first model was released in 1987, with a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM and no hard drive; the last model was released in 1993 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU, 4 MB of RAM and optional 80 MB SCSI hard drive. RAM in these systems was expandable to 12 MB though most games and applications didn't require more than two. The Commodore 64 was one of the most popular microcomputers of its era, and is the best selling home computer of all time. ... Sharp Corporation ) (TYO: 6753 ) is a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in 1912. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is an American multinational communications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. ... The Motorola 68000 is a 32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector). ... Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6. ... Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of data storage used in computers. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Motorola 68030 Processor from a Macintosh IIsi The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorolas 68000 family. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Operating System

The X68k ran an operating system developed for Sharp by Hudson, called Human68k, which features commands very similar to those in MS-DOS (typed in English). Pre-2.0 versions of the OS had command line output only for common utilities like 'format' and 'switch' while later versions included forms-based versions of these utilities, greatly improving their usability. At least three major versions of the OS were released, with several updates in between. Other operating systems available include NetBSD for X68030 and OS-9. An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Hudson Soft is a Japanese publisher and developer, founded on May 18, 1973. ... Human68k is an operating system for Sharp Corporations personal workstation X68000. ... Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-like BSD computer operating system. ... For Mac OS 9, see Mac OS 9. ...

Early models had a GUI called "VS"; later ones were packaged with SX-WINDOW (not to be confused with Microsoft Windows, whose interface is very different). A third GUI called Ko-Windows existed; its interface was similar to Motif. These GUI shells could be booted from floppy disk or the system's hard drive. Most games also booted and ran from floppy disk; some were hard disk installable and others require hard disk installation. GUI can refer to the following: GUI is short for graphical user interface, a term used to describe a type of interface in computing. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Screenshot of an application that uses the Open Motif toolkit Motif (or capitalized MOTIF) is a graphical widget toolkit for building graphical user interfaces under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. ...

Since the system's release, Human68k, console, and SX-Window C compiler suites and BIOS ROMs have been released as public domain and are freely available for download. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Case Design

The X68000 featured two soft-eject 5.25" floppy drives, or in some of the compact models, two 3.5" floppy drives, and a very distinct case design of two connected towers, divided by a retractable carrying handle. This system was also one of the first to feature a software-controlled power switch; pressing the switch would signal the system's software to save and shutdown, similar to the ATX design of modern PC's. The screen would fade to black and sound would fade to silence before the system turned off. This article is about the computer case form factor. ...

The system's keyboard, although rather poorly designed overall, had a mouse port built into either side. The front of the computer had a headphone jack, volume control, joystick, keyboard and mouse ports. The top had a retractable carrying handle (only on non-Compact models), a reset button, and a Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI) button. The rear had a plethora of ports, including stereoscopic output, FDD and HDD expansion ports, and I/O board expansion slots. A Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI) is a special type of interrupt that can not be ignored by standard interrupt masking techniques. ...

Display

The monitor supported 15/24 and 31 kHz with up to 65,535 colors and functioned as a cable-ready television (NTSC-J standard) with composite video input. It was an excellent monitor for playing JAMMA compatible arcade boards due to its analog RGB input and standard-resolution refresh timing. NTSC-J is a videogame region which covers Japan. ... JAMMA is an acronym, standing for Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association. ... Standard-definition television or SDTV refers to television systems that have a lower resolution than HDTV systems. ...

Disk I/O

Early machines used the rare Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI) as their hard disk interface; later versions adopted the industry-standard small computer system interface (SCSI). Per the hardware's capability, formatted SASI drives could be 10, 20 or 30 megabytes in size and could be logically partitoned as well. Floppy disks came in a couple of different formats, none of which are natively readable on other platforms, though software exists that can read and write these disks on a DOS or Windows 98 PC. SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, and is a standard interface for transferring data between devices on a computer bus. ...

Expansion

Many add-on cards were released for the system, including networking (Neptune-X), SCSI, memory upgrades, CPU enhancements (JUPITER-X 68040/060 accelerator), and MIDI I/O boards. The system has two joystick ports, both 9-pin male and supporting Atari standard joysticks. MSX controllers work natively and Super NES controllers could be used in conjunction with the adapter that came with Super Street Fighter 2. Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... Sony MSX 1, Model HitBit-10-P MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s. ... The European SNES design is identical to the Super Famicom. ...

Arcade at home

Hardware-wise, it was very similar to arcade hardware of the time. It supported separate text RAM, graphic RAM and hardware sprites. Sound was produced internally via Yamaha's then top-of-the-line YM2151 FM synthesizer and a single channel OKI MSM6258V for PCM. Due to this and other similarities it played host to many arcade game ports in its day. Games made for this system included Parodius Da! －Shinwa kara Owarai e－, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, Ghosts 'n Goblins, a port of Akumajo Dracula (Castlevania in other regions, the X68000 version being remade for Sony PlayStation as Castlevania Chronicles), and many others. Many games also supported the Roland SC-55 and MT-32 MIDI modules for sound as well as mixed-mode internal/external output. Computer hardware is the physical part of a computer, including the digital circuitry, as distinguished from the computer software that executes within the hardware. ... The Yamaha YM2151, also known as the OP-M (FM Operator Type-M) is a sound chip in the YM2100 family. ... Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a digital representation of an analog signal where the magnitude of the signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, then quantized to a series of symbols in a digital (usually binary) code. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... Parodius Da! －Shinwa kara Owarai e－ , lit. ... Final Fight ) is a beat em up series from Capcom. ... Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991) was a highly popular and immensely successful arcade game created by the Japan-based company Capcom. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Castlevania is a video game series, created and developed by Konami. ... The original PlayStation was produced in a light grey colour; the more recent PSOne redesign sports a smaller more rounded case. ... Castlevania Chronicles ) is an enhanced remake of the 1993 Sharp X68000 computer game, Akumajō Dracula. ... Roland Corporation TYO: 7944 is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. ... Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas The Roland SC-55 (Sound Canvas) is a MIDI synthesizer sound module released in 1991 by Roland Corporation. ... The Roland MT-32 is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by the Roland Corporation. ...

See also

• Category:Sharp X68000 games
• X68000's MDX

midi-like format that is designed to be played using the X68000s FM synth. ...

External links

• Website about the actual hardware
• Japanese Computer Emulation Centre
• Human68k Xperiment
• Official Efnet #x68000 channel Site
• Sharp X68000 Emulation at ByteCellar.
• Japanese site for official public domain software and ROMs