When Kazuhiko Nishi introduced the MSX computer line in 1983, he aimed to offer something different to other 8-bit micros on the market.
His vision of a standardised computer system allowed any licensed manufacturer to launch an MSX-compatible computer while also adding their own variations. Some offered optional disk drives, some boasted additional cartridge slots, while others were even more specialized, with unique features like LaserDisc compatibility.
To keep up with the times, MSX also underwent generational leaps every few years. The MSX2 followed in 1985, the MSX2+ in 1988 and, finally, the MSX Turbo R in 1990. Each offered more power and speed while remaining backwards compatible with previous models.
Now, over 30 years after the last Turbo R shuffled off production lines, Nishi is back to usher in a brand new generation of the classic Japanese computer. The long-fabled MSX3 is still in the works, but the first stage of the revival, the MSX0, is here and available to import.
MSX0 Stack Review: What Is The MSX0 Stack?
Though the power of MSX0 doesn’t represent a huge leap forward, the hardware itself offers plenty that the system has never seen before.
Most notably, it’s the first portable MSX to be officially created, which is a tantalising selling point alone, but it’s not the only one. The first model of this new standard is the MSX0 Stack, created in collaboration with a company called M5 Stack, who specialise in small modular computers that can be customised with interchangeable units to fulfill ultra-specific practical applications in industrial or scientific environments.
It’s an unexpected partnership for the next evolution of a computer that’s best known for its great Konami games, but it’s important to remember that Nishi is a computing enthusiast first and foremost and that his vision hinges on creating hardware that has limitless potential for the end user.
In that respect, the MSX0 Stack is certainly a device that tickles the imagination. Its modular design – as well as its IoT (Internet of Things) functionality, allowing it to communicate with other wirelessly connected devices – opens it up to a world of possibility in keeping with Nishi’s decades-old vision.
The technology is still very much in its infancy. A small number of units were crowd-funded in 2023 and the version now available to order online is labeled as a development kit. Early adopters won’t find too much new software available and are encouraged to get their hands dirty and start creating. Thankfully, since this is an MSX, it can be programmed using MSX-BASIC and MSX-DOS – as well as new IoT specific commands – so anyone who’s been using the MSX for the past 40 years will have a head start.
We've already seen enterprising Japanese owners creating simple games for the system or apps like digital clocks. Someone has created a Game Boy emulator, and we've even seen one make use of the portability and connectivity to transform their MSX0 into a sat nav! Keen to explore the potential of this new hardware, we decided to import an MSX0 Stack to see what it’s all about.
MSX0 Stack Review: What’s In The Box?
We ordered my MSX0 Stack from the fantastic Japanese retro game store, BEEP, who offer easy-to-use international ordering from their website. The package arrived in just a few days, and contained the following in a tidy little plastic tub:
- One MSX0 Stack system
- One keyboard face unit
- One gamepad face unit
- One battery unit for use with the detachable screen
- A charging dock and USB-C cable
- A micro SD card, pre-loaded with essential MSX software and Japanese PDF manual
- A set of Allen keys to help with screen/battery removal
Anyone who buys their MSX0 Stack from BEEP will also receive an exclusive CD-ROM containing four additional games, including the pretty good platform-adventure The Castle, the not-so-good Lode Runner-like platformer Rise Out, and two instalments of The Wrathgrave series.
The latter are perhaps the most interesting games currently available for the system. They’re ports of a cult adventure series, originally created for Japanese mobile phones, enhanced using the MSX0 hardware with voice samples and a new soundtrack scored by veteran Microcabin composer Tadahiro Nitto. Of course, the text is all in Japanese, so there’s only so much most players will get from these two games.
Speaking of language barriers, there is currently no official English manual or documentation available for the MSX0, although Kazuhiko Nishi has confirmed to me that they are “working on it”. Nevertheless, we found it relatively easy to get up and running with the Stack in a few minutes.
MSX0 Stack Review: How Does It Work?
Straight out of the box, the MSX0 Stack is pre-assembled with the keyboard face unit attached to the front. We gave it a quick charge and popped the micro SD card in the slot at the top. Switching it on, we were greeted by a very reassuring sight… The MSX logo rising into view against a blue background before giving way to the BASIC prompt screen, exactly like an original MSX system would.
This is a great opportunity to test the tiny keyboard face unit. It can be a little tricky to use with our giant Western thumbs, but we can confirm that the keyboard is fully functional and cleverly makes use of a couple of alt buttons to allow three different characters per key. We wouldn’t want to type in an entire BASIC program with one, but it is technically possible, meaning this really is a complete MSX computer in your pocket – and we literally do mean pocket. This tiny miracle is just 5cm wide, 2cm thick and under 11cm tall. It easily fits into our trouser pocket, right next to our phone.
One of the first things you might notice about the MSX0 Stack is that it also features a touch screen and, unusually, three touch-sensitive buttons above it. With a swipe of the screen, you’ll notice that you can slide the display over to a custom operating system. Amazingly, this OS is also running on MSX, meaning that the Stack is running two instances of MSX systems at the same time.
Switch on the handheld without the SD card inserted, and you’ll see that this is the case, with both screens displaying the MSX-BASIC prompt. In theory, you can edit the system utility to change which disk the second screen boots to so that you can run two different programs or games at the same time – though we haven’t been brave enough to try, and we're not certain if there would be much point. But we still think it’s kind of cool.
There are various options in the OS, most of them fairly standard, although the digital clock is the kind of pointless app that exudes big Neo Geo Pocket energy. Among the usual volume and brightness options and system settings, the most valuable are the ones to change the floppy disk image or ROM. Each of the on-screen buttons features a simple visual design so they’re easy to understand, and can be pressed using the touch screen – although we're sorry to report we changed an unknown setting at one point and lost that particular touch-screen functionality, which is a bit galling.
Thankfully, you can navigate the menu with physical controls, too. The keyboard face panel detaches from the system without too much fuss and without the need for tools, allowing you to change to the gamepad panel whenever you like. This is pretty much essential for most games, and we're thankful that the settings allow the buttons to be assigned either to standard gamepad controls or to relevant keyboard keys in order to keep compatibility with games very high. While the tiny buttons all work well and are comfortable enough, it’s unfortunate that they are audibly clicky, which can be quite annoying – especially for anyone else in earshot.
Finally, it’s also possible to control games using the touch screen. We imagine this functionality will blossom if and when new games are developed with the MSX0’s unique functions in mind. In fact, you will find a touch-controlled drawing program on the system’s included sample disk. But for now, the most interesting thing you can do is simulate physical controls on the screen via an invisible D-pad and buttons assigned to a 3x3 grid. It’s not the preferred way to play, but it is pretty neat, and we had good fun reconfiguring the MSX0 Stack into the form of a standalone screen for a quick game of touch-controlled Pac-Man.
MSX0 Stack Review: How Are The Games?
For all its curious computing potential, what interests us most about the MSX0 is, of course, the ability to play MSX games on the go. Unfortunately, this is also the aspect of the new system that most disappoints.
One of the biggest frustrations is just how to add your own ROMs. There are two cartridge games built into the OS. One is Zanac, a classic shmup by Compile. This is a fun game and quite expensive in its original form, so its presence is appreciated. The other is Pai Panic, a mahjong-themed puzzle game in which a little dude with a hammer taps tiles into a sequential row while avoiding hazards. It’s a nice curiosity we'd never heard of before, but we can’t say it’s particularly fun.
Needless to say, it wasn’t too long before we were trying to add our own ROMs… which, it turns out, is almost impossible to do. The two included games are baked into the firmware and not obviously stored on the SD card, so there’s nowhere to drop your own files in. Since the MSX0 is fully programmable, an enterprising user could find a workaround, of course, and we've seen a couple of Japanese owners manage to do just this, but the steps involved are too convoluted to expect most owners to follow.
We live in the hope that the community will create a new program that makes it simple to load ROMs. Until then, there are a couple of alternatives. The easiest is the disk image compatibility. The SD card features a folder that allows your own disk images to be added and easily loaded from the OS. It’s baffling to us why the designers would allow disks to so easily be used but not ROMs, but we are grateful – though even this isn’t without complications.
Compatibility isn’t 100%, unfortunately. We've had a few games that would not load at all, while some do run but with graphical glitches that render them either annoying or unplayable. Worryingly, the menu for selecting disks is also glitchy. Give a disk image an over-long filename or fill the SD card with more than a handful of games and the menu is prone to corrupt or simply not display every filename. It’s no wonder that some early adopters have programmed their own improved disk selection tool. When games work, which is about 70% of the time in our experience, it’s really good fun to play old favourites on this dinky system – but we would have expected a much higher compatibility rate from an official system.
The final way to add games is perhaps the most bizarre. The MSX Corporation has partnered with Project Egg – the Japanese distribution platform for classic computer games best known in the West for its EGG CONSOLE service on Nintendo Switch – to make certain MSX games officially available to purchase. At the time of writing, there are six games available to buy. Some are text-heavy Japanese RPGs, which probably aren’t worth buying unless you know the language, but there are some import-friendly action games too. We bought the excellent arcade sports game Penguin Kun Wars as well as the obscure but fun platformer JP Winkle. Each is available for a reasonable ¥770 (About £4), although you will need a temporary Project Egg membership to buy them.
Signing up for the service and downloading the games from the Japanese website takes a little effort, but is perfectly doable with some patience and Google Translate. But what’s strange is the way you get them onto your MSX0 once you’ve bought them.
Each game is delivered to you as a firmware update file for the system, meaning you’ll need to load them onto the SD card and then flash your MSX0 Stack with the update to play one of them. Doing so effectively transforms the system so that it can only play that one game, complete with a Project Egg boot screen and a dedicated OS which is, admittedly, very good.
The games are emulated well and control perfectly, while the UI even uses the MSX0’s three touch-sensitive buttons for quick access to the system menu and quick save/load. It’s a pretty good gameplay experience but it’s inconvenient to lose access to all your other content in the process, and disconcerting to have to flash the firmware again to select another Project Egg game or return back to the main MSX0 OS.
MSX0 Stack Review: Is Now The Right Time To Buy?
We've been looking forward to the MSX0 for months and were very eager to try it out. We love the variation and inventiveness in this long-running and multifaceted platform, and we're fascinated by the potential of this unique new take on the system – but we have to admit that in its current state, the MSX0 Stack is only for the most dedicated early adopters. The system is essentially still in the beta stage, and only those users who are willing to create their own solutions or interact with the Japanese development community will get the most out of it.
For those who simply want to play games, we can’t honestly recommend the MSX0 Stack right now as it simply doesn’t provide a user-friendly and convenient experience out of the box. The expandable nature of the MSX0 Stack does give us hope, however. There’s supposedly an adapter in the works to use original cartridges, while the community is sure to make an easy ROM loader at some point. If this problem is solved and the compatibility improves, then you can confidently add two points to the score at the end of this review.
Until that time, we would only recommend the MSX0 to hardcore fans. For everyone else, there are better solutions. We'd encourage anyone curious about the classic system to buy a real MSX2 and a few carts, while those who wish to emulate on the go will almost certanly find more reliability in the Analogue Pocket’s forthcoming FPGA core. An FPGA core is also available for the MiSTer platform.
That said, we've found ourselves taking the MSX0 with us everywhere we go this week. It’s small enough to add to our daily carry, and many games are compact enough for quick bursts of play in spare moments. In many ways, the system reminds us of the Amiga; it has the potential to be expanded, altered and improved by its community in ways perhaps its creators never anticipated, and we hope it will eventually blossom into something special in time.