The Neo Kobe guide to the Sharp X1



=== Overview ===

The Sharp X1 series belonged to the "trinity" of 8-bit home computers that dominated the market in 1980s Japan.



Prior to the X1, Sharp produced the extensive MZ series of home computers, which was also somewhat successful in Europe. However, whereas the MZ series was produced by the electronics and information systems divisions of the company, the X1 was a completely separate product that arose from the television division.



Marketed as a pasokon terebi (PC TV), the X1 display doubled as a television set, and the computer included a number of television integration features, such as a built-in TV timer as well as superimpose and subtitling functions for video editing. You could also use the keyboard to change the TV channel or adjust the volume, even when the main computer was turned off.



The MZ and X1 did have one thing in common: a feature Sharp called "clean design". Whereas most other computers came with a built-in operating system such as BASIC on a ROM chip, Sharp's computers only contained a simple initial program loader (IPL). This gave the user more access to precious RAM when not using BASIC, and also made it trivial to switch between different operating systems. The downside was that the user was required to load some kind of operating system from a cassette tape or floppy disk at every power-on before the computer was usable. Still, Sharp's clean design meant that ultimately the user was in complete control of the hardware, which is worth remembering in our age of Secure Boot and smartphones with no root access.



The Sharp X1 also featured an electromagnetically controlled cassette tape data recorder, enabling programs to automatically play, rewind, or fast-forward tapes as needed, almost like accessing a floppy disk. The data recorder was also blazingly fast for its time. This was a huge leap forward in user-friendliness.



Thanks to a flexible programmable character generator (PCG), the X1 was able to draw and move small images quickly. While not as smooth as the custom sprite hardware in a game console like the NES, the X1 was much better at fast action games compared to other 8-bit computers.



As a result, the X1 was the all-round best gaming computer of the early to mid-80s in Japan. In some ways, the original X1 models were *too* good, making both users and developers reluctant to switch to later models. As time went by, Sharp was not able to keep the X1 series competitive with advances in other home computer lines, like Fujitsu's FM-77 and NEC's PC-8801mkIISR. But even as the X1 series gradually became less relevant, Sharp applied the lessons learned to create the X68000, arguably the greatest Japanese computer of all.



The other important thing that Sharp brought to the Japanese computer industry was a sense of style. The X1 was sleekly built (notice how the monitor, main unit, and keyboard are all exactly the same width), and was available in a futuristic chrome silver or a gorgeous Rosso Corsa red. This design philosophy was quickly copied by the other computer manufacturers, and the X1's influence can be seen in models like the NEC PC-6601SR, the Fujitsu FM-77AV, and the Sony HB-101.



Major models:

- X1 (November 1982). Original model, with built-in cassette tape data recorder, a 4MHz Z80A processor, and a display resolution of 640x200 (effectively 640x400 with scanlines). The built-in sound used the ubiquitous AY-3-8910 programmable sound generator (PSG), but a sound board with a Yamaha YM2151 (OPM) FM synth chip was available as an optional addon.

- X1turbo (October 1984). A more powerful successor, enabling a 640x400, 8-color hi-reso mode. Available with a tape data recorder or 1-2 floppy drives. Fully backwards compatible with original X1 software.

- X1G (July 1986). Bundled with a NES-style gamepad, called a "joycard". Also included a composite video out port for recording gaming sessions, for example.

- X1turboZ (December 1986). Another significant hardware upgrade. Added a 4096-color mode, hardware scrolling, built-in FM synthesis, and video capture/editing functions. Unfortunately, the turboZ series sold very poorly in the face of competition from other companies, as well as Sharp's own X68000, so there is very little software that takes advantage of the new features.

- X1twin (December 1987). A hybrid computer/game console with a built-in PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16).





=== Running software ===

Most games run on the original X1, unless labeled with [X1turbo].

You can tell whether your system/emulator is X1 or turbo according to the IPL text at boot-up:

Original X1: "IPL is under preparing."

X1turbo/X1turboZ: "IPL is set for device."



Note that the X1turbo is backwards compatible with pretty much everything, so it's easiest to use that.



The majority of games, even tape games, are completely plug-and-play.



However, some software requires an environment such as BASIC to be loaded first.



Like Sharp's earlier MZ series, the X1 adheres to a "clean design" philosophy. This means that there is no built-in operating system, only a simple initial program loader (IPL). A command-line environment such as BASIC needs to be loaded from a tape or floppy.



The standard environments are:

HuBASIC CZ-8CB01 (C for cassette tape)

HuBASIC CZ-8FB01 (F for floppy disk)

HuBASIC CZ-8FB02 (aka Turbo BASIC)

HuBASIC CZ-8FB03 (aka TurboZ BASIC)



After loading BASIC, insert the desired game and simply type

RUN""

or

LOAD"GameName"

RUN



You can also specify a drive with CAS: (tape), FD0: (1st FD drive), and FD1: (2nd FD drive), like:

RUN"CAS:"



Note that on the X1, the first or primary floppy drive is called Drive 0, and the secondary drive is called Drive 1.



=== Hard drive support ===

This is totally unnecessary for just playing games, but the emulator Xmillenium T-Tune also includes hard drive support, and will auto-mount up to four HDDs. Copy the SASIx_x.hdd file from "[OS] Blank hard disk" in this set, and paste it into the emulator directory. Then rename SASIx_x.hdd like below. Copy and rename the file to create up to four drives.



1st HDD: SASI0_0.HDD (SASI-ID 0, LUN 0; accessible as HD0: in turbo BASIC)

2nd HDD: SASI0_1.HDD (SASI-ID 0, LUN 1; accessible as HD1: in turbo BASIC)

3rd HDD: SASI1_0.HDD (SASI-ID 1, LUN 0; accessible as HD2: in turbo BASIC)

4th HDD: SASI1_1.HDD (SASI-ID 1, LUN 1; accessible as HD3: in turbo BASIC)



Then load up HuBASIC CZ-8FB02 (turbo BASIC), and you can access an HDD with normal BASIC commands like:

FILES"HD0:

LOAD"HD0:SomeFile

and so on.





=== Controls ===

For games, movement is almost always numpad 4,6,2,8. The buttons are usually some combination of Spacebar, Esc, Tab, and ZXCV.



Keep Caps Lock on, because some games only recognize uppercase input.



Also remember that many games were designed for a joystick. The Xmillenium emulator has a joykey function that maps a virtual joystick to the arrow keys and ZX buttons of your physical keyboard.



=== Emulators ===

Unfortunately, there isn't a single X1 emulator to recommend.



Overall, the "Xmillenium+T-tune+ika-tune" emulator is easiest to use and the most feature-rich, but a number of games have compatibility problems. This emulator is available in the Neo Kobe emulator pack, in the folder "xmil026tt143_ika5".



The next best choice is Toshiya Takeda's x1/x1turbo/x1twin emulators. Usually these will run games that ika-tune doesn't. These are also available in the Neo Kobe emulator pack.



MESS is also an option, and the emulation is gradually improving.