February 28, 2016Old School Game Blog

Spectravideo SVI-738 X’Press: My First Computer

Behold! The 3.5" floppy disk drive! The envy of C64 owners with only tape-drive.. hehe..
Behold! The 3.5″ floppy disk drive! The envy of C64 owners with only tape-drive.. hehe.. And also 2 x joystick ports.

Hello guys,

Today I’d like to introduce you to an old friend of mine, the MSX 1 computer SVI-738 X’Press. It has been with me since childhood and it has a special place in my heart. Back in 2011 I wrote a post about gaming on this machine. Check it out here.

Recently I’ve began using it again and it’s a lot of fun. I’ve been playing games like Knightmare, Salamander, Circus Charlie, Oh Shit!, Boulderdash, Robot Wars and many more. These old games are still fun and interesting, and not least challenging.  I especially like the fact that you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to play them. Probably sounds like a strange thing to say, but using a computer without Internet-connection is like having a time-out from everything else. It feels relaxing.

Anyway, thought you’d like to see some pictures of my old MSX, so here goes:

This is the original bag for the computer. It's in very good condition and hangs loose over the shoulder. Classy!
This is the original bag for the computer. It’s in very good condition and hangs loose over the shoulder. Classy!

 

Here it is, the computer itself. You can see it has scratches and such from use, but overall it is in very good shape. It also works flawlessly.
Here it is, the computer itself. You can see it has scratches and such from use, but overall it is in very good shape. It also works flawlessly.

 

Here's the bottom of the machine.
Here’s the bottom of the machine.

 

Quite a few ports there. You can connect the computer to a TV with RF-cable, but also composite, which is surprising for such an old computer.
Quite a few ports there. You can connect the computer to a TV with RF-cable, but also composite, which is surprising for such an old computer.

 

Behold! The 3.5" floppy disk drive! The envy of C64 owners with only tape-drive.. hehe..
Behold! The 3.5″ floppy disk drive! The envy of C64 owners with only a tape-drive.. hehe..

 

Some of my games. You see Knightmare there, as well as Salamander and Circus Charlie. That disk is actually an original that came with the Hits on Disk series. It contains apx. 10 games I think, including Boulderdash and Oh Shit!
Some of my games. You see Knightmare there, as well as Salamander and Circus Charlie. That disk is actually an original that came with the Hits on Disk series. It contains apx. 10 games I think, including Boulderdash and Oh Shit!

Videos are all the rage these days, so might make one of this machine in action. Wasn’t that much on it on YouTube. Must connect it to an LCD then, since the CRT flickers too much.

Hope you enjoyed seeing some picture of this old beauty. 🙂 Love to hear from other MSX owners out there btw.. I’m interested in tips concerning getting games on 3.5″ floppies if anyone has experience with that.

Thanks for visiting my blog and have a nice Sunday!

7 comments

  1. Damn, I’m jealous ! I’ve got the old pre-msx sv-318 which is still à great computer but I’d love to get that one…

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    • Hi there! Thanks for commenting. 🙂 Hope you’ll find one of these. They are very good, capable computers. This one is very special to me, since it has followed me almost my whole life. MSX is great fun.

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