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So who is selling a kidney for a Sharp x68000z mini?

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    So who is selling a kidney for a Sharp x68000z mini?

    The legendary computer that is home to some pretty amazing arcade games ports gets the mini treatment seeing as the real ones will bleed you dry for both the hardware & the software assuming you can even get it up & running nowadays as it's no minor feat this might be another avenue but beware out of all the mini this one is the most expensive of any of them however it seems like the most serious too.

    The hacker edition has been available for a while now as megafans in japan work with zuiki to develop this but now the consumer version has gone up for preorder on the usual places including amazon japan dropping at the end of september. There's three bundles adding a bit more kit each time with the largest including a mini monitor to go with it.

    This is the complete pack it comes in at a whopping 87,780yen (approx £500)



    The cheapest bundle one is still really pricy at 29,535yen, and that doesn't even have the keyboard. This is a more serious mini as it's not just plug n play with a pile of built in games although i think you can sideload your own disk files but not sure if you do that by usb or you copy them to a sd card as the sd card slots on the front are the disk drives not sure if zuiki are implementing any copy protection but it would be madness if they did as it means you are relying on game releases coming from them. The games come on SD cards and there's going to be more titles released so far there's a double pack with genocide & phalanx on they come in really neat little cases that look like original floppies.




    Not gonna lie that setup looks amazing when it's all together, gonna be a beast to ship though as it's gonna weigh a lot like the egret mini box set did.


    Will be following this closely as it nears release to find out everything before i decide to put my organs on the black market lol. The official site is here for anyone wanting to delve deeper on all the info plus it has all the links to amazon for everything
    今の世の中に動く状態のものも少なくなってきました

    #2
    That is all kinds of awesome. Must remember to never put one in my Amazon basket like I did with the Egret!

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      #3
      Originally posted by Colin View Post
      That is all kinds of awesome. Must remember to never put one in my Amazon basket like I did with the Egret!
      LOL err yeah you need danger alerts set up on your account

      Comment


        #4
        It is very cool and an X68k is a system I've longed for, in a "totally impractical, but damn that games list" kind of way. I'm not sure that this is much more practical - it's still very clearly a tinkerer's piece of kit - but at least you're not fighting decades of wear and tear? I wish it'd put more emphasis on licensing games though, rather than just assuming everyone's ready and waiting to sideload roms so they needn't bother.

        So yeah, I'm going to be going back and forth on this for a while I think

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          #5
          Originally posted by fuse View Post
          It is very cool and an X68k is a system I've longed for, in a "totally impractical, but damn that games list" kind of way. I'm not sure that this is much more practical - it's still very clearly a tinkerer's piece of kit - but at least you're not fighting decades of wear and tear? I wish it'd put more emphasis on licensing games though, rather than just assuming everyone's ready and waiting to sideload roms so they needn't bother.

          So yeah, I'm going to be going back and forth on this for a while I think
          So far i think their intention is to make many game packs with games they have managed to get the rights of to publish They have a seperate page for software but so far the only pack they have listed is the zoom 1 pack for games that they are not able to get the rights for i'm guessing thats where you can just add in your own files. You do get Gradius on a card with the machine along with a card containing the operating system to boot. One of the things i can't get info on yet is does it have the ability to utilise the midi support of various games. I get the feeling that they are probably going to try to do this properly which is why it doesn't contain a simple inbuilt menu full of preloaded games and it's actually a recreation of the full computer not just the ability to play games. Obviously that's whats pulling everyone to it in 2023 it's not like everyones craving to use a japanese style dos environment lol.

          The one thing i am glad on is it's powered by usb and so is the monitor so no stepdown nonsense needed just some appropriate usb power bricks with enough amps.
          Last edited by importaku; 11-06-2023, 10:08.

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            #6
            Wow... If only I had a kidney going spare...

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              #7
              I'm torn on this, it's a system I have interest in, but I've always said I'm not delving into retro computers because it's a step too far for me.

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                #8
                I'm getting one but no way I'm paying for the full set. I'll be happy using a standard mechanical UBS keyboard, mouse and my big TV.

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                  #9
                  I've noticed these are readily available on Ebay for just over £200. I'm thinking of ordering one as I'm about to sell my Modded Saturn (Happy with the Misters performance now). Did anybody ever order one on here other than Yakumo? Is it reasonably easy to convert the readily available DIM files into XDF which the console requires?

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                    #10
                    I think its a bit of a pain in the bum? Check out Videogame Esoterica's latest vid he touches on it, apparently the new ones coming out don't need that faff.

                    Last edited by Baseley09; 04-03-2025, 19:12.

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                      #11
                      The new ones look great but they will be much more than ebay's current prices of £213. I'm happy to load games via formatted SD Cards but I'm not sure how easy it is to convert?

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                        #12
                        I have a day one unit however as long as you join the official X68000 mini site, you can get free firmware updates.
                        To be honest, it's really easy to load up an SD card with XDF files. Also, converting them is piss easy with a simple bit of software designed for classic Japanese computer file formats. I can share the software if need be.
                        Saying that, most X68000 files are in XDF format anyway.

                        Be warned though, not all games run smoothly. Many X68000 games don't run at 60fps, but more like 58 or something which on a modern display results in not the smoothest of scrolling.

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                          #13
                          If you're outside of Japan and you're interested in purchasing one of the new x68000z machines when they drop, let Zuiki know!

                          https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/03/company-behind-the-x68000-z-range-wants-to-know-if-global-players-will-buy-them


                          Last edited by Nu-Eclipse; 06-03-2025, 11:42.

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                            #14
                            I ended up ordering one direct from the Zuiki site via Zenmarket. The initial payment for the product was around £140. Once received at the forwarders they'll confirm the Postage & Shipping fees. Lastly I may have to pay Import Taxes?

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                              #15
                              X68000 Z collected today from Parcelforce of all people . Packaging is wonderful and the mini computer itself is a real looker. Joypad was better than I expected, love the physical autofire switches for buttons A and B.

                              Joined the X68000 club first to download the latest firmware, takes about 3 mins to update.

                              First step was to try the included SD Card Software which are beautifully packaged in fake mini floppy disks. Gradius felt almost arcade perfect. The OS Software looked like a mono windows 3.1.

                              I then started to test a few of the 50 HDF File games (now abandonware) that I grabbed from Archive.org.

                              About 5 of 8 worked with the highlight being Space Harrier and Chelnov. Will try some more tomorrow.

                              My full bill from Japan was £190 which included all of the hardware, packing (excellent), postage and UK import taxes. I then had to buy a £20 Anker 65W charger from Amazon UK. I already had a couple of spare SD Cards to use.

                              Overall - good value, recommended 👍

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