Sharp X6800, Sexyest looking computer from the 80's, any one els think so too?

[fasman]

I dont know what it is about the x6800s' design, but I still think its one of the best looking computer designs ever, even by to days standards.

It has these sleek lines,beautiful curves, soft touch floppy eject buttons,the LEDs are in the right places, it just looks sexy!!!

I wouldn't mind case modding a micro-itx computer into one, and replacing the two floppy disc drives with slot loading dvd drives :)

[HEX1GON]

I'd never tear one of these apart for any reason, unless it had water damage or something.

I do agree with you, they're sexy machines, we'll never see a great looking tower for a long time.

[fasman]

I would never tear down a working unit ,but from what I understand there are a lot of these units that died due to power supply related problems :)

But just keeping a 100% mint original unit on display next to tv would be awesome.

[ASSEMbler]

I'm personal to the front loading cd fujitsu computers, but pre cd, hands down it is between that or the sharp f1? The white sharp.

[Calpis]

Pretty sure defiling a X68K like that assures you a spot in both computer and video game hell.

[fasman]

Then I am going streight to hell, I would much rather repurpose a unrepairable system than throw it away ,guess its just me.

[RetroJunkie]

Then I am going streight to hell, I would much rather repurpose a unrepairable system than throw it away ,guess its just me.

Do it! Satisfy your inner geek! Pull it to pieces! Document it with a million photos and get it working 100%! It's the only way :-)

[Calpis]

Then I am going streight to hell, I would much rather repurpose a unrepairable system than throw it away ,guess its just me.

Apart from a blown ASIC everything is repairable

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

Damn, I really want one. Would it be expensive to ship just the computer to the US from Japan? Can it be connected to a standard RGB monitor (like my PVM)?

I'd be fairly expensive as the machines are heavy. You can connect it to a PVM but many games also run in 31kHz or switch between 15/31 so unless your PVM can do 31 then you're gonna have an issue.

[finkmac]

Eh… Not as "sexy" as the Macintosh II series IMO…

[ave]

Damn, I really want one. Would it be expensive to ship just the computer to the US from Japan?

Yes. :S
And since I suspect that you have a cheap loose unit in mind: Recall that many of those junk units are broken in one way or another and it might require some hard to come by spareparts to refurbish them.

[TheRogue]

I have a complete (box, manuals, even packing) mint X68000 XVI fitted with an XsimmVI memory module and a System Sacom SX-68M MIDI card hooked up to an SC88 synth. I have to say it's one of the most beautiful things in my collection, which is quite vast and varied. Most of the runner-up systems are also rare Japanese models, such as my X1 TurboZ II or my MSX TurboR. One thing I love about having an X68k with expanded memory is being able to load virtually every game from a virtual floppy drive. You can do this even if you don't have extended memory, but when the disk images are running from RAM instead of from a SCSI disk, the load times are non-existent, and you can't argue with that! Also, the MIDI is a must, since many games have beautiful MIDI music, some even taking advantage of General Sound.

EDIT: Also, the vast majority of "broken" X68000 fall into two categories: floppy problems and power supply problems, and there are kits to repair both readily available on Yahoo! Japan. There is absolutely no reason to trash an X68000 unless you are dead sure there is some irreparable problem, such as ESD damage to an ASIC. Furthermore, most people would not even want to bother doing a pc conversion to one of those loose junk systems, they would want to do it to a mint system, because who wants to do all that work and have a machine with scuffs and scratches and case damage to show for your efforts, and the idea of mangling mint vintage hardware to defile it with x86 internals is unthinkable, and if I saw such a thing done I would probably feel like vomiting. Mind you, this is just my opinion, if you feel different, more power to you.

[GodofHardcore]

Dunno why but it always looked like 2 model 1 ps2's humping each other despite predating it by a number of years.

By the way it's not too much of a sin if the first program you install on it is an X68k emulator.

[TheRogue]

I suppose if you have no other choice, like if you do have a damaged ASIC or something similar then that is the next best thing, but you would still be missing the neatest physical features of the X68k, which is the soft eject 5.25" floppy drives.

[XxHennersXx]

I've longed for one of these for over 10 years now.

Such a sleek looking unit. I also recall seeing it in an anime in the mid 90s - I do not remember which. Maybe in Sailor Moon?

[rob black]

These are nice, they rarely pop up on eBay. I want one :(

[DefectX11]

Wow. Now that's an original design.
I like older hardware, and I've grown attached to SGI hardware specifically because it's so... non-standard. I'd kill to get one of those, broken for a project!

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

Does the Sharp X68k use composite sync for video or separate H and V sync? If it switches between 15khz and 31khz, you could probably use a Sony GVM.

[Vosse]

I think it may. Games like Marble Madness if you emulate them give you different video options in the options menu(can't remember specificly). So I would only assume it does

[Segata Sanshiro]

I would never tear down a working unit ,but from what I understand there are a lot of these units that died due to power supply related problems :)

But just keeping a 100% mint original unit on display next to tv would be awesome.

The correct thing to do would be to fix them.