Published on November 23rd, 2015
(I originally wrote this blog post in 2015 for the old version of this site and copied it over here. Because of this, the links in the article may have changed, or some of the information here may no longer be true.)
Yesterday I attended MyCOM Infinite PRO-68K, a small event about retro computers at the conference floor of the Akihabara UDX building.
I arrived a little bit after 1pm, in the middle of a talk by Mr. Mikito Ichikawa, president of Mindware.
The lights were dimmed during the talk, so I waited until it ended before visiting the stands.
First I went to talk with Mr. Hiroyuki Maeda, who has already published several books about retro computers and consoles. In his stand he was showcasing and selling his new book about retro console games. Besides the books he had a Famicom with a couple of controllers and several games for visitors to play.
Next to Mr. Maeda there was the stand of BEEP Akihabara, the retro shop that opened recently and has lots of MSX material (including lots of unopened, never used Pioneer PX-V60 computers!). In their stand they had several versions of Pac-Land running on different platforms: an NEC PC-8001mkIISR (right), a Sharp X68000 (back table, center), a Twin Famicom (center), a PC Engine Core Grafx (center, right of the Famicom) and the original arcade board (left, on top of the display). They also had some pamflets with information about their store.
Next there was Mr. Nakagawa, owner of the Kaden no Kenchan store. He didn’t bring his RE:birth sound board this time, but he had lots of software for sale, including lots of MSX cartridges (both standalone and boxed).
Next to Mr. Nakagawa there were two half-size stands:
First, MEGA-NEO ∏ was showcasing and selling adapters to play MSX cartridges in a Game Gear. They had a gorgeous-looking projector that made Gradius 2 look amazing. Oh, and the SCC sound worked as expected! Another interesting feature of this adapter was the possibility of using a Wii remote as a game pad to control the MSX games.
Sharing desk with MEGA-NEO ∏ was Mt.Chocolate showcasing and selling mods for the Sega Genesis and a cartridge game he developed for the Sega Master System.
Next I went to see Rabbit Soft Worker’s stand (@in_the_bunny on Twitter). They had a Panasonic FS-A1GT connected to a display and were showcasing their games for MSX turbo R: Secret Design of the HEARTS -DREAM DROPS- and Product of the HEARTS -In the 6th sense-. They sold both games in a single package with very nice illustrations and very high quality manuals. I bought the games and also a standalone feature book.
In the center of the room the were a couple of tables, one with a Sony HB-F1XD connected to a small screen and a box of cartridges, and another with a Sega Megadrive also with several games. Those were free to anyone to sit and play.
I didn’t have much time to spend, so I took a few more photos before leaving. The remaining stands had had other interesting things such as a Sony Hit-Bit SMC-777C computer, a very cool-looking Sharp X1turboIII and a National (Panasonic) JR-200. @ORION80 had in his stand a Commodore Amiga 500 (common in Europe, but not so much in Japan) also playing Pac-Land, and there was an Atari 1040ST as well in another stand near the entrance. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay longer.
On the way back I had a little time to stop by the BEEP Akihabara shop. They had on the showcase the Repro Factory edition of the game Zombie Incident by Nenefranz, winner of MSXdev’11. Apparently it was quite popular, because I saw a couple people playing it. Obviously, I bought it (even though I already had the ROM file).
Here are some more photos of the event:
