The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!

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Title: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: Rob Blessin Black Hole on September 24, 2022, 08:14:13 PM
Hello NeXT Community:  I think you all might find this Rare 1987/1988 computer interesting as the "GOD Computer"  ran on a 68000K processor was only sold in Japan specifically for high end home gaming .

It sure would be fun to make an emulator for NeXT hardware as they have a ton of really cool games or port the games over!

Over $6K  and when you see the GUI OS it looks very similar to NeXTSTEP enjoy,
in fact the commentator even says it . 

Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X68000


Good video on it:
 https://youtu.be/BlNY_oHtcas

I've never heard of it until now but arcade quality sound and a 1Mb Graphics card in 1987/ 1988 was impressive and they to were manufactured until 1993 by Sharp.

Also if this runs on MISTer FPGA , I'll bet NeXTSTEP would work as well.

Best regards Rob Blessin

Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: cuby on September 25, 2022, 05:12:41 AM
Quote from: Rob Blessin Black Hole on September 24, 2022, 08:14:13 PMAlso if this runs on MISTer FPGA , I'll bet NeXTSTEP would work as well.

Unfortunately not, the major problem is that no (open source) 68030/40 core is available (and somebody would have to write code to emulate the NeXT peripherals).

However, you can run the temlib Sparc 5 on MISTer (https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=545) and boot NeXTstep/SPARC.
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: cbrunschen on November 11, 2022, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: cuby on September 25, 2022, 05:12:41 AMUnfortunately not, the major problem is that no (open source) 68030/40 core is available (and somebody would have to write code to emulate the NeXT peripherals).

Well there does seem to be the Wf68K30 core (https://github.com/AmicableComputers/wf68k30L)?
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: cuby on November 11, 2022, 03:30:25 AM
Quote from: cbrunschen on November 11, 2022, 03:17:55 AMWell there does seem to be the Wf68K30 core?
Last time I checked, the source code for the full WF68K30 core (including the MMU) was unfortunately not available, only the WF68K30L.
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: gxs on December 18, 2022, 04:33:25 PM
RMC has a number of videos on the X68000 -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQWE67jsfOc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQWE67jsfOc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OepeiBF5Jnk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OepeiBF5Jnk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qniIinLpr28 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qniIinLpr28)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFkxOf7dvdA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFkxOf7dvdA)

and extended game play test (3.5 hours long) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGxQSos9WU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGxQSos9WU)
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: user341 on December 19, 2022, 07:33:56 AM
Quote from: Rob Blessin Black Hole on September 24, 2022, 08:14:13 PMHello NeXT Community:  I think you all might find this Rare 1987/1988 computer interesting as the "GOD Computer"  ran on a 68000K processor was only sold in Japan specifically for high end home gaming .

It sure would be fun to make an emulator for NeXT hardware as they have a ton of really cool games or port the games over!

Over $6K  and when you see the GUI OS it looks very similar to NeXTSTEP enjoy,
in fact the commentator even says it . 

Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X68000


Good video on it:
 https://youtu.be/BlNY_oHtcas

I've never heard of it until now but arcade quality sound and a 1Mb Graphics card in 1987/ 1988 was impressive and they to were manufactured until 1993 by Sharp.

Also if this runs on MISTer FPGA , I'll bet NeXTSTEP would work as well.

Best regards Rob Blessin



That video has sooooo many inaccuracies and equally wrong/misinformed points of view, my brain is exploding.

NeXT didn't fail or go out of business, like it tries to advance. It was bought for 400M. Being bought out is basically the #1 strategy for most successful startups.

From that to little things like 'no progress bar' for initializing a disk. Um, yes there is. It's in the processes panel in Workspace. Something STILL not in macOS and frankly sorely missed.

Just goes to show, history is not written by the winners (unless they are totalitarian despots).
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: Rob Blessin Black Hole on December 19, 2022, 11:06:39 PM
Quote from: zombie on December 19, 2022, 07:33:56 AMThat video has sooooo many inaccuracies and equally wrong/misinformed points of view, my brain is exploding.

NeXT didn't fail or go out of business, like it tries to advance. It was bought for 400M. Being bought out is basically the #1 strategy for most successful startups.

From that to little things like 'no progress bar' for initializing a disk. Um, yes there is. It's in the processes panel in Workspace. Something STILL not in macOS and frankly sorely missed.

Just goes to show, history is not written by the winners (unless they are totalitarian despots).
I must have missed that that they said NeXT went out of business ..... in the video as I know they were bought buy Apple for $429 Million , we have to take into account that a lot of today's posters were not of the age or on the planet to work with NeXT computers or even know of the merger :)  and limited information is available on it the NeXT Apple merger unless you go back to the wayback machine.
Title: Re: The Japan-only God Computer, now on the MiSTer FPGA!
Post by: verdraith on January 03, 2023, 10:44:56 PM
There's also an emulator for the X68000... called 'ex68'.

The installation instructions are mostly in Japanese --  hell, the entire OS is mostly in Japanese -- but it is fun to play with.  The caveat is that it's win32-only, though I believe source code is available.


It's another system on my 'I wish I owned' list... along with another Japanese system I'd love to obtain... a Sony NeWS workstation.

edit:

Actually, there's two more emulators:  winx68k and xm6

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