Spook has this incredible breakdown of the X68000Z by Zuiki, Inc. it’s a new miniature version of a classic part of computing and gaming history, the Sharp X68000 home computer that used various Motorola CPUs and played a collection of arcade games and more. The X68000 has always been a bit of a mystery to me along with other great Japan-only or Japan-mostly parts of history like the MSX, but the thing that blows me away about this mini X68000, is that it includes stuff like a real modern mechanical keyboard, and a mouse that converts into a trackball!
The X68000Z mini reproduction from Zuiki is an emulator machine, so it doesn’t contain original hardware or use an FPGA like the MiSTer FPGA. Although there is an X68000 core for the MiSTer FPGA it is a work-in-progress and looks like it hasn’t been updated since October of 2022. I’d almost rather see an X68000Z box with support for installing a MiSTer if it were a great experience, but the X68000Z looks like it has a lot of custom interfaces and work to add things like save states that have been created to streamline the experience of running X68000 software in 2023.
Here’s captured gameplay footage of the X68000Z from the Sega Lord X:
As Sega Lord X notes in their conclusion, the X68000Z is still very early on, and kinda expensive. Still, the hardware is very impressive. With more platforms being reproduced for a modern era, I just need someone to make a reproduction of the most beautiful computer of all time.
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