Casio's MSXs PV-7, PV-16, MX-10 and MX-101

Casio is one of early vendor of MSX and produced 4 MSXs in Japan and one MSX for international market.

There are only MSX1 from Casio. Casio thought Famicom(NES) as their competitor from economic point of view. Casio's MSXs are released very reasonable price and occurs price destruction in MSX(1) market. Many vendors could not drop their price and moved to MSX2 market.

PV-7

Casio PV-7 is the weakest MSX ever. PCB is too simple to trace circuit.

Compare PCB with specification.

MSX Technical Data Book

http://map.grauw.nl/resources/system/msxtech.pdf

You can learn how to design  minimum MSX with PV-7. There are no custom chips.

I am very interested in PV-7 because their simplicity. I can learn and customize my MSX based on it.

PV-7 has some weak point. 

1. No sound input on cartridge slot

2.Cheap keyboard originally developed for desktop calculator.

3. Small 8k RAM

4. Small arrow keys. Big arrow keys are connected with trigger 1 and 2 as JOY1 and cannot use for programming Basic.

5.Special CMT port(Din5) not standard(Din8).  

6. No printer port.

7.Only one cartridge slot

Almost of all weak point is fixed with KB-7 or DIY customization.

1.Solder jumper cable by yourself or dock to KB-7 and use 2nd or 3rd slot.

2.Change to another keyboard if you want. 

3.Dock to KB-7 (+8kRAM) or insert extra RAM cartridge (up to 64kRAM!)

4.NOP

5.You need convert adaptor FA-32 for connecting data recorder.

6.Dock to KB-7

7.Dock to KB-7 and expand 2nd and 3rd slot.

I understand this PV-7 is released as cheap gaming console while verification.

KB-7 is needed if you use PV-7 as fully MSX "computer". Otherwise you need soldering and expanding by yourself.

PV-16 is fixed these weak points though.