Sharp X68000 emulators

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Sharp X68000
0038 01 l.jpg
Developer Sharp Corporation
Type Home computer
Release date 1987
Discontinued 1993
Predecessor Sharp X1 series
Emulated

The X68000 (エックスろくまんはっせん Ekkusu Rokuman Hassen) is a home computer created by Sharp, first released in March, 1987, sold only in Japan.

The X68000 to SUPER models had a Hitachi HD68HC000 CPU at 10 MHz. The XVI to Compact models had a Motorola 68000 at 16 MHz. The X68030 has a Motorola MC68EC030 CPU at 25 MHz. They had 1-4MB of RAM and 1MB of VRAM. It had a Sharp-Hudson Custom Chipset as its GPU.

Emulators

Name Platform(s) Latest Version Retro
Achievements
libretro FLOSS Active Recommended
PC / x86
MAME Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD git artifacts[N 1]
0.270
libretro core[N 2]
px68k-libretro
(Fork of hissorii's branch)
Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD libretro core NC
XM6 Windows
Linux macOS FreeBSD [N 3]
XM6 Pro-68k
XM6 TypeG
XM6i
XM6
NC ~[N 4] ~
EX68 Windows 215
WinX68k Windows Kousoku High-Speed
0.65
XEiJ Windows 0.22.09.01
Mobile / ARM
px68k-libretro
(Fork of hissorii's branch)
Android iOS libretro core
px68k (ptitSeb) Pandora git
px68k (hissorii) Android iOS 0.15 (iOS)
0.14 (Android)
Console
px68k-libretro
(Fork of hissorii's branch)
PSP libretro core
px68k (hissorii) PSP 0.10
  1. CI-Windows CI-Linux CI-Macos
  2. As 0.251, 0.139 (2010), 0.78 (2003), 0.37b5 (2000)
  3. Only supported by XM6i fork.
  4. XM6 Pro-68k fork is still active.

Comparisons

XM6
XM6 is an emulator for the Sharp X68000 by PI. Its source code has been released.
XM6 Pro-68k
It is a derived from the venerable XM6, which was developed by PI. Focused on providing necessary debugging features and has decent compatibility.
XM6 TypeG
Another fork of XM6. It can run in X68030 mode in high accuracy, good peripheral/expansion support and will run just about any game you throw at it.
XM6i
XM6i is an unofficial port of the Japanese Sharp X68000 computer emulator XM6 for Windows, Mac OS X & NetBSD, and built largely around being able to run NetBSD/X68k. While it can run games, it is clear that this is not what XM6i is focused on.
MAME
MAME has excellent X68000 emulation these days, including its trademark fully configurable peripheral cards. A lot of graphical bugs were fixed back in 2021, so all of the games people talk about (and several they don't) run quite well. And you can output MIDI music to MUNT or a real hardware MT-32 or SC-55.[1]
px68k
An open-source fork of the c68k emulator. px68k has a libretro core but lacks options like save states present in other emulators. It lacks MIDI emulation.
px68k-libretro
It is supported on Windows, GNU/Linux and macOS systems; and has portable versions for PSP, Android, and other platforms. Games' performance on this emulator (Both PC & mobile variants) is considerably faster than what MAME's X68 core can achieve.[2][3][4] This libretro branch was forked, starting on May 3, 2017, from hissorii's old build (Last updated on August 2014), backported 'c68k' core from kenyahiro's 'px68k' branch (fork of hissorii's 'px68k' branch using recent c68k yabause core to support X64 build). The Pandora version (An open-source handheld PC) by ptitSeb was forked from hissorii's 'px68k' branch and encapsulates the latest code from px68k-libretro (A spin-off of hissorii's branch). It should now have good performance as of Build 09 (March 2018).

Playing Games

Before first using the RetroArch core for px68k, make sure to go under the directory for BIOS files ("system" by default) and create a new folder called "keropi". Then inside that folder put cgrom.dat and iplrom.dat from this pack. If you're using standalone Pro-68k, put those two files under the same directory as the emulator executable.

If you're using MAME's core under RetroArch, you'll need to put those X68000 BIOS files under the keropi folder: x68000, x68000 super, x68000 XVI, x68030, x68k_cz6bs1.

You'll need the MS Gothic font installed on your PC as well. Make sure to decompress the games before playing them. The lzh extension means it's a compressed archive format popular in Japan in the nineties, but fortunately, it's handled by any zipping tool worth its salt (like 7-zip).

While in-game, the F12 key (or L2 button) brings up a menu, "SWITCH for px68k", that's still in Japanese.

FDD0, FDD1
Floppy Disk Drive slots 0 and 1. You can choose another ROM from here (preferably from the current drive letter). Simpler games will use just FDD0, some like Nemesis '90 will have two disks to be loaded on FDD0 and FDD1, and multi-disk games will require going to this menu in-game at some point to change the disk image.
No Wait Mode
This makes fast-forwarding work in RetroArch if turned on.

On px68k-libretro, After the first boot, a “config” file will be generated in the “keropi” folder. You can enter your rom folder into the “StartDir” line to make it accessible from the px68k-libretro core’s in-game menu.

Core options include some other things of interest:

  • Amount of RAM used
  • CPU Clock Speed: Useful when games run too fast (for example changing from 25MHz to 10MHz to play Arkanoid as intended), or to speed up floppy disk loading times (by changing it to something like 100MHz for example).
  • Sound: 44kHz for Audio-CD sound quality is recommended.

References

  1. X68000 input config question. Reddit (2022-03-27)
  2. Px68k-libretro. forums.libretro (2017-05-04)
  3. New Core: PX68k (Android/iOS/Windows/Linux/Mac). libretro (2017-06-10)
  4. PX68k-libretro X68000 Emu Released. Reddit (2017-06-10)