Japanese Retro PCs From Japan (2026): PC-9801, X68000 and MSX — Why the Machines Stay Home, What Actually Ships, and the Cheap and Cheapest Way to Buy

TL;DR

Japan built a whole parallel computer industry — NEC’s PC-9801, Sharp’s X68000,
Fujitsu’s FM TOWNS, and the MSX standard — and almost none of it was ever sold abroad.
The software is cheap, light and plentiful. The machines are heavy, 100 V, and use video
and disk formats nothing outside Japan speaks. Buy accordingly.

• Real prices, checked on 4 September 2026 — a tested Sony MSX2
  HB-F1II at ¥28,900 (US$199.41), a Panasonic MSX2+ FS-A1WX at
  ¥51,000 (US$351.90), an X68000 5-inch game disk at
  ¥2,800 (US$19.32), an FM TOWNS game at ¥4,500
  (US$31.05).^[6]
• Software is the bargain; hardware is the tax. Disks and CD-ROMs run
  ¥2,000–¥8,200 and weigh almost nothing. A complete desktop PC-9801 is a
  10 kg-plus box that is mostly air and mostly shipping cost.
• MSX is the exception. It is the one Japanese home-computer family that was
  also sold in Europe, South America and the Middle East, and the machines are small enough to
  ship sanely.
• Three format walls: 100 V mains, analogue RGB at a horizontal scan
  rate no VGA monitor accepts, and 2HD 1.2 MB floppies that a normal PC drive will not
  read.
• There is a new machine. Zuiki’s X68000 Z reissue was
  ¥43,000 (US$296.70) at a Japanese used-goods chain on the day this was written, and its
  SD-card software packs were ¥6,060 (US$41.81) on a domestic flea-market app.

As of September 2026, the sensible way into Japanese retro computing from overseas
is backwards from how people usually try it: buy the software and the documentation first,
because that is the part that is genuinely rare, genuinely cheap and genuinely shippable, and
solve the machine problem afterwards — locally, or with a reissue, or not at all.

What Japan Actually Built

Between roughly 1982 and 1995 the Japanese domestic market ran on hardware that never had a
Western equivalent. Four families matter, and they are not interchangeable.

That last column is the whole strategic point. If you want a machine, MSX is the family with
an existing international user base, spare parts and community documentation. If you want
software, everything else is where the depth is.

The Prices, and What They Tell You

Machines

Complete, tested Japanese home computers are the expensive end and they are thin on the
ground. On 4 September 2026 the whole domestic auction market for the phrase
MSX2 本体 (MSX2 console/unit) returned three working machines: a Sony
HB-F1II in black, described as tested, at ¥28,900 (US$199.41); a Sanyo
MSX2+ PHC-70FD, body only, at ¥42,000 (US$289.80); and a Panasonic MSX2+
FS-A1WX confirmed to power on at ¥51,000 (US$351.90).

Three listings. That is not a market, that is a queue. Plan for weeks of watching, not an
afternoon of shopping.

Software and documentation

This is the opposite situation — deep, cheap and constantly restocked:

• X68000: the action game Zan on a 5-inch disk at
  ¥2,800 (US$19.32); an F-15 Strike Eagle II scenario disk on a
  flea-market app at ¥2,180 (US$15.04); SX-WINDOW system disks from
  ¥900.
• PC-9801: a Game Arts mahjong title on 5-inch disk for
  ¥2,000, sold as “PC-9801VM or later”; Koei strategy titles around
  ¥1,000; NEC’s own training and setup disks under ¥2,000.
• MSX2: Koei’s Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sengoku Gunyuden on floppy at
  ¥3,100 (US$21.39); cartridges from ¥1,650.
• FM TOWNS: a Data West title at ¥4,500 (US$31.05); the
  official Towns System Software V2.1 CD-ROM at ¥8,200 (US$56.58) —
  worth knowing, because a TOWNS without its system disc is a doorstop.
• Books and mooks: the Katsuyou Kenkyuu technical series and
  Micom BASIC Magazine compilations at ¥1,990–¥6,500. These are often the
  only surviving documentation for a machine, and nobody has scanned most of them.

The new machine

Zuiki’s X68000 Z is a modern miniature reissue of the Sharp machine, sold new in Japan.
A Product Edition Black Model starter pack was ¥43,000 (US$296.70) at a
Japanese used-goods chain on 4 September 2026, and its SD-card software packs — the only
new X68000 software anyone is producing — were ¥6,060 (US$41.81) on
a domestic flea-market app, with a second pack at ¥11,700. Note that these packs sell out:
one of the two we priced first had already gone by the time the listing was re-read the same
day.

The Three Format Walls

1. 100 V mains

Japan’s domestic supply is 100 V, and a 1990 Japanese computer’s power supply was built
for exactly that. This is the same problem every Japanese console and hi-fi component has, and
the same answer: a step-down transformer rated well above the machine’s draw, or don’t import
the machine. Our vintage hi-fi guide works through the transformer
arithmetic in more detail, and the Saturn and Dreamcast guide covers the
console version of the same trap.

2. Video nothing else speaks

The PC-9801 line outputs analogue RGB at a horizontal scan rate of roughly 24 kHz —
between the 15 kHz of a console and the 31 kHz of VGA. No ordinary computer monitor
will sync to it. The X68000 is worse and better at once: it can output 15, 24 or 31 kHz
depending on the software, so a single fixed-frequency display will show some of your library
and refuse the rest. Budget for a multi-sync CRT you source locally, or a scan converter, and
treat “does it come with a monitor?” as a shipping question rather than a bargain.

3. Floppies that are not your floppies

Japanese 3.5-inch disks are usually 2HD formatted at 1.2 MB, not the 1.44 MB the
rest of the world settled on, and a large part of the PC-9801 and X68000 catalogue is on
5.25-inch media that has no modern reader at all. Two consequences worth planning for: a normal
USB floppy drive will not read these disks, and 30-year-old magnetic media fails. When a
listing says 動作確認済み (operation confirmed) on a disk, that is a meaningfully
better listing than one that does not.

Reading the Listings

Four phrases carry most of the information in this category:

• 本体 (hontai) — the machine itself, as opposed to software or
  accessories. Searching the model number alone returns mostly disks and books; adding
  本体 is how you find hardware.
• 動作確認済み — tested and working. 通電OK is weaker: it
  powers on, nothing more is claimed.
• ジャンク / 現状渡し — sold as-is, faults not warranted.
  On a 35-year-old computer this is normal and not automatically a red flag, but it is not a
  working machine.
• ディスクのみ / ソフトのみ — disk or cartridge only, no box
  or manual. Fine if you want to run it, poor value if you want the artefact.

Money: Fees, Weight and Duty

• Japanese consumption tax (10%) is already inside a Japanese retail
  price.^[2] A mail-order purchase does not qualify for the
  traveller’s tax-free counter.
• The proxy’s service fee is a flat ¥300 per order on the fixed-price
  marketplaces — Rakuten, Mercari, Suruga-ya and Amazon Japan. Yahoo! Auctions is charged
  at 3% of the winning bid, between ¥200 and ¥300. On a ¥2,800 game disk that is
  about 10%; on a ¥51,000 machine it rounds to nothing.
• Shipping is billed on chargeable weight — the greater of actual
  weight and box volume divided by 5,000. This is the number that decides this whole category. A
  5-inch disk in a padded envelope is the cheapest band there is; a desktop PC-9801 in its
  original polystyrene is a large box of air billed as if it were solid.
• Import duty and tax at your border. The United States withdrew its US$800
  de minimis exemption on 29 August 2025^[3], and the EU has a
  temporary flat fee regime for low-value imports with normal duty and VAT above
  it.^[4] Declare the real value; a “vintage computer” declaration
  on a ¥51,000 parcel invites a closer look than it is worth.

Worked example

Say you buy the ¥2,800 X68000 disk and the ¥3,100 MSX2 floppy in the same week. Both
are Yahoo! Auctions lots, so each carries a fee of ¥200–¥300 at 3% of the bid.
Held in the proxy’s warehouse and shipped together, they are one small parcel at the bottom
shipping band instead of two. Storage is free for 90 days, so there is no pressure to ship the
first one before the second arrives. That is the entire trick to this category: the items are
cheap, the freight is not, and freight is the only lever you control.

Step-by-Step: Buying Japanese Retro Computing From Overseas

1. Step 1 — Decide software-first or machine-first. Software-first is
   cheap, low-risk and available now. Machine-first means a 100 V supply, a monitor problem
   and a wait. Most people should start software-first and be honest that an emulator will run it
   until the hardware appears.
2. Step 2 — Search the model number in Japanese.
   PC-9801, X68000, MSX2, FM TOWNS. Add
   本体 for machines, ソフト or ディスク for software.
   Start with the PC-9801 software search; the
   X68000 search is here and the
   MSX2 hardware search is here.
3. Step 3 — Read the condition words before the price.
   動作確認済み beats 通電OK beats ジャンク, and on media
   the difference is worth more than the price gap between listings.
4. Step 4 — Order through a proxy. These sellers ship domestically only
   and want a Japanese address and payment method. OneMall charges the item plus the service fee
   first and international shipping second, so you see the freight number before you commit to
   it.
5. Step 5 — Add unboxing photos on anything mechanical. On a machine,
   ask for the rear panel, the model plate and the state of the floppy drive doors. This is the
   category where “untested” and “broken” are separated by one photograph.
6. Step 6 — Consolidate, then ship. Batch disks and books over several
   weeks, put them in one box, and run the numbers in the
   shipping calculator before you press ship. If a machine is
   in the box, price it separately first — sometimes the right answer is to send the
   software home and leave the hardware for a later, better listing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will a PC-9801 or X68000 work on 120 V or 230 V?

Not safely. These are 100 V machines with power supplies from the late 1980s and early
1990s. Use a step-down transformer rated comfortably above the machine’s draw, and remember that
a monitor of the same era has the same problem.

Can I just use a USB floppy drive to read the disks?

No. Japanese 3.5-inch media in this era is typically 2HD at 1.2 MB rather than
1.44 MB, and much of the catalogue is 5.25-inch. Reading these on modern hardware needs a
dedicated flux-level reader, not a consumer USB drive.

Is the MSX software region-locked?

MSX is a standard rather than a single machine, so Japanese cartridges and disks generally
run on an MSX of the right generation — the practical limits are MSX vs MSX2 vs MSX2+
rather than territory. Japanese titles will of course be in Japanese, and some rely on the
kanji ROM that Japanese-market machines carry.

Is the X68000 Z the same as an X68000?

No — it is a modern miniature reissue that runs the software, not an original Sharp
machine. That is a feature if what you want is to play the library on a modern display, and a
disappointment if what you want is the original hardware. Its SD-card packs are the only new
software being produced for the platform.

What is the single cheapest way into this hobby from overseas?

Buy documentation and software, consolidate it into one parcel, and run it in emulation
until an affordable machine turns up. A ¥2,000 disk and a ¥1,990 technical book weigh
almost nothing and are the parts that genuinely never left Japan; the machine is the part you
can wait for.

The Short Version

Japan’s home computers are a software market that happens to have some hardware attached.
Buy the disks, the CD-ROMs and the books — they are cheap, light and irreplaceable —
and treat the machine as a separate project with a voltage problem, a monitor problem and a
three-listing supply. If you want the console version of the same story, our
Super Famicom guide and Saturn and Dreamcast guide
cover it; the cheapest Japan proxy comparison and the
true-cost breakdown cover the money.
Live X68000 listings are here.

Last updated: 2026-09-04.

References

1. MSX Association, official information on the MSX standard. https://www.msx.org/
2. National Tax Agency of Japan, English-language tax information including consumption tax. https://www.nta.go.jp/english/
3. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, guidance on the suspension of de minimis duty-free treatment. https://www.help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1919
4. European Commission, guidance on the temporary flat fee for low-value imports. https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/news/guidance-and-legal-text-temporary-flat-fee-low-value-imports-which-will-apply-until-1-july-2028-2026-06-08_en
5. Japan Customs, export and import information. https://www.customs.go.jp/english/index.htm
6. OneMall, marketplace used for the price observations recorded in this article on 4 September 2026. https://www.onemall.jp/