• 1987

Hardware Description

The Daewoo CPC-50B is the third revision of CPC-50 MSX1 console, as it comes with more RAM (64kB instead of 8kB) and a simplified AC power connection. All MSX-compatible consoles from Daewoo are called Zemmix that means 'It's Fun'. The MSX logo does not appear on this machine, because the absence of keyboard makes it not fully corresponding to a MSX computer. We can therefore speak of a hidden MSX! It has been released by the Korean company Daewoo in 1987 and was available in yellow/dark blue or light blue/pink. This machine has only one cartridge slot and it's not possible to add a keyboard. It comes with a massive AC power adaptor including a power switch. The CPC-50B is a MSX1 console that does not use a MSX-Engine but a custom IC DW64MX1 that includes the 8255 PPI, slot select circuitry, a memory mapper and various glue logic. The CPU is a Z80A from Goldstar (GSS Z8400A PS). The main RAM is probably present on slot 0-2, a configuration that can cause poorly written software to crash. Also, with this layout, the POKE-1,(15-PEEK(-1)\16)*17 trick to workaround buggy software that does not handle subslots properly will cause this machine to freeze.