Re: MAX Machine PLA

smf wrote on July 31:

> The max looks like a subset of the c64 but it came first
While we know when the MAX was announced at various fairs, do we know 
when it actually came to the market in Japan? Recently I went through a 
number of scanned issues of the Japanese computer magazine I/O. In the 
midst of all NEC, Sharp, Fujitsu and a few Apple advertisments, 
Commodore regularly ran spreads in Japanese.

What I observed was that the VIC-1001 was advertised (and even listed in 
reseller ads) long into 1983, the first occasion where I saw the MAX 
Machine being mentioned was early 1983, simultaneously with the 
Commodore 64 in Japanese version! One could argue that this particular 
magazine didn't really cater to the market the MAX normally would aim 
at, being a video game console with a keyboard and not until you plugged 
in a BASIC cartridge, you got something resembling a computer. Either 
that, or the MAX didn't actually hit the market until the C64 had, 
despite being announced before the C64 was finalized.

In this particular publication I/O, there weren't ads for many other 
consoles in the pre-Famicom era being advertised. Frankly I don't know 
exactly what the MAX competed against - Epoch Cassette Vision and Bandai 
Supervision? While there appears to have existed some imported brands 
like Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, Colecovision, I'm not sure those 
had any significant hold on the Japanese gaming market.

Best regards

Anders Carlsson



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