2 * climax == ?!

now, I haven't seen a Sony 900 yet before.. but compared to the slim Philips 8280, it surely look like a huge brute Exactly what were the differences between the Sony and the Philips?

Sony had slim MSX too, wolf. I remember my precious sony 700-D...

yeah.. but that wasn't a digitiser -duh-

my point is: Philips made a slim MSX with a digitiser, Sony made a huge MSX with a digitiser.. from the photo I'd say "the size of 2 MSX'es" so, why the difference?

Hehe... it wasn't THAT huge
I used to have a 900 model(sold it not so long ago), it wasn't much bigger than my 700 model.

uuuuuh ? when I look at the picture, I see a typical 700 model, some 2 inches of 'nothing' above it.. and then a part with some knobs... that makes it twice the size of a 700, or 8280 for that matter

Or is the picture wrong ?

the HB900 was a msx2 with digitizer 512 kb ram for the proffesional msx users,like tv studio's.

it has a size of 2 700-d's on top of each other huge

The videotizer is an optional device.
The 900 itself is about the same size as a 700.

K.

well, sofar no new info. My point was: Sony has an optional device, Philips not. Does the Sony have more possibilities then, or was their technology just bigger in size ?

it mean you're a pain in the ass Wolf! (moderator alert!)
nah, looks like (afaik) the videotizer is an Extention of the Sony digitizer.
So the sony 900 is like the nms8280 and that extra outboard is some thing (by looking at the connections panel of the upper part) of a bonus or sumpfn. Prolly to handle multiple sources... dunno, looks that way.

There are more different sony 900's here in Europe exept the versions for the different country's

The Sony HB-G900P or D, this id the most common version
64 kB Ram an 1 diskdrive

Then there is the Sony HB-G900AP version with 512 kB Ram and 1 drive.
Very easy to change to 1024 kB
I have a AP here, there ar no AD or other versions.

Also the is a built in RS232 and place for a second drive.
Drive cable and power for drive is already in the computer.
You can superimpose without the Videotizer.


In Japan there are more types of the 900, also in a black version.

The HB-900P with HBI-900 Videotizer is functional equivalent to the NMS8280 for the programmer. As is the HB-900AP.
All allow super-imposing and digitizing in screen 8. And most 'video' programs run on both machines, with functions like wipes and scrolling titles.

Differences:
- the HB-900P was not a consumer product and mostly marketed and sold in the television professional market like e.g. the NOS in the Netherlands
Therefore it has besides SCART also BNC connectors to connect the video RGB signals. The video signal delivered is of higher quality as required by bradcasting companies.
- the ditizing function of the Sony's requires a separate unit, the Videotizer. The controls on it allow influencing the video signal, something the NMS8280 does not have.
- the NMS8280 is a typical consumer product, only SCART connectors for RGB/composite and in general better in processing composite video. Though the black level is more grey (easy to fix with some resistors change).
- the NMS8280 is a typical Philips MSX-2 machine with the MSX engine S3527. So with all experiences with Philips MSX2 updates like memory additions and MSX-2+ additions are easy to accompish. The HB-900P is a first-generation MSX-2 machine with lots of chips and no memory mapper. The HB-900AP is a typical later-generation Sony MSX-2 with a memory mapper and sockets for a total of 512K memory.
- the Sony has a rs232C interface builtin. Nice for a modem but meant for control of laserdisc players and with Basic enhancements to support this.

Userguides, programs and service manuals are available on the net.

If I'm not mistaken the Sony Videotizer also supports the MSX2+ screenmodes (more colors!) or am I wrong here?

That's for the HBI-V1, not for the HBI-900.

Indeed, the HBI-V1 is the only way I know of that allows digitzing to the MSX2+ screens. And it does that in a very high quality, though within the limits of the colorspill of screen 12. The averaging of the four adjacent pixels is done quite clever. Alas even with the modification to PAL still limited to the NTSC number of lines, the bottom part of the PAL screen is cut off.
Also the NMS8280 with the MSX2+ VDP and MSX2+ ROMS is still limited to screen 8 only for digitizing alas.