X68000 Pickup + Mods

I've always been smitten with the Sharp X68000 ever since I first saw one.  Now I'm a proud owner of a SUPERHD (model CZ-623C)!

Specs: 10MHz / 2MB RAM

I didn't feel like being too adventurous with this purchase, so I paid a bit more for a machine that had already been semi restored and was in working condition.  Based on the listing and what I can see:

• Partial recap (maybe full?  Will need to fully tear it down to verify)
• SRAM battery replacement
• Rebuilt PSU (appears to be a pico variant in the original L shaped housing)

So with those critical things mostly out of the way, the modding process has begun.  A hard disk and midi support are a must!  What I have done so far:

• New rubber feet
• Noctua fan (NF-A6x25 FLX)
• SCSI2SD adapter (ver 5.2)
• MIDI expansion card (also includes 8MB RAM upgrade)
• PS2 Keyboard adapter (KB was not included with the system)
• Mega drive controller adapter

I may still assemble my own KB / MD adapters (I have sourced the components) but for now I just ended up purchasing them pre-made.

Other misc purchases:

• 5 1/4 Master Disk
• VGA adapter (Sanwa AD-D15NE)
• Mounting kit for SCSI2SD
• OSSC

The system was already pretty clean, but I wiped down the case and inner panels with Plexus plastic cleaner.  I also sanded down a few spots with rust, and polished up the rear external ports as they were looking grimy / corroded.

Managing Large Playlists in Hiby OS

 If you're in the market for a modern PMP (portable media player), I can't recommend the Hiby line enough.  Their range of players cover every price segment.  The cheapest option, the R2, is also the smallest.

This portability comes at a cost though.  Creating and maintaining playlists on such a small screen is less than ideal.  It turns out the operating system (Hiby OS) utilizes the .m3u format for playlists.  This makes it extremely easy to transfer them from your computer to the R2, assuming of course, you're using the same directory structure for your collection.

I use the excellent software MusicBee to manage and play music on the PC.  First, create a test playlist (one or two songs max) on your R2.  This will ensure you know where to add your .m3u files on the sd card, and show the file pathing.  Pop your sd into the computer.  In the root directory, you should see a folder called playlist_data.  Now create a new playlist (or edit an existing one if needed) locally on your machine.  Once you are ready, export it and open this file with a text editor.  I recommend one with advanced features like notepad++ (for my example I'll be using this) or Atom.

The directory pathing will vary based on your setup.  In my case, the music is stored on a NAS, hence what you see above.  We need to edit every line so it matches the pathing in Hiby OS.  Thankfully this is easy to do with a proper text editing program.  For notepad++ the trick is holding ALT + Shift and using the arrow keys to select the text you want to change.

The pathing for Hiby OS is such that your music structure (folders and all) must be under the "a drive".  As you can see in the screenshots, \\FILEBOX\ has been replaced with a:\ across every line in the file.  Since you will have mass selected the beginning of every line at this point, you will only need a few key strokes to edit the entire file.  Now save your changes and move the .m3u playlist files to the aforementioned playlist_data folder on the sd card.  Boot up your R2 (with the sd card inserted) and navigate to the playlist section and choose the option to load.

If you followed these instructions (and the music directory structure of the sd card is matching your computer) the playlists should populate with the correct tracks.  Hope this helps someone out there!

I'd like to note I have only tested this on the R2 player, but in theory should work across all models since they run the same OS.