Sony's $3,000 MiniDisc PC from Japan – Vaio PCV-MX2

Playing a MIDI file through Winamp in Windows 98 on a minidisc PC is peak 2000.

Greetings from japan. My friend had this pc, and we were teenager in 2000. We talked about pc games, it's nice memories.

Age of Empires 2 without music is EXACTLY how I remember playing it back then, I was kinda shocked when I got the HD remaster and it had MUSIC.

All of those Vaio visuals and sound effects take me back, wow. My dad's radio communications and tower leasing business was THRIVING in the '90s, so even though I wasn't aware of it at the time due to being a kid, my family had money to burn. My dad LOVED tech and anything Sony, so in the late '90s everything in our house was Sony including our desktop PC. It wasn't THIS particular model, but it was a big purple Vaio with the same Vaio-unique sounds and wallpapers. I graduated high school in 2003, and the Christmas before I started art school for college (I'm an illustrator now) I got a Sony MiniDisc player that hooked up to the computer for writing and managing music on the discs themselves, and I used the hell out of it in all of my studio classes before replacing it with the last generation of iPod that hit without a color screen. I still have that MiniDisc player up in a closet somewhere with a shit-ton of recorded discs. Watching this channel has opened my eyes to just how much my dad actually spent on the electronics I grew up with. I was so spoiled as a child and didn't even realize it, wow. It makes me even more glad that I was a weird kid who treated all of my electronics like they were made of spun glass. 😳

Imagine getting this as a kid in the year 2000. Dialing into the internet, installing Diablo II, and just feeling like an absolute boss....

Wow man 12-year-old me would've LOVED to have that beast back then.

I know a introducing MSX. so I'm very happy to introduce you to a Japanese PC and see some great comments on it. As a Japanese, I used to use VAIO and iMac side by side. Also, a small size VAIO has existed since the Windows 98 era. Sony knew the demand. I used it for a while. Sony VAIO for me is just a good memory.

A dream PC back in the day!

VAIO has one the coolest logo. It represents the analog and digital signal.

That editing masterpiece needs to be uploaded to the Blerbs channel so it can be properly appreciated.

Hey LGR I bet you didn’t know this: The V and A in the VAIO logo make up an analog wave while the I and O represent a 1 and a 0 representing digital computer code!

Previous owner must have been into photography. There were Fujifilm and Canon folders in the applications menu. A man of culture indeed.

Sony has always had such a great sense for design and aesthetic that really speaks to me. From Walkman to CD and DVD players, televisions, computers, game consoles and even smartphones. Timeless, elegant and classy design.

I just love the fact you don't feel the need to have sponsors in your videos. So refreshing not being told to play some crappy PTW mobile game or to buy cheap ear buds. Keep up the great work.

Japan has always worked toward conglomerating everything in a system together. Biggest reason being that much of the Japanese people had limited space, still do. So they kept coming up with these all in one electronics to fulfill multiple roles in a household or apartment.

That thing is still relevant in the looks department. Beautiful machines.

I still use my MD everyday. I have a home stereo with it, walkman and have a head unit in my car. Everyone that gets in my car always gets a kick out of it. Love not worrying about scratching them as I stack them in my car. What an awesome tower you have shown us. Thank you and keep MD alive.

I just love all those videos. They take me back to a (seemingly) simpler time. Got my first PC with about 14 years of age. Waited weeks for all the parts to be delivered. Then assembled my glorious 40Mhz 4MB RAM hero. Later upgraded to 8Mb of RAM - what a monster XD. And there were rumours about some guys in school owning a 133MHz giant! This one is about the first I would add to the "new" generation of systems, with WIN98 and all those fancy stuff in it. Still gives me nostalgia vibes. How come I now have a 100times faster system and RAM and 4K 165Hz image ... yet I just can't feel the same moment of awe I had when I first started my fav game X-Wing successfully on that old DOS-Computer after fighting with the 640Kb short memory problem I had with all the games back then. Those were the times.

Flat out amazing. I was a media student in 2001, and I did all my coursework on minidisc and zip drive, 100% this was a wet dream system. And with the period upgrades it looks absolutely brilliant.

That was a fantastic look at that computer! So cool to see the weird changes to the hardware for the media focus. I bet the MD drive is just connected to a serial or USB port and the output of the sound card with that interface board sending the same kinds of syncro commands you would get on a standalone device that could rip a CD to MD. So it's probably not directly accessible to the computer at all. I had a similar issue with Aureal DOS sound support on my Vaio Slimtop when I was working on that. If yours is similar to mine the drivers it came with suck and if you install another proper 8830 driver it should work. Once I did that I got DOS sound working in the Windows 98 DOX box but I don't think it worked in DOS Mode still.