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In the beginning there was light :

 Early in the 1980's the homecomputer market was booming. Everyone wanted a computer at home. Computer manufacturers were eager to supply in this need. The result of this was a wide variety of computer systems. Each with it's own hard and software. This way, manufacturers were making sure the customer would keep coming back to them, for more software and/or hardware for their homecomputer. There was hardly any compatibility between the different systems and as a result the less popular systems soon vanished. So this was not the answer either. Some systems that managed to stay on for a long time were the Commodore 64, the Radio Shack TSR80, the APPLE II and offcourse IBM's Personal Computer but that wasn't really a computer for domestic use yet.
 

Let's make things better :

 Then, a bunch of computer manufacturers decided to develop a standard for a new generation of homecomputers, allowing the customer to buy hard and software from different manufacturers but with 100% compatibility. So MSX was born.

 The MSX computer was designed and build around the 8-bit Zilog Z80 microprocessor. The MSX had an extensive BASIC interpreter built in. This BASIC version was an extension of Microsoft's BASIC. That's where they got the name MSX : MicroSoft eXtended.

 Many hard and software manufacturers liked the idea of an international standard and began producing loads of stuff for this new system. Among these were Philips, Sony, Sanyo and Toshiba, to name but a few. For a long time the MSX system was really popular. No more incompatibility problems, everything worked, always !

All good things come to an end :

 A few years later the successor of the MSX had arrived : The MSX2. For it's time a really good homecomputer with superior graphical capabilities. Still based on the, at that time, somewhat old Z80 but with a totally new Video Display Processor, 3 1/2 inch 720 kb floppy drives and a lot more memory. For a while the MSX2 was also very popular, but alas, the dream turned into a nightmare:

 Philips announced it would no longer support the MSX system for reasons yet unknown. Shortly after Sony followed. This caused a chain reaction and other manufacturers did the same thing. In a short time the total MSX market CRASHED ! The MSX system was officially DEAD ! Shortly before this happened the MSX2+ appeared but it never really made an impact. The same with the MSX Turbo R from Panasonic. They were too rare and too expensive.
 

Dead, or not quite :

 Well, that's the end, you'd say.. Not quite. Because the of the popularity of the system, MSX users all over Europe and Japan decided to stay active on the system and make their own hard and software. You could say the amateurs became the professionals.

 So MSX kept on going. It still does. Every year lots of new stuff is being released and International MSX Computer fairs are still being organized. But as multimedia PC's get cheaper,  faster and better many users abandon their MSX and switch to a PC. That's really too bad because the MSX is still a great system for gaming and programming ! Okay, it's an 8 bit computer but there are still a lot of games which can compete with PC games easily on gameplay as well as graphics.
 

Final thoughts :

 So I think the MSX system is great and did not deserve it's sudden execution. Therefore CyberSoft is dedicated to keep the MSX alive ! And so should you ! For old times sake and because I think it's worth it !