Retroman, ur story is amazing and i must say i'm proud to be a MSXer when i see comments like urs, if only all CPC's users have tested a game like King's Valley 2, sure it would have more success... 
I can understand ur feeling cause in France its like this too, i dont have any friends who got MSX, the only one i had died 7 years ago, i regret him. Together we did some stuffs for MSX in france like a magazine with some MSX users of the country but with the 'nosuccess' of the best computer of all time it was very hard ... Life's a b*****
Bye
Hey... I just noticed that it was my first post...
I'll introduce myself later. For the ParisGMT people, Good night everybody!
Make love, not war... 
Hmm.
When: I don't remember very well but I think it was in 1985. My parents bought a Sony HB75. I used that nice MSX1 machine untill 1992, when I got a new, imported A1GT.
How: I just plugged my MSX in
Why: it is a bit difficult to explain .... MSX machines have a strange magic attraction ... when I saw the first MSX (a Sony HB-55), then I knew that I will had a MSX soon. I was 8 years old so I had to do a hard brain-washing task with my parents. At the end they bought it to me (one year later).
First computer I ever saw was my uncles commodore (it was a model with only 16kb of ram, or less), 16 years ago, and we played the games he programmed himself (or copied from some commodore magazine lists)
15 years ago, for christsmas, my family bought to my brothers and me my loved msx hb-55 with a 16kb RAM expansion . They only bought the computer, withouth tape reader, withouth cartridges (only the ram cartridge).... 
My computers knowledge level was, then, 0, so we had the computer but we didn't how to use it.
some months later, we bought a cassete reader... but the games didn't run.... we didn't knew it was because:
a) tape reader volume
b) not enogh ram
c) tape to msx wire was broked.
Also, the ram expansion wasn't detected at first, because the msx slot 1 was defective (we discovered it first time a cartridge game entered in my house,,,, the road fighter that we couldn't play because this problem)
So, the first games I played a lot were giro adventure, giro adventure and..... errr giro adventure. That helicopter game dont needed more than 32 kb of ram (I think) and its graphics were cool, and game was veeeery playable. These years also I discovered that msx games ARE NOT compatible with spectrum 48k platform... by friend and me wanted to interchange games but it wasnt possible. A lot of my friends used other platforms like spectrum, amstrad, and it was difficult to me know another msx freaks.
in 1992, with my own money, I decide to purchase my master system 2, when msx was disapearing from the market)
But, in 1998 or 1997 (i don't remenber it), while I was listening radio, a impressive interview started with "some guys" that organiced msx meetings in barcelona (this year, on that meeting, someone presented a spanish disk version of metalgear 2!!!) they mention a contact telephone and inmediatly I call to them!! I didn't imagine then that msx were still used then....
And then, regular visits to msx users meetings... 3 years later I purchased my 8245 and nowadays, and nowadays I'm really inside msx scene, not as a anonymous user like I was 4 years ago. Now konamiman gets scared allways he see my ugly face and some other people inside msx scene starts to know me.
Two months ago I needed to connect to a irc-aniverse channel to chat with a friend, and then I discovered msxdev and msx channels on aniverse and undernet.... and msx.org website (I already have posted 2 news on frontpage!), and I must mention it allways has been a pleassure to chat with the msx scene elite from europe across irc-hispano, aniverse and undernet msx chanels... now I'm a really irc addict....
And thats the end of my boring msx history!!!
P.D. I forgot to mention something about msx emulators for pc... I used them during lots of years while I wasn't able to buy a msx2 with floppy disk reader. I must mention it because thanks to emulators, I really rejoined msx world, and thanks to them I decided to buy my 8245 msx2
..so how about some more 'this is how I got involved with MSX' stories? 