The MSX

Anything relating to non Sinclair computers from the 1980's, 90's or even before.
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MonkZy
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Re: The MSX

Post by MonkZy »

There is a flash ROM cartridge for the MSX:

https://www.msx.org/news/en/megaflashrom-scc-sd

They are pricey though, i think the cheapest are 99euro.

If you like the graphics architecture of MSX, then look for the CGL M5. It was sold in the UK and had the same TI graphics chip. I had a hipster school mate who had one and he swapped it with my speccy for a few weeks (he wanted to play Hobbit). The BASIC gave you huge sprites with really simple syntax, it also had the screen offset command for really smooth scrolling in BASIC.

I thought the Spectrum NEXT would be a MSX killer for enthusiasts.
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1024MAK
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Re: The MSX

Post by 1024MAK »

The Memotech MTX500, MTX512 U.K. made computers also use the same video display processor (the Texas Instruments TMS9929A) as the original MSX computers. However they are not compatible.

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PeterJ
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Re: The MSX

Post by PeterJ »

According to Wikipedia (which I always trust 100% ;) )

The TMS9918 and its variants were used in the ColecoVision and CreatiVision, Memotech MTX, MSX, SG-1000/SC-3000, Spectravideo, Sord M5, Tatung Einstein, Texas Instruments TI-99/4, Casio PV-2000, and Tomy Tutor.

I remember with the Sord (sold in the UK as the CGL M5) and the TI99 you had to purchase the extended BASIC cartridge to make use of the Sprites from BASIC.
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RMartins
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Re: The MSX

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1024MAK wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 2:56 pm The Memotech MTX500, MTX512 U.K. made computers also use the same video display processor (the Texas Instruments TMS9929A) as the original MSX computers. However they are not compatible.

Mark
The MTX line of computers, was one that really impressed me for it's quality and design.
The computer case made of aluminium with the keyboard attached, and everything so neatly fitted inside, with a simple hinge system to open the device. It was just was ahead of it's time.

But the price killed it, when competing with low budget machines, for the masses.
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DenisGrachev
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Re: The MSX

Post by DenisGrachev »

Yep, nice machine. I ported Yazzie and Twinlight from speccy to msx1 in a week :)
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Joefish
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Re: The MSX

Post by Joefish »

Got a Toshiba MSX and a Green Beret cartridge.
The MSX can do 8x1 attribute multicolour graphics and single colour sprites, but only four on any one row.
The screen is character-mapped in that mode (hence the character scrolling), but has enough UDGs (3 banks of 256) to mimic full-screen hi-res.

The drawback is, in machine code you have to write to the video RAM via the graphics chip using the OUT command, which is really slow. You can't just write data to video RAM. So something like Speccy R-Type, that reads a byte from the screen, scrolls it, then writes it back, would run 3 or 4 times slower.
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Joefish
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Re: The MSX

Post by Joefish »

On the other hand, if you load pre-shifted bits of scenery into those character sets then you only need update the character map to do some fine scrolling in no time at all. But you're very limited in numbers so your scenery must be pretty repetetitve, or just lots of abstract geometric shapes made from a handful of primitive character shapes. And any enemies that can't be done as sprites will still move in character chunks, if it means you can no longer afford to pre-shift them within the character set as well!

It would have been a nice screen mode to have had on the Spectrum, but with direct access to read and write the video RAM.
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Lethargeek
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Re: The MSX

Post by Lethargeek »

Joefish wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 2:16 pm It would have been a nice screen mode to have had on the Spectrum, but with direct access to read and write the video RAM.
but character backgrounds are almost useless without hardware sprites, and hw sprites are too costly and too limited at that cost imo
i would be much happier if the Spectrum have had more convenient screen addressing and a 4-color low-res mode (per attribute tile)
oh, and the ability to set its former vblank interrupt to happen on a desired scanline won't hurt as well
like this, the Spectrum could be just as cheap, but much more capable gaming machine
all without any superfluous console stuff
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RMartins
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Re: The MSX

Post by RMartins »

Lethargeek wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 2:50 pm
Joefish wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 2:16 pm It would have been a nice screen mode to have had on the Spectrum, but with direct access to read and write the video RAM.
but character backgrounds are almost useless without hardware sprites, and hw sprites are too costly and too limited at that cost imo
i would be much happier if the Spectrum have had more convenient screen addressing and a 4-color low-res mode (per attribute tile)
oh, and the ability to set its former vblank interrupt to happen on a desired scanline won't hurt as well
like this, the Spectrum could be just as cheap, but much more capable gaming machine
all without any superfluous console stuff
Do I detect some C64 background in there ?
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Lethargeek
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Re: The MSX

Post by Lethargeek »

RMartins wrote: Tue May 19, 2020 11:41 am Do I detect some C64 background in there ?
very not much of it (but yeah, it can resemble the c64 with all the console crap removed and its cpu unrestrained)
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