Lets talk about MSX

Scribe (4106)

27-11-2019, 09:47

I was invited to participate in a German podcast.
It's called Retrokompott and I like the format.

This makes me especially happy because MSX was not very common in Germany and there is a lot of half-knowledge circulating in the scene.
Surely you notice this in many interviews that people simply tell the wrong things. Even in the German Wikipedia such half-truths are spread. Unfortunately it often fails to change this because of the arrogance or laziness of the operators.
The format is characterized by the fact that it can be talked about a lot and for a long time. Previous episodes about Commodore machines or Spectrum and Amstrad have already split it into 9 hours. The conversation partners are pleasant, but not from the MSX community.
Therefore I would like to develop a roadmap and hope for your support. Above all, I need a few single players, I thought of different pieces of music from PSG to Moonsound, gladly longer. Possibly also small sound snippets of game recordings. Do you want to help me? Especially in december I am quite busy professionally, but also here because of the christmas quizz, therefore I need the material as mp3s. You have a few days, but please let me know beforehand.
I also want to create a list with the games to be discussed. Beads and bargains. Hardware, tips for beginners. Do you have any more ideas?
Thanks for the support!

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Van sdsnatcher73

Prophet (3953)

27-11-2019, 15:37

I’d be happy to make some recordings from real hardware from game music or otherwise. Let me know which tracks you want and I can work on it.

Van hamlet

Scribe (4106)

27-11-2019, 19:45

Thanks, man! Well, I'm not sure yet. The choice will be very difficult. Of course, catchy pieces like Mr. Ghost should not be missing. More well-known tunes, like Castelvania for example, I would offer in different versions for comparison. PSG, SCC and arranged versions of our old warhorses. Moonsound. But also in-game music from e.g. Sky Jaguar. Noises of a floppy drive and the clacking of the keyboard clicks. Beep and PLAY "CDEF" are also possible.

Van ren

Paragon (1934)

27-11-2019, 20:18

So they're gonna do a multi-segment interview with you, during the span of a couple of weeks/months or something?

Have you already thought out the topics + in which order you want to discuss them etc? How many segments of how many minutes (average)?

Van hamlet

Scribe (4106)

27-11-2019, 21:05

This will be a part of my roadmap.
This is only a sketch, which I wrote down to get a over view.
I do know there is a lot that is not written here and I like to talk muc more about the present than the past.
But plese have a look:

MSX Computer

The beginning of the end:
-The situation in Germany in winter 85.
-Nice story about the price fall of the MSX calculators for Christmas business 85.
-From VW Golf to Honda CRX

The beginning: Betamax and VHS
Japan and deflation
Development of the standard
-Colecovision: One console does everything right
-Spectravideo: Two Swiss make it as far as Hong Kong
-friends: Katsuhiko Nishi and Bill Gates have an idea
-ASCII und MS
-The companies: The Who is Who of Consumer Electronics
-Godzilla walks Tokyo's streets: Farewell to Microsoft

The architecture:
-All Bauhaus! 
-3.58 MHz, 23414 Bytes free
-cartridge slots as expansion ports and for games
-PSG Not only in ST and SpectrumPlus
-Distribution between television and stereo

All the same, all special:
-Yamaha's DX7, Lightpen, Touchpad, Database, LaserDisk and Graphics program: the special features bring MSX to the living room
-SVI 838 and Philips PC development board
-JVC and he 8bit dual processor

The situation in Europe 1986
-Boris Becker and Philips.
-If it weren't for the competition.
-Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain: Everywhere it is nicer than at home!

The meeting of the generations
-Evolution: MSX, 2, 2+ and Turbo R. 
-MHz and 16 Bit
-One Chip MSX: The Vision of Kai Nishi; MSXPlayER
-cement mix
-Clones from Korea conquer the world
-FPGA
-MSXVR
-Generation 4

Extensions:
-Music: OPL, OPL2, OPL3, OPL4 and then also OPLL?
-NEOGEO,
-SID Player
-V9900 Yamaha graphics chip:  Yamaha's development box

All Konami? Games in the 80s
-The Japan Years:
-Historical overview of how Konami practiced on MSX.
00-Kids only: Antarctic Adventure, CabbagePatchKids und Monkey Academy
01-From Scramble tou SuperCobra: Nemesis, Gradius and Salamander. Space Manbow
02-Arcade at home: Circus Charly und Roadfighter. 
03-Ghostbusters and Buck Rogers: Activisions turn
04-Hudsonsoft and Bomberman
05-Castlevania second place
06-What do haven Solid Snake and Pentaro in common?: MetalGear und Penguin Adventure
07-Falcom and Square: JRPG’s 
08-Puyo Puyo: Compile for fun
09-Mr.Ghost: It is getting expensive
10-Schnäppchen: Lose Module und Tapes
11-Spin me right round: RPG’s and action adventures on 3,5”
-Ys has been a place in France, Hydlide
-Heroes Of Might and Magic
-The LastArmageddon, Ashguine, D´
-Xak and Fray: Tower of Cabin
-Illusion City
12-Shooter: Aleste, Zanac, Gradius
13-Puzzler: Eggerland Mystery
14-Adventures: New Adam and Eve 
15-Link alter ego SuperCooks fights with pans.
16-SD Snatcher, Snatcher
17-MetalGear2 and farewell Konami!
-Combination: How Parodius was born by two modules 
-SCC und FMPac: Special chips for more fun

Home is the most beautiful place!
-Homebrew in the 90s  
-Holland and the sports hall
-Games
-Moonsound
-Graphics 9000
-IDE and SCSI
-X-Tazy and WiOS

Ingredients
-MSX BASIC und DiskBASIC, Evolution of the UI
-Nextor
-Assembler 
-C
-SymbOS: A GUI for Amstrad, MSX and Enterprise 128, Made in Germany

Heute.
Niederlande, Spanien, Russland, Brasilien, Korea
Japan?
-MSX als Sound Standard
-Contests und Treffen
-translations
-Das Netz: MSX.org, Facebook
-Kunst
-Eigenbauten: Maschinen, Sound, Grafik.
-Homebrew: Spiele
-Bücher
-Zeitschriften
-Weg vom Specci Port, zurück zum Specci Port: Brunilda
-Ein Z80 Euch zu binden!
-Back to the Roots: MSXdev

35 years of the future:
-What's the next step?
-Where does MSX3 stay?

As in reality:
emulators
A little different: Spectrum, Colecovision, SG1000 und Mastersystem running on the MSX!
-Open MSX: MSX als Open Source und 1 Dollar für Microsoft
-FMSX, BlueMSX, CocoaMSX
-WebMSX
-RasPi und MSX VR

shopping consultant
-quick start
-Which machine to start with?
01-Sony HitBit 75D
02-Philips VG8020
-Well, let's go!
03-Philips VG8235
04-Philips NMS 8280
05-Sony HB-F700E
-Is it worth it?
06-Panasonic F1A1ST/GT TurboR
07-OCR/Zemmix
-Even a Raspberry:
08-MSXVR
-How much is this gonna cost? Software beads and bargains
-Disk, cassette or ROM?
-A fistfull of Dollar: SD Reader and MultiMegaRoms. What there is, what it costs, what is worth it.
-Which sound chip is right for me?
-HDMI? Yes! HDMI!

Van Manuel

Ascended (19465)

28-11-2019, 00:00

Looks like a great overview, although I don't understand everything of it... (What's the 1 dollar for Microsoft thing about?) You should probably mention Uwe Schröder, indeed

Van sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

28-11-2019, 01:36

@hamlet

Nice news! I suspect that Alexo Mello's Vitrola MSX series might be of great help to you. (trivia: Vitrola in Portuguese is an old's man word for record player. Comes from the Victrola brand)

There will be English subtitles for an eventual German-challenged audience? ;)

Suggestions for the "The Architecture" part"
- Real PNP. Slots are individually addressable to avoid address conflicts, dispensing any configuration jumpers
- Impressive expansibility, flexibility and hardware abstraction allows us to have real native SD card and Ethernet interfaces nowadays without having to resort to ultra-complex hardware or obscure solutions. Architecture that allows new BIOS/BASIC extensions is the groundwork of the design.
- Also hardware abstraction: allows wonderful things like SofaRun (KBD->JoyMega redir, software-only floppy emulation, MegaROM emulation with even virtual memory), nandemoSCC, OPLL->OPL1/2/3/4 translation, MA-20, etc etc etc

Van hamlet

Scribe (4106)

28-11-2019, 10:35

@Manuel I would like to do the work of the openMSX team and point out the controversy that MSX Basic is not freely available but Microsoft still charges 1 dollar per resold machine fee.
@sd_snatcher Good point. PnP is a matter of course for us. This was really outstanding technology in its day. A well thought-out architecture. And thanks for pointing me to the Victola series.

Van Pac

Scribe (7007)

28-11-2019, 14:17

Just an obvious request, the MSX is a computer and not a console, please make it very clear! People seem don't want to understand this...

Van shram86

Expert (117)

28-11-2019, 14:36

PAC wrote:

Just an obvious request, the MSX is a computer and not a console, please make it very clear! People seem don't want to understand this...

Consoles are just computers without a user-facing OS. People seem don't want to understand this

Van hamlet

Scribe (4106)

24-12-2019, 01:36

Michi, Prodatron and me are getting interviewed on 28th now.
We did made a roadmap to talk but still need some sound snippeds as appetizers.
So if you got some spare time over the holidays or just need a time out from your family, I would appreciate a nice mp3 collection of your favourite game music. A mixture of PSG, Audio and Music, maybe some SFG05 would be exact the thing we need.