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| | Project Dumas announced at BCN Party |
| | Sunday, November 06, 2005 - 21:45 Submitted by: SaebaMSX Topic: Hardware | | In the past we have reported several times about BCN Parties. These events are homebase for several user meetings, such as the annual Barcelona MSX user meeting.
At this weekend's BCN Party, the user meeting Vintagenarios gave update on an amazing MSX hardware project called Dumas. It was presented by Matra and it looks like a true revolution which will change your MSX experience forever!
You better hold on, Dumas is an Obsonet cartridge, together with 512kb RAM and integrated USB support, called USBorne. Yes, you read it correctly, USB support for MSX, something we have been waiting for for a long time. We don't know much technical details yet, we do know it implements a slotexpander circuit and therefore uses 3 subslots. With an USB connection, many devices such as mass storage devices can become available for MSX.
More info will be released by Matra during the upcoming Barcelona MSX user meeting on December 3rd 2005.
Relevant link: Asociación de Amigos del MSX |
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 06 2005, 22:03 | --------
You better hold on, Dumas is an Obsonet cartridge, together with 512kb RAM and integrated USB support,
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And a custom sound chip.
4x1
Its a great new.
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| By Latok on November 06 2005, 22:07 | No, it is not. The soundchip is a different project.
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| By wolf_ on November 06 2005, 22:13 | .. of which we want to see specs 
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| By tfh on November 06 2005, 22:15 | Well... This is a nice development 
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| By djh1697 on November 07 2005, 00:27 | how do i order a new obsoNET cartridge? that is what i want to know?
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| By Sonic_aka_T on November 07 2005, 00:40 | I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things:
"Newsflash!!! We will be doing something at some point. It will be able to do something, probably. There will be a price, which we will announce some day. We will make some amount of it, and some people might obtain some."
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 07 2005, 00:45 | It only was presented, not selling it.
---------
..... Well im not crazy........
I had seen it:
http://hideoworld.iespana.es/msx/WTFk.png
See the rigth screen...... They changed it.
P.D. I have a working Pascal Library for INL. Now you can write your inet apps for MSX in Turbo Pascal.
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| By SaebaMSX on November 07 2005, 07:37 | That is the main reason because I wanted to "spread" these news quicker. MRC is surely most read than our webpage, then no mistakes should be found here.
I don't know more that it was explained yesterday night, but it is the starting of a nice future.
The cartridge with the matra sound custom chip was tested in a MSX2+ in that meeting, so this cart exists and works (it showed a screen with a matra logo).
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| By pitpan on November 07 2005, 08:03 | As a developer, I would like to have more information on this topic. The detailed specifications of the sound chip would prove helpful. Anyway, I guess that some more information will be given in a month time: the Barcelona user meeting on 3rd December!
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| By HansO on November 07 2005, 08:36 | SD-Snatcher wrote: P.D. I have a working Pascal Library for INL. Now you can write your inet apps for MSX in Turbo Pascal.
Is that library online? I would like that.
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| By konamiman on November 07 2005, 09:23 | Hello all. I think that's not said anywhere else, but I'm the official developer of the Usborne BIOS and related software.
Here are some more details about Usborne:
- The core is a Cypress SL811HS chip. It is an USB 1.1 host controller.
- It will have one single USB connector, but by using an external hub, it will be possible to plug up to seven devices simultaneously.
- The DOS 2 kernel will be included on ROM, so standard massive storage devices (this means "almost all the storage devices that work on Windows and Linux without drivers" will be directly useable.
- MegaSCSI-style floppy disk emulation via disk image files will be supported.
- Generic USB routines will be provided on BIOS so anyone will be able to write software to control any USB device.
- It will have 1K EEPROM to store non-volatile information about disk partitions, floppy disk emulation, special keys mapping, etc.
I have a simple prototype (only USB controller and some RAM) made by Daniel Berdugo, with which I achieved to boot from a HD diskette and to emulate a disk image file on a pendrive. This was test code only, though; I am now writing the real BIOS.
Quote:
| I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things
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If you want precission and exactitude, go to Japan or the Netherlands. Spain is just Paella, Toros and Dumas.
Quote:
| how do i order a new obsoNET cartridge? that is what i want to know?
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You cannot buy ObsoNET anymore, instead you will be able to buy Dumas. But this time there will be no need for previous reservations, as it will be massively produced from the first batch.
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| By [D-Tail] on November 07 2005, 09:33 | Yay! 
I'd love to connect my USB Pendrive to that thing ... Sonic_aka_T: you needed a A1ST diskdrive, right? Don't need that one anymore then
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| By SaebaMSX on November 07 2005, 09:53 | A1ST disk drive? That reminds me that someone will replace mine's one ... my turboR ST works now as a 8235, with a single disk drive (my drive only reads one of the sides :/ ).
And thanks for writing more info about it, konamiman!! Having a "megascsi" for USB interfaces is cool.
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| By chaos on November 07 2005, 12:54 | great news!!
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| By poke-1,170 on November 07 2005, 13:41 | the future becomes very bright great thing to implement USB on msx...
but what's the matra cartridge then? a new soundchip?
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| By SaebaMSX on November 07 2005, 14:35 | Here there are 2 carts:
1. Dumas: Obsonet + RAM + USBorne
2. Games in cart with extra sound chip
I don't know if some people don't have the second point clear... but each game will have its own sound custom chip. It is, as SCC, a chip for each game (and games won't come in disk but in ROM (or whatever chip they will use in these carts).
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| By wolf_ on November 07 2005, 14:50 | smart, a creative copyprotection..
not handy for a scene who wants to create tunes for the chip.. but alas..
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| By poke-1,170 on November 07 2005, 14:57 | dumb ass ehhh dumas I mean
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| By wolf_ on November 07 2005, 15:10 | "but each game will have its own sound custom chip"
Perhaps I got the wrong idea.. but is each sound chip in each cart. a different sound chip ? (so no "insert cart. in a slot after boot to run a cracked version with sound"
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| By poke-1,170 on November 07 2005, 15:33 | instead of fixed sample sets every cart would have a different set you mean?
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| By wolf_ on November 07 2005, 16:33 | not samples perse..
can be any difference..
..a chip with 5 wave channels (like scc)
..a chip with 8 fm channels
..a sid chip
..a psg with filters
.. a GM wavetable chip
.. an XG wavetable chip
As long as each game has a different chip you must buy all those carts in order to have sound!
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| By BiFi on November 07 2005, 16:59 | Quote:
| I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things:
"Newsflash!!! We will be doing something at some point. It will be able to do something, probably. There will be a price, which we will announce some day. We will make some amount of it, and some people might obtain some."
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Sounds a lot like some other people (not need to list names here) too, doesn't it?
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| By BiFi on November 07 2005, 17:02 | Quote:
| smart, a creative copyprotection..
not handy for a scene who wants to create tunes for the chip.. but alas..
|
Why not? Remember how creative people were to create tunes for the SCC? I don't see any difference here.
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| By BiFi on November 07 2005, 17:03 | anyway... I would love to know more about that new sound chip and the new obsonet with usb sounds quite interesting as well.
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| By AuroraMSX on November 07 2005, 18:21 | Quote:
| Why not? Remember how creative people were to create tunes for the SCC? I don't see any difference here.
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If wolf_ is right, the BIG difference will be that each game will have a soundchip (FPGA sound circuit?) specifically for that game. So: 20 games == somewhere between 1 and 20 different sound chips 
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| By Sonic_aka_T on November 07 2005, 19:07 | Quote:
| Quote:
| I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things:
"Newsflash!!! We will be doing something at some point. It will be able to do something, probably. There will be a price, which we will announce some day. We will make some amount of it, and some people might obtain some."
|
Sounds a lot like some other people (not need to list names here) too, doesn't it?
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Actually, that was a quote from ASCII, I thought you all would notice!
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| By BiFi on November 07 2005, 19:53 | face it, that's not just an ASCII quote
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| By viejo_archivero on November 07 2005, 20:44 | "I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things:"
Me too!!. What I personally don't like are words like those.
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| By djh1697 on November 07 2005, 21:04 | 7 USB devices on my MSX would be really cool, but, wilkl there be provision for external power? I guess that depends on the HUB. It would be really cool to connect my MSX to the internet via USB wireless networking......
A long way off maybe - but what a great idea!
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| By SaebaMSX on November 08 2005, 00:52 | I don't know if it is a programmable sound chip or it will be always the same. That information was not provided. But does it change anything? I mean, is not it cool to have more and more stuff for MSX?
Who is creating songs for FM? and for PSG? and for MM? and for SCC? The problem is not having so much sound chips but using them... 
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| By pitpan on November 08 2005, 01:58 | Damn it! Now that I'm finishing my PSG tracker, a new sound device comes in
Just kidding. Good news for the MSX community. Karoshi is looking forward to get more information about it.
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| By Sonic_aka_T on November 08 2005, 03:05 | Quote:
| "I love the Spanish way of announcing and doing these things:"
Me too!!. What I personally don't like are words like those.
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You shouldn't be offended so easily, there's really no need. If you can't take a little joke, uhm, well, try to work on that then...
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| By konamiman on November 08 2005, 09:00 | Quote:
| 7 USB devices on my MSX would be really cool, but, wilkl there be provision for external power? I guess that depends on the HUB. It would be really cool to connect my MSX to the internet via USB wireless networking......
|
It all depends on the hub. According to the USB specification:
- Self-powered hubs may have any number of devices connected to it, but seven is a practical maximum; actually you will hardly find a hub with more than seven ports.
- Bus-powered hubs can have up to four ports, AND can power only devices that grab less than 100mA from the USB bus. This means either a) devices that are in turn self-powered, or b) devices with very low power requirements.
Overall, no device (or hub) can grab more than 500mA from the USB bus, again per the USB specification.
As for Dumas, it is STRONLGY recommended to use a self-powered hub.
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| By msd on November 08 2005, 14:39 | Is it also posible to have more then 512KB?
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| By djh1697 on November 08 2005, 20:50 | The basic USB specification allows a maximum of 500mA power to be consumed via the USB connector, does the MSX expansion bus allow this sort of power consumption ? I am 90% sure that the maximum consumption is just 300mA, How could "Dumas" be both MSX and USB 1.1 compliant if this is the case? Will Dumas work with MSX1 ?
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| By Latok on November 09 2005, 09:30 | Interesting question!
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| By konamiman on November 09 2005, 09:39 | Quote:
| The basic USB specification allows a maximum of 500mA power to be consumed via the USB connector, does the MSX expansion bus allow this sort of power consumption ?
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With the prototype I am using a floppy disk drive and I have tested other devices as well, without any apparent problem. However if you are concerned about power consumption, the solution is very easy: do not connect a bus-powered device directly to Usborne; use instead a self-powered hub as intermediate, which will take no more than 100mA from the USB bus.
Quote:
| Will Dumas work with MSX1 ?
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It should work, except that the internal DOS 2 will not boot, of course.
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 09 2005, 11:36 | Quote:
| It should work, except that the internal DOS 2 will not boot, of course.
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Why not?, I have used Sunrise AtaIDE (With internal DOS 2) with my Toshiba HX20, it only need mapped memory, and connected to IRC (C-IRC.com have support for 40 Columns), if Dumas have 512k of mapped memory it must works.
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| By konamiman on November 09 2005, 11:56 | Quote:
| It should work, except that the internal DOS 2 will not boot, of course.
Quote:
| Why not?, I have used Sunrise AtaIDE (With internal DOS 2) with my Toshiba HX20, it only need mapped memory, and connected to IRC (C-IRC.com have support for 40 Columns), if Dumas have 512k of mapped memory it must works.
|
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Well, I have dissassembled a little of the DOS 2.30 kernel code and one of the first things I saw is:
LD A,(#002D)
OR A
RET Z
or in other words: "if this is an MSX1, do nothing"
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| By SapphiRe on November 09 2005, 12:32 | Now you know what to do: NOP IT!
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 09 2005, 13:45 | This evening i will try the obsonet with the toshiba. I think im using 2.30 too.
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| By warau on November 09 2005, 17:31 | Quote:
| This evening i will try the obsonet with the toshiba. I think im using 2.30 too
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Maybe the 2.30 inside the Sunrise interface is already patched?
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| By djh1697 on November 09 2005, 20:20 | Why not produce a version of MSX-DOS 2 with a patch for dumas & MSX1, or is this rocket science?
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 09 2005, 21:55 | Now im connected with Toshiba HX-20 to IRC-Hispano using the pascal client & obsonet.
The DOS is 2.20.
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| By konamiman on November 10 2005, 08:51 | Quote:
| Now im connected with Toshiba HX-20 to IRC-Hispano using the pascal client & obsonet.
The DOS is 2.20.
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Ok, this is a good start... but the DOS kernel must be 2.30, so it allows to boot in DOS 1 mode when emulating floppies.
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| By djh1697 on November 10 2005, 18:03 | Which version of DOS2 did OCM use when it was emulating just MSX1? It must be possible, MSX association did it?
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| By djh1697 on November 10 2005, 18:06 | That would be impressive - taking DUMAS to my PC friend who has a router and an ancient goldstar FC200, plugging DUMAS into the MSX, his router, and a suitable USB memory card to load DOS & INL, surf the net on his 20 year old machine..... I dont think it will be as impressive as using my TurboR though!
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 12 2005, 00:30 | In my other IDE i have 2.30 and i used it in the Toshiba HX-20. XD
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 12 2005, 17:33 | No, my mistake, the 2.30 was in the rom of turbo-r not in the ide, this ide have 2.20 too.
¿Nestor can you send me an obsonet bios with DOS 2.30 to try it?
Ill send this directly to your email.
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| By msx_pc on November 13 2005, 12:02 | maybe we can use our usb msx game reader with Dumas cartridge. a extra slot for msx system (special for games..)
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| By konamiman on November 14 2005, 10:37 | Quote:
| maybe we can use our usb msx game reader with Dumas cartridge. a extra slot for msx system (special for games..)
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...huh??
And how would you map the data read from the USB bus to the Z80 addressing space?
Using the game reader would be possible to dump cartridge ROMs, for example, but not as an extra slot for the MSX.
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| By SapphiRe on November 15 2005, 12:22 | It will be possible to connect a USB Keyboard and use it as an original MSX keyboard? Even with original ROM games such as Nemesis?
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| By Sd-Snatcher on November 17 2005, 02:36 | Using the same system than Padial´s Ps2 Keyboard adapter. And same for mouses or joysticks.
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| By djh1697 on November 18 2005, 00:31 | Nestor, would it be possible to write a megaROM loader to work with DUMAS? Something similar to execrom / megaRAM combination ?
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