We started this poll a while ago and the results so far invite for a little more discussion. Although (at the moment) 60% of the voters forsee a (relatively) bright future for the MSX Revival, 21% is convinced the MSX Revival will be no success whatsover across the Japanese borders and 18% thinks the MSX Revival will end or even affect the MSX Community in a negative way.

Enough reasons to ask (depending on what you voted)

- What makes you think the MSX Revival will become a (huge) success?
- What makes you think "this is it", when it comes to the MSX Revival?
- What makes you think the MSX Community will suffer from the MSX revival?

Bring it on!

- What makes you think the MSX Revival will become a (huge) success?

Large database with ready-to-use software, including a lot of quality games from Konami, Microcabin, Compile etc. All games with good music ^_^


- What makes you think the MSX Community will suffer from the MSX revival?

Because with FPGA you have the potention to loose the identity of the system. Creativity comes from restrictions, not from possibilities

About the identity of the system: MSX has always been an open system, for which the users have always been free to create their own hardware. And doing that was relatively easy. Still, the MSX Community has been capable of maintaining the standard by embracing several hardware products (Moonsound, GFX9000). I think that FPGA will not change that a lot, it will only drop the costs drastically.

If the 'hardware extentions' are controled and developed by one central organisation, then you can speak of a standard/platform.. (talking about the 1.c.m. now)

Then you can say: "Ok, we have 65535 colors max, 4 multilayers, 16 sprites on a row, scrolling in all directions, DMA etc. etc." and everyone can stick to that, resulting in a platform of which ppl can share their knowledge.

If people design their own 'gfx-chip' .. then the platform dies, everyone works on his own stuff, no shared knowledge, a lot of individual development.

I'm talking about something 'central' here.. compare: if you see 'opl4' as an extension and a CF reader as an extension then you might think that they're good.. the more extensions the better. However, loading a wavekit from CF to the opl4 ram takes ages, because all data goes through the z80 (on a z80) making the loading of a 640k kit take some 12 seconds! The opl4 sram races @ 1.2megabyte/s and the CF can do some 200kb/s. This leads to a creative choice: 1 full wavekit per tune in a game and a lot of loading, or 1 wavekit for a whole game (or at least for a whole level/world) and have no loading? That's what made the MSX imho, something central.
For that same reason I see the g9k, opl4, cf etc. as very good extensions for the msx, because they were made with the classic msx in mind. Now, if *with FPGA* everyone is able to completely wipe the central system, then we get a nameless black box which we could use as a c64, amiga or an atari as well..

So, to conclude: I'm not against developing the perfect soundcard, the perfect videocard and the perfect cpu.. not at all, but I prefer things to happen at a central point in order to keep a 'standard platform' and to keep something we can all stick to. The 'scene' (demoscene) was mainly about realising the latest tricks from a limited system. If the system isn't limited anymore, then where's the drive to conquer eachother with the latest tricks? Look at Latin America and Spain where ppl are doing all kinda nice MSX 1 games, if you say to them: 'now you have 65536 colors, 64 audio-channels, a huge cpu etc.' .. wouldn't that take away the charm of what they're doing right now? Again, restrictions lead to creativity, and creativity is a driving force in a scene.

iirc I saw something about a possible follow-up 1.c.m. with specs based on what ppl will develop for the first 1.c.m., imho that's a good idea, since that'll bring the platform again (tho it's again still open for own chip-designs again).

yeahyeah, sorry to spoil the fun here

To keep the OPL4 comparison alive: the way you are thinking right now is allowing people to use the OPL4, but not allowing them to use their own wavekits. Where is the standard in allowing people to use their own samples?

Creating new MSX hardware in FPGA isn't very easy. It is cheap, but not easy. I don't think we'll have hundreds of different extensions within a year. Besides, the system will most certainly still have its limitations. In the current prototype an MSX2 takes 80% of the FPGA chip and emulating an MSX2+ is not even possible. The only bad thing I can spot is, of course, that you can turn your One Chip MSX into a Commodore ^_^ ^_^

Gates! Gates! It's all about Gates, isn't it? The more Gates, the better possibilities for high specs?!

snout: now THAT would be funny ^_^.

Latok: hehe...

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To keep the OPL4 comparison alive: the way you are thinking right now is allowing people to use the OPL4, but not allowing them to use their own wavekits. Where is the standard in allowing people to use their own samples?

Uh.. no, s-ram is simply a part of the opl4, and I expect and suggest ppl to use it.. (preferably 640k )
I'm talking about new things that not everyone has, which will happen if everyone makes his own sound/video/cpu stuff.

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Creating new MSX hardware in FPGA isn't very easy. It is cheap, but not easy. I don't think we'll have hundreds of different extensions within a year.

But it's hypothetically possible, esp. when ppl from other platforms start using it, and start releasing their own extensions..

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The only bad thing I can spot is, of course, that you can turn your One Chip MSX into a Commodore ^_^ ^_^

There you are .. that's my point! And not just a Commodore!

Another nice comparison.. imagine the rumour of 'screen 9 being sold to Konami' being true (we know better now, but just imagine it), well that's the same thing then. Something special made for an individual. Imagine that screen having multilayers and DMA (just keep it hypothetically), wouldn't that give the rest of the MSX world some feeling of bitterness or emptyness? Why bother getting at the same Konami-level with your own company if you can't be a competitor simply because you don't have access to that screen 9? If there's a platform then everyone has the same limits, that's what makes the 'scene' .. the competition to get everything out of a limited system. btw.. that's what gave the PC-demoscene some charm in the early 90's.. software 3d engines, where you really had to code your ass off to get some stuff moving. With the introduction of the hardware 3d cards, that charm simply vapourised. Ofcourse, every now and then a good hardware-3d demo showed-up, but it's really not the same anymore as in the early 90's.

Anyway, that's the answer to the poll question whether it affects the 'scene' .. I'm not saying the 1cm is a bad development, not at all, but it *does* affect the scene. (imho)

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Uh.. no, s-ram is simply a part of the opl4, and I expect and suggest ppl to use it.. (preferably 640k )

And FPGA is simply a part of the One Chip MSX. I expect and suggest ppl to use that as well ^_^

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But it's hypothetically possible, esp. when ppl from other platforms start using it, and start releasing their own extensions..

It is hypothetically possible, but it's also hypothetically possible that we'll have 100 non-ObsoNet compatible ethernet cartridges next year. Somehow I don't see that happening either

About your Konami SCREEN 9 worries: Konami -did- of course have the SCC, and no other commercial MSX companies used it.

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Quote: Uh.. no, s-ram is simply a part of the opl4, and I expect and suggest ppl to use it.. (preferably 640k ) And FPGA is simply a part of the One Chip MSX. I expect and suggest ppl to use that as well ^_^

that's no comparison

s-ram belonging to the opl4 is like: "here's a house for you, and here's paint and furniture to make it better"
FPGA belonging to a 'standard' is like: "here's a house for you, and here's a pile o ' bricks, some dynamite and a bulldozer for ya, so you can make your own house o_O"

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About your Konami SCREEN 9 worries: Konami -did- of course have the SCC, and no other commercial MSX companies used it.

Because using the SCC was a bit hacky if you didn't have a safety-switch And it's not exactly proper for a company to demand from their customers buying a competitor's game worth 40$ before you actually have sound. SCC was never sold as a seperate sound expansion iirc..

Anyway, this'll end-up in an endless discussion .. let's say:
If the extensions are made central, where everyone contributes to a central platform.. something 'open', and not every month an update (to give some live to each platform-step), then I don't see many problems. If people start doing their own extensions, then I see issues for the 'scene' .. that's all..

o.O

O.o

I don't think that this will be any sort of problem.
You'll will have a "base" code released by MSX Association for the FPGA.
Then you can have all sorts of things, even new codes that can be created
specifically to a single software.

Imagine this: you need a 3D game, so you implement a kick ass math co-processor, and a very fast VDP. Now you want to surf the web, make a new program to implement tcp-ip.

Then you can flash it again to the "base" system, and play Antartic Adventure all you want =)

Creativity come from open minds, not limitations. Limitations are one factor that promotes new solutions, but creativity is a complete different ground

The only problem I can see for now is the cost... FPGAs are expensive, shipping things from Japan are also expensive (at least here to South America) , here in Brazil with have huge taxes when importing (60% to 70% of the total price (including shipping!)), plus brazilian Real is not the most valueable currency in the world...

... I'm just afraid that all those factors will end up meaning no "msx on a chip" for Brazil

as a total newbie to the msx scene ( don't even have an msx ) i can tell you this machine might bring new people to the msx scene. I am saving up money to buy one when it comes out, hoping it won't be too expensive... So far it looks like a great machine with just the right connectivity. I'd kind of wish the msx association maintains an official core so that the user base won't be split amonst 12 different innofficial msx cores. While i agree that people will be able to do all sorts of things with the hardware, i'd like that the msx association keeps an official core. This doesn't mean they have to refuse any kind of mod, but i'd wish they'd act as moderators to what goes in the core and what doesn't.

Anyways, i don't know a lot about msx... yet.

Welcome to the forums, Xonox! It looks like you already did quite some investigations on the One Chip MSX. Letting MSX Association maintain the MSX standard by deciding to implement (or not to implement) user-made extensions doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. Of course it should also be possible to bundle your software with VHDL code, e.g. like Konami built their games with SCC...

(P.S. I'm quite curious on how you found out about MSX/one chip MSX ^_^)

I found out about the one chip MSX thru the C-One mailing list, someone posted about it, then i did some link clikcing and came across msx.org (which i already knew about 'cause i like 8 bit computers and msx.org is a cool site )

The whole point to my previous post was that i wouldn't want of a computer i need to reflash the core every day or so. I want a stable base to code on, cause if i get one, it won't stay in the closet.

And thanks to this site, i was able to read more one-chip-msx stuff. Man it looked nice with that saturn usb pad and mac keyboard in a pic i saw...

I hope you can still connect it to both a tv and a vga screen. I got both and since it looks like one small unit, i'd play on tv and code with the monitor...

To end up this post about my little story, i was interested in the Commodore One project but i think the new msx will suit me better.

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Welcome to the forums, Xonox! It looks like you already did quite some investigations on the One Chip MSX. Letting MSX Association maintain the MSX standard by deciding to implement (or not to implement) user-made extensions doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. Of course it should also be possible to bundle your software with VHDL code, e.g. like Konami built their games with SCC... (P.S. I'm quite curious on how you found out about MSX/one chip MSX ^_^)