I just got a Sony HB-F1 II which is a Japanese MSX2 w/ 64K RAM, 128KB VRAM, and two cart slots. So far I have been able to load some MSX1 games through the cassette port like Zanac (one of my favorites on the NES) by using WAVER.

I would like to have a (hard)disk drive and more RAM. I have seen the IDE interface on Sunrise's homepage, would it work on this MSX? Any other recommendations? Are there a lot of programs that run only from a floppy and not from a harddisk?

If these expansions are hard to get I might try making my own cartdrige with ROM/RAM but I'm not sure about how addressing works... If I want to add more RAM, which slot/page does it go in? How much RAM can you have without the mapper at $FFFF?

Thanks for the help.

Quote:

I just got a Sony HB-F1 II which is a Japanese MSX2 w/ 64K RAM, 128KB VRAM, and two cart slots. So far I have been able to load some MSX1 games through the cassette port like Zanac (one of my favorites on the NES) by using WAVER. I would like to have a (hard)disk drive and more RAM. I have seen the IDE interface on Sunrise's homepage, would it work on this MSX? Any other recommendations? Are there a lot of programs that run only from a floppy and not from a harddisk? If these expansions are hard to get I might try making my own cartdrige with ROM/RAM but I'm not sure about how addressing works... If I want to add more RAM, which slot/page does it go in? How much RAM can you have without the mapper at $FFFF? Thanks for the help.

You will enjoy the Sunrise IDE controller if you are able to add more RAM. An external memory mapper is the easiest way to do that. Those two extensions will fill both slots though, so a slotexpander is alos advisable.
A method for an internal RAM upgrade for this Sony machine is unknown to me, for many others machines descriptions are available on my website.
Anyway, you will need a floppy drive to get started with the IDE controller.

Some hints:
1) AFAIK the SUnrise IDE won't work without an already present diskROM in the machine, so you need a machine with a diskdrive to be able to use it
2) You really want a normal diskdrive as well. Really. Although a lot of software runs from harddisk, also a lot does not. And see previous point.
3) It's possible to expand the RAM of many MSXes internally. However, the HB-F1II is very rare in Europe, so I don't know anyone who did this and who thus can explain this to you in English. You can also buy separate memory expansion cartridges, which have a memory mapper.
4) If you want more RAM, you *need* a memory mapper. If you put it in a normal slot like plain RAM, it's no use, as there's hardly software that will use it like that.

My advice: buy another MSX2 which has more RAM and a disk drive. They can be quite cheap to get, especially from the Netherlands. I think e.g. Bas Kornalijnslijper sells nice machines which have a lot of expansions. He's on eBay.

Quote:

Anyway, you will need a floppy drive to get started with the IDE controller.

Is it? I always thought the Sunrise IDE interface has a Disk ROM of its own... Otoh, it makes sense when you say you'll need an FDD to copy the MSXDOS2.SYS and COMMAND2.COM from...

RAM upgrades are available through eBay, I suggest you take a look there. As your profile isn't public, I guess you're from the UK or the US. Would you live in Brazil, I'd suggest that you should take a look at Ademir Carchano's website for hardware. In case you'd live in Spain, be sure to check out Leonardo Padial's website for some decent hardware. I'm sure both will ship internationally, simply send a mail. But, as said, eBay might be more convenient and the hardware is just as good.

Quote:

1) AFAIK the SUnrise IDE won't work without an already present diskROM in the machine, so you need a machine with a diskdrive to be able to use it

OK, I was too late on that one... Thanks manuel

But sunrise already wrote many times - if you have preformatted CF card you can use CF-IDE on a diskless machine.

Look at the pictures of the barcelona fair 2005.
However, in this case as hanso told you, ram upgrade is one, second since the new user of a msx has not a msx-2 with a drive to make a preformatted cf-card( thus cax is also right too ~!) so that it runs in good order he must have a diskdrive.
So, the best option is to buy a msx-2 second hand, that is cheaper than buying extra ram plus a drive mostly built in.
I have still an extra NMS8245 with built in drive and enough ram.
But if you bought a msx-2 extra, my advise is to upgrade your rare computer also to 128 Kb or more

This Sony MSX has all the chips soldered on the board. In fact it has some SMT parts that are floating in cutouts in the PCB with the pins soldered to the underside (something that I have never seen until now). Internal modifications would probably be too difficult.

It seems like formatting the flash card (actually I don't have any flash cards, I'd rather use 2.5" IDE) should be possible on a PC, even if a utility has to be written. But first I need RAM anyways...

I might decide to buy another MSX later but I got this one because the price was relatively low, even after shipping here to New York, and it works with 110VAC and NTSC.

one more question: Does memory mapper have to be in slot 3? In blueMSX configurations it seems to always be there.

The memory mapper can be in any slot. If you look at the *original* blueMSX configs (or most openMSX configs), you see that it varies. However, I think most of them are in slot 3. At least the ones of Philips and Sony that I know by heart.

Quote:

one more question: Does memory mapper have to be in slot 3? In blueMSX configurations it seems to always be there

Not always, but most of the generic and special machines have indeed the memory mapper in slot 3.

We have also some machines with the memory mapper in slot 0, 1 or 2. Even in the generic machines : see the MSX2 Korean !

OK, I am coming to understand the slot/subslot and memory mapper scheme now. Thanks for the help.

I see that this computer has the S1985 which contains a memory mapper, although it only uses 2x 4464 chips. The MA14-18 pins are currently unconnected on the board. Does anyone know if schematics already exist on the web to build a memory expansion in this situation?

Don't know exactly for sure, but you can surely try HansO's site. It has loads of nice schematics on it

I wired up a 512KBx8 SRAM chip (628512) in my cart slot but it seems to be a bit problematic. I loaded testram (also using waver) and it reports 256KB in slot 1 now. I don't know why 256K and not 512K.

Apparently the ROM in this machine has a problem with this config though. It seems that it is not initializing the memory properly anymore and when I turn it on various strange things will happen.

It turns out that in blueMSX it won't boot at all with this configuration (Sony ROMs, 64K in slot 3/3 and mapped RAM in slot 1). Although I have noticed that on my MSX when I get to BASIC the mapper registers always read 131,130,129,128 but in the emu they all read 255.

http://www.hyakushiki.net/junk/msxram.jpg

Quote:

(Sony ROMs, 64K in slot 3/3 and mapped RAM in slot 1

System ROMs (BIOS & BASIC) need to be in slot 0, subROM can be in another slot. RAM is usually in slot 3.
Take a look at the config of e.g the Sony HB-F700D ...

Quote:

Although I have noticed that on my MSX when I get to BASIC the mapper registers always read 131,130,129,128 but in the emu they all read 255.

AFAIK, the MSX standard defines the mapper registers as write-only; although most machine will return a value that is somehow related to the selected mapper block in a page, there is no guarantee that this value will be correct.

Quote:

AFAIK, the MSX standard defines the mapper registers as write-only; although most machine will return a value that is somehow related to the selected mapper block in a page, there is no guarantee that this value will be correct.

The mapper registers are read and write, see the MSX2 Mapper Specification in the Technical Handbook:

http://www.funet.fi/pub/msx/mirrors/hanso/hwdoityourself/msx2th16.pdf