I wonder what this does to the selling figures of the moonsound, a device still used and produced.

Is this the end for MSX hardware?


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Topic title changed because it got misinterpreted. This discussion is about emulated hardware vs. the real thing. Not about any organisations' hardware in specific. We're very sorry for the inconvenience caused!
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imo emulation will never beat the real thing.
no matter how good an emulator is, I still rather use my real msx

I prefer the real thing over emulation any day. I don't think it'll go that fast anyway.

For (cross-)development purposes it can be quite useful to have these things emulated in case you want to use them.

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a device still used and produced

The MoonSound has been sold out and is not produced anymore. I think it will be reproduced once a number of people order one, and as chaos said, MSX 'fans' rather want to have the real thing: don't we all have a real MSX ?

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Is this the end for Sunrise hardware?

Why would it be ? It's not like MoonSound is the only thing that comes from SunRise: http://www.msx.ch/


And if you think it's unfair towards Sunrise that the MoonSound gets emulated; the timing couldn't be more fair; MoonSound=sold out.

Indeed. Emulators will never beat the real thing. There is still a very vivid trade in original game software and original hardware, just ask Bas Kornalijnslijper. I don't see the Moonsound emulation have any negative effect on Sunrise Hardware division. In fact, I see the possibility more OPL4 songs will come! Just because of the fact more people are able to use the existing OPL4 MSX software!

I think emulation of the OPL4 could even have a positive effect on Moonsound sales (f they weren't sold out that is), because now people have an opportunity to try before they buy.

Furthermore a lot of people don't have the memory yet to be able to run Meridian on their real MSX-es. Now they can try on their PC

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I think emulation of the OPL4 could evrnhave a positive effect on Moonsound sales (f they weren't sold out that is), because now people have an opportunity to try before they buy. Furthermore a lot of people don't have the memory yet to be able to run Meridian on their real MSX-es. Now they can try on their PC

I'm totally right with you snout. Moonsound emulation will let us try out the hardware before buying. If it fit my propurses, then I'll buy it for sure I'll never change my Turbo-R GT fully equiped by any emulator ;P

Emulation rocks!

All the trouble you've to take to get meridian running (dos2, 512k ram, and 512k extra moonsound sRam + a CF reader/harddisk if you are serious about samples) is piece of cake for an emulator.

thumbs-up for emulation!

Well hearing all this rubbish. Moonsound can still be produced over 300 if people want and still want.
I believe and still believe that people wants the real stuff and that show they every time
I time ago i had the believe the demand for ide and moonsound was over
We get still orders and the turnover in tilburg was really great and even better than in 1994 the top year in tilburg, despite bad organization , people who didnot visit the second floor.
So as long as the public wants i5t we contine. Despite all those negatives mails overhere to get rid of sunrise

Great talking sunrise

I think the title of this topic is easily misinterpreted. Sunrise isn't going to stop making Moonsounds or other hardware. We need them! (I won't even let them stop ).

The point Sander is or was trying to make is that emulation might one day become that good that people don't need the real hardware anymore. If so, do they still want it?

Interesting point to that: It is theoretically possible to create hardware on an emulator, before actually making that hardware. Quite abstract, but it can be done.

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Interesting point to that: It is theoretically possible to create hardware on an emulator, before actually making that hardware. Quite abstract, but it can be done.

Which would turn MSX into a virtual machine specification. Quite useless if you ask me ^^;

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So as long as the public wants i5t we contine. Despite all those negatives mails overhere to get rid of sunrise

No-one is saying Sunrise should stop. The topic is stated as a question and is merely food for discussion. Afterall, this is a discussion forum.

I think emulation of MoonSound (and Gfx9000) is a good thing. Only MSX'ers that own actual MSX machines are potential buyers of this hardware, but nowadays there are a lot of MSX'ers that purely use emulators. Therefor, emulation of this hardware will give any software that uses it a broader audience.

If anything, it will increase the popularity of these hardware extensions! A win-win situation

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I think emulation of MoonSound (and Gfx9000) is a good thing. Only MSX'ers that own actual MSX machines are potential buyers of this hardware, but nowadays there are a lot of MSX'ers that purely use emulators. Therefor, emulation of this hardware will give any software that uses it a broader audience.

And since openMSX will be the first MSX emulator with Moonsound support as they're working on that right now, I think it'll be here sooner than we think.

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And since openMSX will be the first MSX emulator with Moonsound support as they're working on that right now, I think it'll be here sooner than we think.

If you ask me: next release of openMSX has Moonsound emulation. It already works quite well at the moment.