Spl,yes it would be very good,and it would make symbos the best operating system for msx 
Now i know we maybe requesting lots of things,but up until now Prodatron and all the symbos development team have proved that nothing is impossible for them (i just thought of the old quote right now "The sky is the limit" )
That could be at least another plug-in for SymAmp.
The question is:
- are there source codes available for playing MSX Audio/Music/Music Module/Moonblaster songs? If yes, I could try to integrate them.
- or is there someone willing to add such plugins by himself?
Currently I am not allowed to publish the source code of SymAmp because of the Starkos/Soundtrakker player parts, but for handing it out to some single persons this is not a problem I guess.
Regarding creating music, well, first someone have to write a tracker for SymbOS
As this thread now starts to loose its original discussion idea, I would like to move the current discussion here again and do a little summary:
- GUI "Themes" can be introduced as soon as defineable colours for the different window elements have been implemented. As this really seems to be a very important feature I will put it higher in the todo list.
- currently I am working on the Amstrad PCW (Joyce) port. The special thing about this port is, that SymbOS runs with a very high screen resolution of 720x255 (see here and here). Another thing is, that thanx to the experiences with the MSX port + similiar already existing routines for the MSX and the CPC this port would be done very quickly.
- So I want to come back to the MSX very soon: I have to finish the new Phillips FDC driver and I have to implement the OCM SD card driver - thanx to Alex and Tsujikawa, I got a lot of help here!
- The high resolution of the Joyce started a discussion about the possibilities of a GFX9000 support. So yes, I hope we can start the support of this graphics card this year, too :)
Anyway I am looking forward to the MSX Info Update Party in Helsinki, which is my second pure MSX party ever :RNFF:
Good to bring this thread home where it belongs. Am interested to know what if anything the pcw community? has made of this news. Personally I think ports to Pcw and Enterprise are probably more important than themes and high colour support - though I would like these too. That isn't forgetting the screen pack functions for drawing in windows which I've been on about
Anyway all good stuff
Well, especially you as an UK based one should know best about the PCW scene
The only one I know is John Elliott (the author of the only? (but good!) emulator) and 2-3 fans. Another interesting thing is, that the only PCW user group I found is in The Netherlands (Amsterdam)! :RNFF: So great country in any case! :P
Btw, yes, the Enterprise will be the 4. port, as it's somehow a mixture of MSX (flexible memory mapping, great graphics) and CPC (1:1 same graphic in some simple modes). So the Sam Coupe would be the last one... (the big disadvantages is the 32k memory banking which will make a LOT of additional work while porting the kernel).
And you are going to maintain all those 5 ports by yourself? Maybe you should work towards the development model of Linux? ;-)
Prodatrons work doesn't really need that much maintaining because once it works it works. However if he was tied up for the next few years on the ports and additional core improvements that wouldn't be a bad thing. It really is about time that other developers stood up to the plate and created the applications that a OS of this sort requires and deserves.
Yes, maintaining all the ports at the same time isn't a problem, as it's in general only one source with some exceptions like the Screen and Device manager - but once they are done I usually never need to touch them again. A new feature always appears for all ports at the same time. And the only version which still requires machine specific maintaining is the MSX version
(still a lot of unsupported hardware left)
I DO think that open-sourcing it would be a good idea, though. That way other people could work more on stuff. There's lots of people who want to help but can't... Opensourcing wouldn't even be all that hard: you'd just have to zip up your dev folder and post it to symbos.de (or maybe even start a sourceforge project) That would also have the benefit of if something bad happened, SymbOS could live on.
You could maybe even set up a "dual-licensing" scheme, where the sources are available both under the GPL for people who wish to get it for free and contribute back or under a commercial license for people who want to use the source in a closed embedded device that uses a Z80 and needs an advanced OS but won't/can't give back in terms of their source code changes.
