And what about the first really smooth horizontal scroll? 
When did we see that for the first time? 
On MSX2? In 1986, by Radarsoft. With Grotten van Oberon and the Topografie titles.
>> IIRC Bernard Lamers told me that many of the VDP tricks are well documented in ASCII's impressive collection of MSX Databooks. <<
Can't he and/or Rieks translate them? 
There's so many pieces of information locked away in those japanese docs.... 
They would be valuable information for the MSX Assembly Page.
On MSX2? In 1986, by Radarsoft. With Grotten van Oberon and the Topografie titles.
I've got 'Topografie Wereld' and 'De Sekte'
Gonna look at it
Isn't the first screen split the boot screen of the MSX2 (and later 2+) afterall ?
Isn't the first screen split the boot screen of the MSX2 (and later 2+) afterall ? The MSX2 bootscreen is not a screensplit. It copies the logo one line at a time and uses R#23 to scroll it upward. The MSX2+ logo is more advanced. The letters are simply made wider by that print routine. I agree it could've been a screensplit, though it would've been more like a SCREEN6/SCREEN1 screensplit (or more likely SCREEN6/SCREEN5). In SCREEN 0 the characters are closer to each other.