Yes, you all knew it was coming... even when you unconsciously denied it... resisting it was a futile attempt...
The first (afaik) 100% *Javascript* MSX Emulator (jsMSX) is now released, currently in beta version 0.9.1. Check it out at http://jsmsx.sourceforge.net !!
Currently it emulates the underlying Z80 CPU, TMS9918 Video Display Processor (VDP), PPI, RAM slots and Megaram. In its present form, it should be able to run any program or game developed for MSX 1.0.
The initial motivation was to find some interesting project to develop while exploring the possibilities of the new <canvas> tag to efficiently display graphics using Javascript in the most recent web browsers like Firefox 2+. As you may have realized, many challenges on performance are faced when emulating in Javascript. But I think that they present an interesting testbed for pushing the current Javascript implementations to their limits and for comparing their relative speed. jsMSX can also be used to tightly integrate existing MSX programs in web page logic.
Of course, there are still lots of work in order to optimize the performance and add MSX 2.0, 2.0+ and TurboR features. Version 1.0 will release an optimized javascript engine for MSX 1.0. Version 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 will be compatible with MSX 2.0, 2.0+ and TurboR respectively. If you like javascript, are just curious or would like to engage in a performance challenge, don't forget to download the source code and contribute back to it.
I would like to invite everybody to check it out, play, enjoy it and report all the bugs to the project forum.
Best,
Marcus Granado
) 
