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MSX2 Technical Handbook available as markdown files in a GitHub repository

by konamiman on 10-01-2019, 17:53
Topic: Development
Languages:

Almost 22 years ago Konamiman manually digitized the English version of MSX2 Technical Handbook, converting it to a suite of text files easily readable from any computer. Now he has just released an update to that project by converting these text files to nicely formatted markdown files and hosting them in a Git repository in GitHub. Not only makes this the text even easier to read, it also makes it easier for people to suggest corrections to possible mistakes (by using GitHub's issues and pull requests mechanisms) and to share links to specific sections of the text (like subsection titles, code samples, tables and figures).

If you didn't took a look at this project when it was originally released, now it's a good opportunity to gain some knowledge about the internals of our favorite system!

Relevant link: MSX2 Technical Handbook (repository)
Relevant link: MSX2 Technical Handbook (GitHub pages)

Comments (7)

By hamlet

Scribe (2255)

hamlet's picture

10-01-2019, 19:34

Usually I don't read books anymore. But it seems 2019 is going to get a very "book" year!
Thanks again konamiman!

By TomH

Champion (322)

TomH's picture

10-01-2019, 19:53

This is fantastic!

Query though: what's the proper test for pull requests? E.g. the very first sentence I found was:

"The following features of the MSX-VIDEO give it a better display capabilities than the TMS9918A:"

As a native English speaker I ideally want to eliminate the 'a' but if forced might compromise on just making the 'capabilities' singular. But if what you're looking for is an accurate transcription of the original then, well, I don't have a copy so I don't know, and I don't want to create the burden of someone else having to run off to a source text for every pull request.

So what are your thoughts on copyedits (subject to ad hoc questions of scale and effect, of course) versus mere transcription corrections?

By ro

Guardian (4067)

ro's picture

10-01-2019, 20:52

Nifty!
I started reading more physical books last couple of years. I have this book as hardcopy, somewhere

By Grauw

Enlighted (7961)

Grauw's picture

10-01-2019, 21:14

Neato! The links from the MAP have been updated Smile.

p.s. I use it often! So thanks!

By karloch

Paragon (2033)

karloch's picture

10-01-2019, 23:08

Wow, it must have been a lot of work. Thank you Konamiman!

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (5250)

NYYRIKKI's picture

11-01-2019, 03:30

Oh, this is awesome!

MSX2 Technical Handbook is one of the (if not the) most useful documentation around, but it has always been a bit pain to link to the information inside. Now we don't have this problem anymore! Great work!

By konamiman

Paladin (1006)

konamiman's picture

11-01-2019, 09:12

TomH wrote:

So what are your thoughts on copyedits (subject to ad hoc questions of scale and effect, of course) versus mere transcription corrections?

Copy edits are welcome if they don't alter the original meaning of the text. The goal of the project is to have useful documentation at hand more than having a 100% exact transcription of the original text (and I already did some corrections when I originally typed the text files 22 years ago).

My MSX profile