Bazix reveals more info on One Chip MSX

Ehum, poke-1,170... it is NOT a real MSX. In fact, is an MSX on an FPGA with *nearly* full MSX compatibility, with some thing missing and some others added.

This sounds great!!!

(but where is the cassette port?? )

They should make it a TurboR, then noone can complain about the cassetteport.

I wanna be able to save and play Arkanoid 2 stages...
I wanna be able to save and play Metal Gear 1 situations...

So don't try to stop us complaining about the missing cassette port, since the MSX standard lists it as a requirement to enable the system to be called MSX in the first place... and as long as that isn't present it can't be called an MSX

But you already have an msx, and prolly a datarec. play those games on *that* system then.. why is it so important to play those games on the newest 2005/2006-system then when you (1) can play those games on your current MSX, (2) can play those games in any emu supporting some sorta tape-emulation (or simply savestates!) and (3) prolly can make VHDL that functions as tape-storage on the SD card..

btw, I've a datarec.. and boy did it suck..

And indeed, let's call it turbo-R instead

since the MSX standard lists it as a requirement to enable the system to be called MSX in the first place

good thing there's something called evolution bifi
I suppose you still listen to 8 tracks and you're on dial up?
standard is defined by the technology of that time...I don't think nishii would prefer a cassette port
over USB these days ^_^

cynical bastard ^_^

if they wanted to evolve MSX with the OCM, they wouldn't have gone for MSX1, MSX2, MSX2+ or MSXturboR. They just would've gone for the next generation of MSX...

The choice for doing MSX1, MSX2 or MSX2+ in the OCM should include everything, including the cassette port. It has ziltch to do with evolving the way it's done now. And why wouldn't Nishi be very opportunistic about a cassette port on USB? Though he would've probably chosen for the seperate cassette port anyway

They want further MSX configurations to breed from within the community itself! Therefor you HAVE to give them a device to work with.
Then, they did strange policy upto now! Did they already told us about the licence the MSX-VHDL-code will be released? ''Therefor you HAVE to give ...'': You? We? -- Or the MSX Association?

Latok, If I understand you correctly, you mean that MSX Association wants the community to come up with our own MSX extensions for the OCM and that for this reasons, MSX Association needs to give us the OCM? If so, then, what will be with this community-made extensions? Are they for free, i.e. may they be spread throughout the community without copyright restrictions? This issues should be made clear before proceeding, before trying to market such a product.

Yes, Latok, that's exactly the point. Do you remember, I once posted a text ''Raising the MSX-tree'' and some other postings in MAF. In these texts, I suggested some possible proceedings on that issue.

The choice for doing MSX1, MSX2 or MSX2+ in the OCM should include everything, including the cassette port.

Although I don't like tapes, I completely agree with BiFi.

Let's take an comparison : as the OCM is always presented as an hardware emulator, it should be like the best software emulators (blueMSX and openMSX) that have support for CAS files in all MSX1, MSX2 and MSX2+ machines.

I piss on the cassete port we had the discusion already...... btw finaly they have listened to the msx scene and now its msx2 by default d\(^_^)/b way to go

The +/- 12v is still an issue. I hope that will be included as well

me too it such a funny issue this whole cassette port hahaha !

someone on micromusic who had an amstrad with tapedeck wrote:

I used to have one when i was a kid, and i tried to make a "game/program" by taking the mouthpiece bit off a recorder (the school instrument) and recording myself making "WEEEEE BIBLBIBLBIBLBEEEEE..." noises through it because it sounded the same as a "loading game"!

Didnt work though.

it is not already too late??

Oh, funny... Jose from Valencia... didn't get that... just a question, poke: what was your intention?. To try to make jokes about spanish users or what?. People wanting an MSX with tape io ports are idiots or what?.

nice idea, provided I know how to write VHDL I'm sure there are people far more capable than I of writing such a support...

msd, you can try... though fail misserably... There is support for tapes on MSXturboR lately, remember (of which one is developed by me, though not yet released). besides, if you want an MSXturboR, happy bidding on ebay or something

haha no viejo, I just noticed that it's mainly people NOT from holland who want cassette ports.
Maybe dutch were more lucky with having philips and sony...for some reason dutch don't realy
care for casports. Others seem to for some strange reason

np, poke. For example, I have +150 tapes... so you can imagine

or,if it's for games...I'm sure there's a link that should not be shared...
then comes a good question:if you have the original,are you allowed to have a
rom dump for preserving your games?

uh ok, viejo: just what I wrote at the start of this thread: you *already have* an MSX which supports cas. You won't sell this MSX, won't you? Why do you find it so important to have the 1cm having a cas-port? (and don't come up with 'MSX-standard', because that's ultimately LAME) You can use the new technology (SD card) for all your new projects, and keep the old MSX for your cas-stuff. Gradually you might even convert all the tapes so you can use them with disks, SD, ..

The 'evolution' of the MSX standard is certainly there, BiFi, even out of the box. Just as was the case with the turboR -and I never heard anyone complain about that- we lost a cassette port for more than understandable reasons, but we gained an MSX2 with lots of memory, a hot-swappable FAT16 compatible (no patch needed!) SD card slot, FM and SCC in stereo and -most importantly- a design that allows any One Chip MSX owner to improve the performance of the One Chip MSX. The examples of relatively simple improvements were mentioned often enough. Faster Z80? More sprites? Higher resolutions? MSX2+ hardware scrolling? The default configuration of the One Chip MSX is just the starting point for the further evolution of the MSX standard.

poke &hff,&haaa, YES, it is allowed to make a copy of your original for your own preservation. It's not only allowed, it is also a RIGHT you have. That opens a discussion on copy protections which make it impossible to make this preservation copy and therefor, are in conflict with this right you have.....Interesting stuff

Indeed, downloading MP3's is also legal, as long as you don't share them, indeed ^_^

that's printer needles

Wolf_: Well, I'm not into the MSX for its possible evolution. I'm here beacuse years ago I played tons of nice games using a superb computer,those nostalgic moments came to my mind, and now I'm enjoying it again, even developing for it. Again, enjoying THAT computer I HAD in the past: no SD-cards, no diskette, etc... So the fact is not that the ocm must have this or that: perhaps the ocm is not a gadget made for me . I really love the old MSX1 feelin'... you prefer the TurboR one. But that's ok, people into the C64 aren't necessary AMIGA users, ya know

(my prev. reply was a reply @ Tanni)

Viejo: you would have the same nostalgia feeling if all msx computers had a diskdrive by default, meaning that the storage-medium was only there because of the time being, not because it was so important to the computer itself.

So, you're saying you prefer to wait minutes on something that could be loaded in seconds, just for that nostalgia-feeling??

Wolf_: [o_o] "Anyway, I will steal those smiley tapes, if you won't use them, muahaha!"

indeed..

Let's say that if ppl want to wait on tapes for whatever reason, there already *is* a computer for that: the current crop o' MSX'es minus the tR. It's not like when ppl buy a 1cm that no-one can play tapes anymore.. ofcourse you can: on your old MSX..

So except for software issues (trying to access the cas port) I still don't see why the 1cm should have a cas-port.

Without disturbing the discussion, but I'm pretty sure that *if* the 1cm will be made, there's NOT going to be ANY physical cas-port on it..

I'll continue supporting tape format and cassette interface, that's all I can say. Call it barebone standard if you want to, but this is what I used when I was a kid and what I'm currently using. Probably if I could have got a disk drive back in the 80s I wouldn't be able to see to point about cassettes today.

It's part of the MSX legacy, isn't it?

Maybe some bright spark could design a cartridge with a cassette porton it, then we could also use tapes on the TurboR, would there be a demand for such a product? would it need +/- 12v to work?

If you are so bothered about cassettes then get an interface made?

NOW.... I WANT A MSX IN ONE CHIP!

Let's say that if ppl want to wait on tapes for whatever reason, there already *is* a computer for that: the current crop o' MSX'es minus the tR. It's not like when ppl buy a 1cm that no-one can play tapes anymore.. ofcourse you can: on your old MSX..

wolf_: face the fact that even an old MSX can get defective sometime!

Edwin: See this picture: www.msx.org/photo305gal66.html

It's a matter of years.. and you can't get tapes anymore. Heck, eventually even HD-disks will get obsolete, let alone DD-disks.

But we can jump high or low on the subject, except for 3rd-party USB-cas-extensions, vhdl-code simulating tape on SD-cards, or stuff like this, I don't expect any cas-connector on the 1cm once it's out.

But ofcourse you could send a protest-email to MSXA in JP..

Or.. do snailmail instead.. that's more nostalic :P
(not to mention travelling with the Orient-Express and additional means of transport)

Are you sure that tapes or cassettes aren't available anymore? Aren't they still used for music recording? Ok, maybe once also music will only be recorded on digital media. But why not keeping both possibilities? Why should analog technology die out? There are still people who like the sound of ''Röhrenverstärker'', amplifiers built on evacuated glass tubes. Yes, nowadays, you can emulate this sound on digital equipement!

Are you sure that tapes or cassettes aren't available anymore?

'eventually'.. which I meant with "matter of years"

anyway.. doesn't change a bit to the subject, doesn't it? The 1cm won't have a cas-connector out of the box I'm sure.. wanna bet?

Latok: vinyl can't really be compared.. when you start the vinyl, it already plays... tape@msx doesn't give you anything until it's done loading..

I want the 14-pin printer connector on the OCM.
I have a nice VW0030 matrix printer i want to use with the OCM
Maybe MSXA can do that for me...

Darn, reminds me: i am out of those ink-ribbons
(last one had expire date 22-04-1986 on it)
So they just have to produce some of them as well

OCM does support printer, how do you connect a modern printer to a PC ? though a USB port! all it needs is someone to write some VHDL code! USB to parallel printer cables are avaliable, I dont really think this is a great issue.

Software that checks for a live printer port using the INP(&h90) command will have a problem, but then ASCII have always maintained that a BIOS routine should be used rather than accessing the ports directly.... opps! Time for yet another software rewrite! Since the OCM allows you to reprogram the code VHDL code from MSXDOS a suitable program should be able to written using VHDL code to connect a printer via USB. It should be possible to get alternative printer drivers for the OCM, an interesting thought?

Whether you can buy parallel->usb converters or whatever isn't even the issue. The question is: would ANYone connect his old MSX matrixprinter to the 1cm that way, and seriously use it?

I don't think ppl are really concerned about genuine MSX-printers that much ^_^

I strongly recommend you to upgrade your PC systems with this ultimate technology. :P

pitpan, look at wolf's reaction on September 21 2005, 16:55. Or here ^_^

Actually, being more ON-TOPIC and more serious , I want to say that NOW for me, MSX IN ONE CHIP is a "must have". I know that it's not 100% MSX without tape port (Actually, when you want to test some beta code or beta roms, it's very practical), but this new improvements have chanched me my own view about MSX IN ONE CHIP. I wanted MSX 2 support and 2 slots, and there are now.

HOPE, that there will be some "disk emulator" because as you know, PRO TRACKER only runs from it's disk because it's special configuration. Also, it will be able to run MSX-DOS 1 for some games and apps (some compilations I have on disk)

Now, I will wait for a new pre-order... or for the selling. I think that MSXA and new partner must produce this new and better MSX IN ONE CHIP without PRE-ORDER.

Yours,

Are you sure that tapes or cassettes aren't available anymore?

'eventually'.. which I meant with "matter of years"

But today, you can still get them?

wolf_, from a certain point of view, you are exactly right with your opinion concerning the cas port. The interesting thing is, that there are always other points of views possible! Taking them into account will make things more sophisticated, more ''thought through'' more thrilling, more fascinating ... Decisions made on taking into account of many points of views are always better than decisions made on just one point of view. So, what would be the disadvantage of having a cas port on the OCM? It would cost a little more. It would use a few pins more, it would occupy a few CLBs more. That's all. If you consider MSX as a system compared to other systems from the 80th, you will find that MSX was more ''thought through'', more open to future expansions than theses other systems. But now, we're not at the beginning, so we have a past, a history of our system. We should not get in contradiction to that past. You maybe will be right with your opinion, that cas port will only be used by a very small group of people nowadays. But how can you know? Maybe with the revival, cas usage will increase for nostalgical reasons? While loading, you can do other things. See project EGG: They consider the 8-bit-games as cultural heritage and try to keep or to reconstruct them. Why not also keeping and reconstructing hardware? Even a tape is part of that heritage. Another point of view: Maybe sometime, there will be no moving parts on a computer anymore, no motors driving disks or CDs, but sensor keys, voice input, maybe thought input, ... It would be modern, yes, but do you really think that's better? Human beings need sensory input, they need to feel the keyboard, hear the motor of the disk or CD, need to see interferences on the TV set while saving or loading a file or even while accessing the video RAM, need to see the cassette turning. Human beings need some feedback on that what they do, remember the beep sound when pressing a key on a computer like the VZ200 with rubber keyboard. I have a Hitachi cassette recorder form 1981. I like the switches to use. It feels good to turn e.g. Dolby on or off. Or, think of an old radio set with the green light of the evacuated glass tube for the amplifier: It's a wonderful colour. There's a perceivable click if you turn it on. That's not only nostalgia, that's human technolgy. Yes, sensor keyboards are much cheeper, but the other things I mentioned are much more accomodated to human beings.

Tanni, you just moved me, emotionally. Thx And of course you are right. And we probably all know what you mean. That's why we're here in this scene anyway, aren't we? We understand eachother.
Yes!

It's just that I for one believe that the OCM shouldn't be used for hardware preservation like data recorders. We can use our real MSX computers for that purpose.
All my MSX1 are defective, so I can't use them for reading tapes! I think that the OCM is some kind of an intermediate product. If it doesn't succeed, commercial MSX revival will be most likely dead! (Maybe non commercial MSX revival will go on forever!) Hardware preservation can't be done with the OCM. But if there's a cas port, software preservation will be possible, even if there will be errors. There must be further processing (reconstruction) of the contents of tapes with read errors, of course. If there's software for doing that, the OCM could be used for the preservation of tape-based software, so there could be support for project EGG by everyone who will purchase the OCM. Preservation of classical MSX hardware and developing new MSX hardware (possibly MSX3) will be some steps further. We must go step by step!

funny how Tanni stated the 1cm is the commercial revival and Latok stated it being the amateur revival.

funny how Tanni stated the 1cm is the commercial revival and Latok stated it being the amateur revival.
To be more precise, the OCM is both, the commercial revival and, based on the commercialisation of the OCM, the amateur revival as well. You first need new ''official'' MSX hardware. Because these hardware is FPGA-based, you not only can develop software for the OCM, but hardware too. Thus, you don't need professional hardware developer for new products, if these ''amateur'' modifications only affect the VHDL sources.

To be more precise, the OCM is both, the commercial revival and, based on the commercialisation of the OCM, the amateur revival as well. You first need new ''official'' MSX hardware. Because these hardware is FPGA-based, you not only can develop software for the OCM, but hardware too. Thus, you don't need professional hardware developer for new products, if these ''amateur'' modifications only affect the VHDL sources.

Exactly! Now if everyone would understand this. Thank you, Tanni.

I need cassette port so that I can do:

10 MOTOR:GOTO10

Wolf: you didn't use the WAVeRed edition of Goonies. It just takes 25 seconds to load. It's still slower that floppies, IDEs and SCSIs, but it works fine. And remember that the MSX1 boot process is shorter than in the MSX2/2+/Turbo-R. No disk check=speed!

For me there is some nostalgia in tape loading, really. Specially when it uses one of those blinky bars loader, with the intro screen and another 10 minutes loading! It makes you paranoid: will it load this time? No checksum error? No I/O Error? These are real emotions!

I really don't see the point in waiting 10mins on something that can be loaded in a splitsecond, but alas..

Not to mention having more than 1 game on a tape and having to search the tape each time to find one specific game..

Anyway, again, no matter who's in or who's out ... I bet you the 1cm won't have a physical cas-port out of the box.. so there's the conclusion of the story

Who cares about the tape!!
This is a dummy discussion, if the demand exists
(and it doesn't) someone will develop an HW addon.
All I need is and msx2 and a CF card as a floppy.
That's all

Repeating good arguments isn't boring; waiting 10 minutes for loading is!

With all these add-ons, what will be the final "free RAM" of the OCM? I mean, when you boot the thing normally and get into BASIC, what would display the PRINT FRE(0) statement?

I say this because there's a lot of software that needs at least 25 KB of free RAM in BASIC, mainly MSX1 games originally published in cassette.

On the May 2005 prototype, a ?fre(0) gives 25298 bytes free.

Could be done indeed, but seriously: would it change anything?

that's what I mean: do a poll.. it's nice purely for the statistics, but it isn't gonna change a bit to the course of the eventual 1cm..

perhaps,instead of soiling this original topic, we should create a "whine all you want about cassetteports" topic
sorry for the bad joke at the start...please kick me out of MRC

Yes, but It will be possible to load PROTRACKER from DSK image, for example? A new MSX hope will be... MSX Compatible. Protracker disk is selfboot as you know.

Yours,

The coder of ProTracker (Michiel Spoor) doesn't have his MSX anymore and is not interested in something like that.
But I know there is a file version of ProTracker as well. It was cracked by someone a long time ago. If I remember correctly, it was Marie van den Broek of The Games BBS. But that was somewhere early 90's.
Maybe someone has version lying around?

But... On the other hand: This way you are making a workarround, while the OCM should be able to boot such disks in some way, or it's simply not a decent MSX system....

spl: you can boot protracker using EP, and you can use up to 8 'user disks' with it to store/load your music on. Should be sufficient, don't you think?

When you run software on an MSX emulator in Windows XP, does that MSX software have to support NTFS as well? No it does not? Why? Exactly Same goes for running disk images on the One Chip MSX using EP. I'l check wheter FAT12 partitions can be used on SD cards natively as well, but I see no reason why that would not be the case. At least the fat12 partitions on compacflash worked like a charm

And with that post, spl, this newspost has the record of the biggest amount of reactions

No.#2 also has its share of cassette-issues btw ^_^

DS or HD ?

( *thinks DS are obsolete )

<Quibus> Wolf_: DS or HD?
<Quibus> Tell me what those abbrevs mean
<Wolf_> doublesided or highdensity
<Wolf_> (disks)
<Quibus> yes
<Quibus> But HD disks are also double sided
<Quibus> It's not the amount of sides, it's the density
<Quibus> 720kB == DS DD
<Quibus> 1440kB == DS HD
<AuroraMSX> btw, I've never seen SS HD ^_^
<Quibus> 360kB == SS DD or DS SD
<Quibus> and that all exists.
<Wolf_> well, I guess prolly everyone got the idea ... (except you perhaps ^_^)
<Quibus> Andindeed, SS HD doesn't
<Quibus> Wolf_: I got the idea, but I wanted you to know how things are
* Wolf_ very low interests @ stone-age hardware ^_^
<Quibus> right
<AuroraMSX> So, what's the choice: 720k vs 1.44MB (DD vs HD) or 360k vs 720k (SS DD vs DS DD) ?
<Quibus> choice? where?
<Quibus> oh in his OP
<Quibus> http://www.msx.org/Bazix-reveals-more-info-on-One-Chip-MSX.newspost3290.html
<Quibus> I think floppies are obsolete
<Quibus> But for MSX they're very useful :)
<Wolf_> ofcourse I was referring to 720k vs 1.44mb
<AuroraMSX> ah, ok
<Wolf_> single-sided should die eveh harder :D

ah well, just amusing you folks :P

(oh my! I posted a piece of IRC log!!)

The last time someone made IRC-log public we were facing a 100++ reply-rave..

You really want this newspost to hit 200, do you?

Hanso: Very good

I propose to slightly ennance the VDP introducing new modes
I would like to have those minor upgrades

1) 16 I/O for address and data (end of the blody addressing at 14bits)
2) VDP CMD's in any screen mode (CMD's are usefull also in scr4 !!)
3) enabling the EC as a single bit in the Sprite attribute table also in sprite mode 2 (patch of the crappy sprite management of x coordinate)

ARTAG: The v9958 can do commands in every mode

and the WSX (post no 150 )

tssk.

But in that case, the scene-influence will be based on scene-democracy! Most votes count .. if that means that most ppl don't want a cas-port, then there'll be no cas-port

(when do ppl start to realise that msxA *won't* add any cas-port, ever .. ask them! )

Sjoerd, that would be very simple just a question of that MSXA/CESA deliver the driver for it.
Wolf and Tanni, the MSX all in one is a matter as heard of programming yourself or by others.
The controller part of a casport and also moonsound has to be written in VHDL code.
But for both you need also a piece of real hardware on board.
E.g, connectors and I donot know of hardware further. And as far as I can conclude that the adaption of +12v and -12v will even not occur. Oke there is a solution via a slotexpander, but then you get not that small computer you want

Sjoerd, that would be very simple just a question of that MSXA/CESA deliver the driver for it.
I would like to have a disk drive, too!

Wolf and Tanni, the MSX all in one is a matter as heard of programming yourself or by others. The controller part of a casport and also moonsound has to be written in VHDL code.
Yes, but coding isn't the matter.

But for both you need also a piece of real hardware on board. E.g, connectors and I donot know of hardware further.
That's exactly the matter! Wolf says, that, because of almost nobody will use the casport anymore, it can be omited to save a little money. I'm the opinion, that the additional costs for such a port -- and even the moonsound power supply -- are minimal and therefore should be accepted due to increased usability of the OCM, even if maybe only a view will use it. The moonsound maybe will have lots of more users!

And as far as I can conclude that the adaption of +12v and -12v will even not occur. Oke there is a solution via a slotexpander, but then you get not that small computer you want
If we are given the OCM to do VHDL programming by our own, then why don't we have some influence in what does the OCM board contain? Having casport and moonsound power supply already on board will save lots of additional costs and work and posting fees if somebody wants his OCM updated with that features.

Tanni - the decision to make the One Chip MSX FPGA based and the decisions to make the One Chip MSX MSX2 compatible with 2 cartridge slots and an extra config-ROM were all taken following the feedback of the MSX community.
Yes, of course!

You make it seem like the MSX community had no influence on it at all, whatsoever, which simply is not the case.
I never really believed that the MSX community has no influence, but from a point of view from which is not BAZIX's view, one could get the impression that it is like that. It seems to me that, the influence the community has is rather indirect!

... and given the low amount of people who would like to see these periherals (and the even lower amount of people who would actually use them ) I don't see why the costs of the One Chip MSX should increase for everybody just to make this non-silent-minority happy. At least I think you would agree with me that the improvements that have been announced recently (see the newsposts some 150 reactions above ^_^) are far more essential.
On MSX, I only used very few cassettes. If you have read my postings thoroughly, you will have noticed that I understand Wolf's point of view. I only wanted to point out that there are also good arguments for having cas port. You must always look at both sides. This lacks in this discussion. But yes, I agree with you that the improvements recently announced here are far more essential!

A LS-120 isnot that easy to get anymore snout, unfortunately.
Sonic I admire youre contribute but it is very unwise to think that it is only a question of a Moonsound. How many people do have a rs232c interface, how many people have msx-audio, how many would like if a FMpac isnot included /or want to remove the code in order to make something new. Since that is what you are talking about !
I assure you that you are more than 13 people

Why do you think I mention it.
But to be fair I mention also [products that will work.
GFX9000, cf-interface ,normal ide ,game cartridges.
And as said if you connect an expander it will solve also the problem.But that extra costs it isnot worth unless you have one.
I estimate that costs on 22 euro , the as that been asked for in the previous pre-ordering for the update to msx2.
So I would have paid for that instead of an update.
But the situation was different then.