Disappointed about msxdev

I don't think we'll ever form a team! ^_^

I want to stretch the possibilities and pimp a game where it can be pimped, and imho the best part is that these features would be present for every developer when the rules allow such enhancements. It seems you want to stick to pure-retro.

@Jorito. I and others have exactly the same feeling about MSX2. In my view MSX2 was obsolete already when it was introduced. I looked briefly at MSX2 when I needed something better than MSX1 but I quite easily made decision to go with either Amiga or Atari ST (I chose the latter). So I kept on developing for MSX1 in parallel with developing for Atari ST.

If all focus was entirely on MSX2 I wouldn't have started over with MSX development or emulator development. What drives me is really the MSX1 system. I don't dislike MSX2 and I hope me and Vincent can pull something together for the MRC competition but its really MSX1 that keeps my MSX interest up.

The best solution is probably to make two categories in msxdev, one for more pure MSX1 and one MSX2 (and perhaps a third for wolf_'s pimped MSX1 games ). I definitely see that there is an interest for MSX2 and sure, why not use the leverage of msxdev to inspire more people to develop for MSX2. But imo an MSX1 category is a must.

but the architecture of the MSX1 will keep them down to earth
This is the problem. Coding a game to run on msx1, limits the richness of gfx and sound to the same msx1 level with some ( almost not relevant ) small improvement.

The only way to have a better game, is to code a different version for msx2 and above. But this requires effort (almost the same to rewrite from scratch). Thus the developers stay to the formula:

MSX1 game plus a little modified palette and sc4 for above . Pretty useless.

IMHO a more modified palette does not make the difference on msx2, neither the more sprites on line. (if a game is designed with 4 sprites/line works the same as 8 sprites on line, only a matter of limit, and flickering is a feature of msx1 and successors)

I have no affinity with MSX1 whatsoever (I started with MSX2), therefore all this MSX1 focus is kinda boring to me. I can imagine there's more people that feel the same.

It's quite a pity that all this development energy goes into the most obsolete part of the MSX spec. There's so much more than MSX1.

I must agree, in my point of view i really do not like msx1 systems. (i owned one).

For me a msx1 system is like a pre-generation msx. the msx1 is mainly the reason of the very low success of msx in general in europe, due to :

msx1 vdp- extremely limited

no hw scroll, no rasterline ints, a ridiculus hw sprite support, absence of multicolor support (screen 3, why not a screen mode with blocky pixels made up of 16x16 hires pixels instead of only 4x4 ? bleah!), limited (!) I/O bandwidth, the hires screen mode that is similar to the speccy one.

As nishi said the msx should had a v9938. Even with a similar chip, however was to late. keeping the compatibility also keep bad design and original limitations. (look at the sprite subsystem)

So why keeping this restriction alive, in the past, we msx2 users have already seen this scenario made up of games that are msx1 games.

This is the problem. Coding a game to run on msx1, limits the richness of gfx and sound to the same msx1 level with some ( almost not relevant ) small improvement.
Not completely, it depends on the game type and what kind of screen action you are scheduling. If you want to make Montana John, then you need pattern mode. e.g. screen 2 or screen 4. There's simply too much movement on the screen to let screen 5 cope with that. So, if you're choosing pattern mode, and *if* you are not scrolling (e.g. a page-per-page game) then you can as well support MSX1.