I just bought a Philips NMS8245 and I have many questions.

Supporter (3)

18-02-2011, 07:14

Hello everybody. I am very new member to a very old technology - MSX - bying a Philips NMS8245. I am a programmer since 1983 (spectrum zx) and the first operating system I use was CPM and MSDOS 3.2 .
The main problem was that the books were in dutch. I have opened the cover to check the status of diskete drive's belt and I found a board about 15mm x 10mm fastened on the bottom case under the keyboard with pieces of paper tape and 5 - 6 wires connected on main board.

- What on earth is this board?
- Can I load MSXDOS2 on this machine? It does not boot from MSXDOS2 diskete.
- Why "Formula 2.51 diskete copier" does not start the copy procedure but returns to its main menu?
- Is there any upgrade or update that should have and where can I find it?
- Can I connect a standard dot matrix printer to MSX Parallel port?

I don't like to use emulators or PC to learn this machine. I want to collect assembler, disassembler and other utilitis to run them on MSX and not on PC. I have no cartridges or other software except MSXDOS 1.01.

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By MsxKun

Paragon (1134)

18-02-2011, 09:19

Heyas!

To boot DOS2 you need the DOS2 ROM, internally, or with a SD or CF cartridge that includes it.
Any centronics printer should be usable with MSX, i think.
About expansions, there are so many..! It depends what you want to do. A SD or CF reader is always nice, expecially if you wanna use DOS2. Then you can store lot of softare on a card, and forget about floppies. Check at Sunrise (CF) or Padial (SD).

No idea about the board or the diskette copier. Welcome and... MSX is not so very old

By luppie

Paladin (869)

18-02-2011, 09:28

- I'll guess it's a 7Mhz board. Can you post a picture or tell us what kind of parts are on it with their type numbers ?
- You can load MSXDOS 2 on it, but you will need a DOS2 cardridge or a cardridge lik Sunrise IDE with DOS2 in it, or you can build DOS2 into the machine by adding an extra rom (check DIY @ http://www.bas-ditta.info/ )
- Dont know this one,maybe it needs 2 drives
- Also check http://www.bas-ditta.info/ for all different kind of upgrades
- Most printers that understands the Generic driver standard works on MSX

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6093)

18-02-2011, 10:51

- Can I connect a standard dot matrix printer to MSX Parallel port?
Yes, most of the software works fine with "Epson compatible" printers.

If you want complete development pack, then I recommend you to buy Compass. Using TED as text editor and GEN80 (Devpack 2) as assembler is quite a good option as well. For debug I recommend SUPER-X. Z80DIS (CP/M) is a good disassembler.

If you are familiar with CP/M and MSDOS, then using MSX-DOS should be walk in a park. MSX-DOS is compatible with CP/M programs, but includes also MSDOS like BDOS routines.

- Is there any upgrade or update that should have and where can I find it?
Anything special in mind? There exists hundreds of extensions for MSX. MSX-Music, MSX-Audio, Memory mapper, slot expander and hard disk / Compact flash / SD card interface comes to mind at first...

- Can I load MSXDOS2 on this machine? It does not boot from MSXDOS2 diskete.
Yes, but it requires DOS2 ROM. This can be built in to computer (DIY) or bought as a separate cartridge. This ROM is also included to many harddisk / memory card interfaces.

By AuroraMSX

Paragon (1902)

18-02-2011, 14:35

- Why "Formula 2.51 diskete copier" does not start the copy procedure but returns to its main menu?
As far as I know, Formula works on turbo-R machines only.

By athansoft

Supporter (3)

18-02-2011, 20:19

$ d:\18022011198_resize.jpg $

$ d:\18022011199_resize.jpg $

The first picture shows the connections and the second the board

>>> How can I add photos to my post? <<< HELP

By ray2day

Paladin (754)

18-02-2011, 22:15

- What on earth is this board?
Maybe an FM Pac?? (MSX-Music) Don't know for sure.
- Can I load MSXDOS2 on this machine? It does not boot from MSXDOS2 diskete.
I always thought in the back of my mind an original MSX2DOS disk was part of the package when you bought this computer new in the past (maybe because it's a MSX2, I don't know why I did think that), but it is NOT. A standard NMS 8245 came with DOS v1.0. So answers like given above are correct. You need a MSX DOS 2 rom-cartridge, or like said by 'MSX Kun' a SD or CF cartridge that includes it.
- Why "Formula 2.51 diskete copier" does not start the copy procedure but returns to its main menu?
Don't know the programm.
- Is there any upgrade or update that should have and where can I find it?
Standard update? I Dunno. Ofcourse you can expand your beautiful new MSX with a lot of (intern/extern) hardware. See my website; www.raymondmsx.nl
- Can I connect a standard dot matrix printer to MSX Parallel port?
Should work, but sometimes -as I remember from the past- you can get problems. I.e. with charactersets etc. Software can be adapted and get the printer to work. Also possible it works directly without software adaptions.

By FiXato

Scribe (1743)

19-02-2011, 08:51

$ d:\18022011198_resize.jpg $

$ d:\18022011199_resize.jpg $

The first picture shows the connections and the second the board

>>> How can I add photos to my post? <<< HELP

You can't link to pictures directly from your harddisk. You need to upload them somewhere, for instance using services like TinyPic

By athansoft

Supporter (3)

19-02-2011, 12:05

i51.tinypic.com/2u77url.jpg
i55.tinypic.com/vijrrp.jpg

First of all I want to thank you all of you. Now the first picture shows the wires from Z80 and the other chips to ... the second picture
What is it and how can I use.

Please send me a link to purcase a SD flash memory interface for my MSX2 which I must have (including MSXDos2)

By Daemos

Prophet (2170)

22-02-2011, 19:39

What is the readout on the lowest 4 chips which have the capacitors next to them?

By Repair-Bas

Paragon (1176)

22-02-2011, 22:09

That is an 256 kb memory extension.

Very old version