Looking to do a new hardware project

Rookie (18)

05-06-2019, 20:28

Summer is coming so have lotsa time. Thought maybe nice to build some hardware for my old machine.
But better to build 10(or more) instead of 1
sooo question is what piece of hardware is in demand nowadays for MSX?

A) SlotExpander
B) Wifi
C) Memory
D) Flash-Cart
E) SDCard Drive
F) Something Else

And what are the current specs it should conform to?
please let me know..

thx

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By Alexey

Guardian (2349)

05-06-2019, 20:30

When the boards and the components arrive the summer will end

By Lynn

Rookie (30)

05-06-2019, 21:18

Ethernet. Nothing fancy, just plain ol' Ethernet.

By OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1295)

05-06-2019, 22:36

a good designed, shielded,cased,bugfixed slotexpander with io slots
look at all the expanders around and combine the best features of them

By Pencioner

Paladin (933)

05-06-2019, 22:49

+1 for featureful slotexpander with some extra i/o slots, external power, etc

By Grauw

Ascended (8386)

05-06-2019, 23:12

WiFi sounds like a cool project! I ain’t got time for no wires! (With UNAPI support of course.) Sounds like quite a big project though? Since it would be a first for the MSX as far as I know.

Also nobody’s making large memory mappers (4MB or even 2MB)! Whereas 4MB SIMM cards are super cheap, so cost can’t be the issue. The all-in-one flash/storage carts and the MMM are all just 512K or 1024K for some reason. I think there would be a demand for bigger mappers, especially among VGMPlay users. I just expanded my Digital KC 2MB mapper to 4MB myself with the help of Omega, but if someone had sold an affordable 4MB one in the past years I would’ve jumped on it!

By Roland007

Expert (80)

05-06-2019, 23:14

A completely new graphics card for MSX. A lot of topics on MSX.org are related to the VDP and how to get most of it and how to program it. Since VDP compatibility is not really an issue (people accepts that the 9990 is incompatible) I would vote for a graphics card that completely stops all legacy compatibility and brings MSX to 1024x768 in 24b color. If the FPGA permits, a lot of graphics operations can be integrated making it easy for the Z80 to off-load operations.

By buddha_da_great

Rookie (18)

06-06-2019, 00:16

Alexey wrote:

When the boards and the components arrive the summer will end

nah my friend..got all the components I need..just gotta build build build:
https://imgshare.io/image/20190605-234819.2fIrH
https://imgshare.io/image/20190605-234844.2fscf
https://imgshare.io/image/20190605-235417.2f8Bq

By PingPong

Prophet (3435)

06-06-2019, 00:42

Roland007 wrote:

would be nice to have a kind of hw like this:
http://blog.retroleum.co.uk/electronics-articles/v6z80p/
Since the z80 is the only discrete chip alone, and the rest is performed by FPGA, would be nice to have a retroleum card without z80 (that we already have on msx) as a new powerful gfx and sound card.
It has high specs, and the designer took a good effort to not to keep waiting the cpu and to allow a decent offload of graphics and sound tasks.

By buddha_da_great

Rookie (18)

06-06-2019, 01:07

are you not worried it wont "FEEL" like a true MSX with all that power?

Wont you be satisfied with a HIGH-powered VDP...meaning same methods can be used to drive it but it would be faster no sprite limits .very fast blitter and such?
This would still let you program it like you would the original MSX2 VDP but you'll have more power..

By gdx

Prophet (2978)

06-06-2019, 01:24

Some ideas:
- Parts to upgrade / repare MSXs.
- A SD card interface + wifi (encrypted) + Memory Mapper + Megaflash-Rom that supports several mappers (SCC sound chip included) + UTF-8 font (with multi-language support)