Do you have one? What other cores can it run? The lack of HDMI is annoying.
I don’t have this specific one. I have the original One Chip MSX which this project is based on, and I’ve never had any complaints with it. The people I know who have this one also love it. This one has more features. I went ahead and ordered one. I’ve been waiting for them to come back on stock after the initial run several months back. They went pretty quickly.
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Tempting…
Someone needs to make an MSX thread.
Agreed. I’ve been thinking about it, I don’t like polluting this thread with MSX stuff. Although it may be more prudent to just do an all-encompassing Japanese computers thread, considering the niche level of interest. Not sure which would be better.
I think it makes the most sense to morph this into a Japanese PC thread
Done. Apologies to the previous X68k thread.
Can the FPGA MSX play games off the included SD card?
Yes, it should. Via the dipswitch settings, you can set the cartridge slots to either load cartridges inserted, or to simulate other cartridges like the MegaSCC+ flash cart, the MegaRAM cart, or the RAM SCC+ cart. Between those, you should be able to use the various ROM and disk loading utilities available (mgload, romload, ep, etc.) to play pretty much anything. It also mounts the SD card as a floppy drive in the system, so you have floppy simulation that way.
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I finally got around to trying out my MegaFlashRom SCC+ cart tonight. This thing is incredible. It can do so much stuff. It loaded every cartridge ROM I threw at it, and every disk game I tried. I struggled a small amount with SD Snatcher, but that was mainly a combination of needing to patch the disk files so they support an SCC cartridge other than the official SD Snatcher cart and not understanding how to enable the built-in SCC chip. Got it all sorted out pretty quickly, though, and it’s great. And it worked right away when I put the actual SD Snatcher cart in slot 2, so it’s nice that it doesn’t stumble with the official sound source.
I also tried out my new Joymega adapter tonight
which lets you connect Genesis controllers to the MSX. I feel a bit wary of having something like that sticking out of the joystick slot, but I imagine that it’ll work fine if I put a Genesis extension cable between the MSX and the adapter (MSX joystick ports are the same connector as Genesis controllers, but the pinout is different, hence the adapter). The adapter itself works extremely well, though, and with SofaRun, you can actually create custom mappings if you don’t like the default one, and it also lets you map extra buttons to keyboard keys, which is great.
I feel like my MSX has been given new life. I’ve gotta do a SD Snatcher replay now.
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Thanks for the review of the MegaFlashRom SCC+. I’m looking to pick up a MSX2 in the next four months if you have any recommendations.
Today, the wonderful Victor released a new MSX enhancement patch, this time for Nemesis 3. It adds SCC music and, most importantly, smooth scrolling!
Is there a good way to run non original peripherals on a PC-98? Like keyboard/mouse especially.
I’m going to Japan in a couple weeks and apparently my wife’s grandparents might still have her dad’s old PC-98. If so I’m pretty tempted to bring it back but not so keen on needing an old, used, difficult to clean keyboard,
Also curious if anyone’s done a floppy emulator with that system and if that had good results.
For a floppy emulator, you want to look at the HxC floppy emulators, or the cheaper Gotek ones which can be flashed with the HxC firmware (info here). I’ve personally gone the Gotek route because I already had a few.
As for keyboard/mouse, you’ll have to buy a somewhat pricey PS/2 -> PC98 converter like this one. They also have one for USB keyboards I believe.
I used to have an Arabic version of the MSX growing up. Came with a table tennis game and penguin Adventure. Wish I knew where it was. Must’ve been thrown out when we moved…shame.
Thanks but blah that is way more expensive than I expected.
I received my Zemmix (FPGA MSX) a while back, but I haven’t had time to give it a good testing until tonight. I remember @poptart asking if it can play games off of the included SD card, and I can answer definitively with a yes. In fact, it’s much easier these days than ever, because there is a program called SofaRun which handles all of the background detection of which hardware you have and wires it all up the same, so I was actually able to pull the SD card out of my MegaFlashROM SCC+ and just use it in the Zemmix, loading the same ROMs and disk images no problem, despite the hardware being completely different. It used to be that you had to use certain loader apps depending on the hardware you have. The Zemmix can easily be configured via dip switches to simulate certain cartridges in the cart slots, or to simply allow the inserted carts to function. It’s all very seamless.
The one downside to the whole thing is the keyboard situation. It has two USB ports, but due to lack of space on the FPGA, they were unable to implement HID support. That means modern USB keyboards will not work. You need an older one that implements PS/2 over USB (if the keyboard came with one of those PS/2->USB adapters, then it should work). The Zemmix also has a PS/2 port. I had to buy a new PS/2 keyboard to use with it, but once I did, everything was really smooth.
In terms of accuracy and compatibility, I have not noticed any issues. It’s run everything I’ve thrown at it just fine. There is a small volume problem with the internal SCC and PSG, but that’s going to be fixed in the next version of the firmware.
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Well, speaking of the Zemmix FPGA MSX, the same company just announced a new version of it on a mini-ITX board, designed to fit into standard mini-ITX cases.
A tiny bit of info posted here: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/2MCrCy5-?cid=987f6811-441a-4ae5-b87a-21eef2c4643f®ion=fdd1986e-9d8f-4541-2a6d-635c28ff5089#/main
According to a post on msx.org, it’s still a fair bit away from release.
Dope.
Been playing some X68000 games recently. Mainly Phalanx and returning to CV. Amazing music on these older japanese computers. Honestly never much liked most Genesis music, so I was surprised when these other Yamaha FM synth chips were making much better tunes. Not really sure what the reason is, the Genesis should be just as capable, but there just aren’t that many games with music I like. X68000 on the other hand is packed with great OSTs. The MIDI versions of soundtracks are neat too, but I usually prefer the FM synth. Lot of good games on the system, though most of the ones I’d be interested in are arcade ports (usually very accurate though, which must have been amazing at the time).
Also great music on the less capable PC-88, which often gets me wanting to play PC-88 games. This is a mistake because they’re almost all terrible and usually run at 10 FPS. I’m sure some people will turn their noses up at me, but I can’t see how people can enjoy those games without nostalgia. Makes me appreciate what the NES was able to deliver for much cheaper. Still, that music.
Wow. What a cool looking shop.