News in the MSX Community!
This page shows the 50 latest news headlines from various MSX (-related) websites!
Friday February 21, 2025 | by Erik Luppes
Kazuhiko Nishi, the co-creator of the MSX standard, has embarked on an exciting new venture known as the MSXBooster project. This initiative aims to breathe new life into the beloved MSX platform by introducing modern enhancements and capabilities while preserving its nostalgic charm. Specifications Feature Specification Processor ARM Cortex-A53 Memory 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage 32GB […]
Tuesday October 01, 2024 | by supersoniqs
Meet Robby, our new speech interface for MSX. Developed by JunSoft, Robby can be your talking companion for hours! Programmable from basic and machine code, this eighties speech chip with additional processors for audio processing can keep you busy for … Continue reading
Tuesday October 31, 2023 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
El próximo día 11 de Noviembre en la 10RU de Usuarios de MSX de Sevilla se presentará laversión definitiva de la placa Tides Rider, de la que hablamos en este video(https://www.youtube.com/live/7Wtfmg5Ag1c?si=kThvMWWSQRkBrTVc) con Konamito y en lareunión de Hoznayo (https://youtu.be/lQGtYnFHvCU?si=I3tT-cqPEMK-zgKz) presentando laversión proto1. Especificaciones de Msx Tides-Rider V3: *La Tides Rider tiene la particularidad de activar […]
Saturday September 03, 2022 | by supersoniqs
Some new or improved MSX items to cheer you up. Who needs summer anyway? New Slotexpanders Available! Made with super smooth black resin, it’s hard to discover this is actually 3D-printed. This time mostly with low insertion force gold plated … Continue reading
Thursday June 30, 2022 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Desde hace un par de años disponemos de la licencia de RBSC para la fabricación y distribución del cartucho 2MB Multimapper FlashROM que dispone de los cuatro mappers más usuales (K4, K5, ASCII8 y ASCII16) además de 64KB lineales. Algunas de las últimas producciones que se han lanzado en MSX ha sido con estos cartuchos. […]
Sunday February 13, 2022 | by
On 8 February 2022 my dear friend Remy van den Bor, better known in the community as The Kid from Delta Soft, passed away after 2 years of fighting stage 4 cancer. I met him on one of the MSX-Club West-Friesland meetings in 1997 where we started talking about programming and the issues they encountered with some of their products. As I was more experinced in assembly than he was (he did everything in BASIC) they asked me if I could take a look at these to see if they could be resolved, and after I provided them with versions that did work as intended, we started to work together on other projects, starting with Thunderbirds Are Go.
For me the most memorable production must have been Konami Quiz 2, where we had SCC music, and all the questions had to be hidden outside of the BASIC program to make it more challenging for people, and allowing for more features in the game. I also made the Game Master 2 stage. My initial idea was it to make it the final stage, but in the end it was better to have it in random rotation as well. Having to come up with 75 questions for 21 levels was challenging on itself. We ended up with numerous quite unconventional questions for each of the games. Also it was the first game to release on CompactFlash as alternative to the diskette release.
There were so many things I wanted to finish before Remy passed away, ever since I've heard about the situation 2 years ago, so he could still witness those, and I'm sure he would've enjoyed each and every one of them, as we're both huge Konami fans.
He still had so many years. It saddens me that he was taken away from his family, his friends and his beloved MSX hobby way too soon. We have lost a very talented MSX-BASIC programmer and I have lost a dear friend.
Rest In Peace my friend. You will be missed by us all.
Thursday November 25, 2021 | by supersoniqs
Dear MSX-users, This e-mail informs you about some great Dark Friday deals. Since we produced some extra items this is your chance to get some of our products at a discount! We also added a lot of cheaper shipping options! … Continue reading
Sunday May 09, 2021 | by supersoniqs
Dear MSX-users, This post informs you about all the things we did since our first announcement and also some interesting facts and news about our product line-up.Thanks to many of you who took a giant leap of fate and pre-ordered … Continue reading
Saturday December 19, 2020 | by Oniric
En Oniric tenemos el placer de anunciar que la primera tirada de “Crazy Factory” al...
Sunday December 06, 2020 | by
Today I've released an update of the MoonBlaster v1.4 driver:
Changes in this version:
- added detection for 256K sample RAM
- added _MBKBANK which allows for loading up to 7 additional sample kits
- increased the number of extra allocatable banks from 4 to 28
- fixed a bug causing drive letters to not be allowed in DOS1
The driver (and a demonstration) can be downloaded from my Home Page or MSX Banzai!.
Wednesday February 26, 2020 | by
A new version of the Multi IPS Archive tools have been released. Version 1.11 comes with an addition to the MIA format as well:
- added a create new file feature
The MIA format specification has been given a minor update in the existing part. More information regarding this is available in the package to create MIA files.
The tools are available on MSX Banzai!, BiFi's Home Page and MSX IPS Patch Archive.
Tuesday November 12, 2019 | by
Today I did some work on the archive. The following changes were done:
- added SD-Snatcher English (Project Melancholia) patch
- added SD-Snatcher English (Project Melancholia) fixes patch
- added Randar English translation patch
- added Randar MEMINI fix patch
Tuesday October 08, 2019 | by
Today I released an update for PSQTOOLS, the toolset for the PlaySoniq module.
Changes:
- changed: SMSLOAD, allow to disable the memory configuration lock, which will potentially corrupt the SRAM save data. Set the PlaySoniq master volume to maximum
- changed: PSG2SCC, set the PlaySoniq master volume to maximum
Thursday September 12, 2019 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Por fin llegó el día.Desde hace unos días ya se encuentra disponible para reserva el esperado MSXVR en https://msxvr.blogspot.com/2018/11/status.html#more Unos cinco años de trabajo que han resultado en un un ordenador compatible a nivel hardware y software con el estándar MSX. Este ordenador está basado en una plataforma Raspberry PI 3B+ además de hardware adicional […]
Monday August 05, 2019 | by
Today I've released an update of the MoonBlaster v1.4 driver:
Changes in this version:
- added detection for memory mapper availability and size in DOS1
- added detection for other than real MSX-AUDIO
- improved stability when switching between Z80 and R800 on MSXturboR
Also the official assembly sources updates are available. The changes are:
- merged MBPLAY.SRC and MBPLAY2.SRC
- translated the comments to English
- added conditional assembly flags
- added detection for other than real MSX-AUDIO
The driver can be downloaded from my Home Page or MSX Banzai!.
Wednesday May 15, 2019 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Por fin tenemos la nueva Wozblaster Enhanced finalizada y el periodo de reservas se ha abierto! Es un cartucho de sonido compatible con MoonSound que incluye el chip Yamaha OPL4. Es una versión mejorada de la Wozblaster original, completamente rediseñada con características adicionales: 2 MB de memoria para samplers Salida externa de audio estéreo Audio […]
Thursday April 25, 2019 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Oniric-Factor acaba de anunciar que va a lanzar su primer juego en formato cartucho. Se trata nada más y nada menos que del juego de aventuras The Awakening, su última producción para MSX que está apunto de ver la luz. Ya pudimos ver alguna imagen del juego en la pasada RU de MSX de Barcelona. […]
Tuesday April 16, 2019 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Por fin se ha anunciado la próxima Reunión de Usuarios de MSX de Sevilla. Esta edición se celebrará en el barrio sevillano de Bellavista, en el centro cívico Bellavista de la C/ Asensio y Toleto 7. La fecha elegida es el sábado 18 de Mayo desde las 10h hasta las 14:15h, donde se podrá disfrutar […]
Thursday April 04, 2019 | by supersoniqs
Dear MSX-users, thanks to Eric Boez from Repro factory we now have our own shop! In it are most of our products you know and some new ones! Let’s order! Easy ordering and paying It is now possible to easy … Continue reading
Thursday January 24, 2019 | by George van Halderen
Most people in the MSX scene know what an assembler is, so I won’t go into the explanation of what that does and is. That being said, a few weeks ago I received an update for tniASM. The updates are for the beta test version of this piece of software, so you have to donate and […]
Sunday January 13, 2019 | by Erik Luppes
Today we post a first test with the Raspberry Pi MSX Clone, a HAT specially designed to make it possible to use real MSX cartridges with your Raspberry Pi. Our test setup has the following components: Raspberry Pi 3B+ Raspberry Pi MSX Clone (RPMC V9) 16Gb MicroSD Card U1 (Only 1Gb is needed) HDMI Screen […]
Wednesday January 02, 2019 | by Erik Luppes
Imagine being able to use a Raspberry PI not only for SD card programs but also for real cartridges!. Victor Trucco has put this into practice, based on Meeso Kim’s work. The project is in an early stage, emulations still have to be adapted to the new hardware, but games of the first MSX generation […]
Thursday November 22, 2018 | by George van Halderen
Some might have seen GR8cfg version 0.75 come online, but there was a small bug inside it, which I needed to squash ;-). The bug was in the mapper modes 1 to 7. So if you use one of those on a regular basis, please update your version to 0.76. Now you can also get […]
Tuesday October 02, 2018 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
Noticia publicada originalmente en la web de la Iniciativa Ler-Sor. Visítala! El amigo Pablibiris ya está enviando las primeras unidades del TSXDuino. Este curioso hardware para nuestros MSX está basado en el diseño original de Eduardo Arana (Arananet) pero con ciertas mejoras y modificaciones hechas por el mismo. ¿Que es el TSXDuino? Se trata de un TZXDuino […]
Monday September 10, 2018 | by Erik Luppes
In the 90’s I used to have a FM-Pac, to add great sound to my MSX. The built-in menu was Japanese, and since there was no Google Translate, it was pretty useless to me. Thanks to MSX Translations there is a patch available to patch the ROM to […]
Monday September 10, 2018 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
El próximo 14 de Octubre tendrá lugar la 5ª edición de la Reunión de Usuarios de MSX en Sevilla. Concretamente en la ciudad de Dos Hermanas. Serán dos salas habilitadas en ArcadePlanet Sevilla donde podremos ver las últimas novedades tanto de software como de hardware. Oniric Factor presentará su edición coleccionista de LostWind, y según nos cuenta en su web, puede que os […]
Thursday September 06, 2018 | by Erik Luppes
User Philip has posted a forumpost on msx.org on how to upgrade a NMS8245 to a MSX2plus. This blogpost will describe this upgrade step by step supported with pictures and the necessary ROM files to do this upgrade your self. (thank you Philip for making this post possible) Since I’m upgrading a NMS8245 that already has a memory […]
Tuesday August 07, 2018 | by
Introduction
In 1997 and 1998 Konami released a collection of MSX games for the PlayStation spread of 3 volumes which are sold separately. In 1998 a version for Sega Saturn was released containing the same titles combined on 1 disc. The disc contains the ROM images of the MSX games replacing BIOS video routines by unused Z80 instructions. Some of these games are also known to have extra features by inserting certain Konami games in the second slot of the MSX computer, or by built in cheats.
This article contains all cheats for the games per volume, and how to activate them on the PlayStation discs. This information is accumulated by trial and error, sometimes with help of a few existing pages. At this moment no information is known about how to activate these cheats on the Sega Saturn version.
The formatting of each entry is as follows:
- Game title
- Game title (combination) or Description of the cheat.
Button or buttons to start the game with from the menu.
Description of what it does.
- Game title (combination) or Description of the cheat.
Volume 1
The games affected on Konami Antiques MSX Collection Volume 1 are:
- Gradius
- TwinBee (combination)
Vic Viper will turn into TwinBee and the power-up capsules will turn into bells.
- TwinBee (combination)
Volume 2
The games affected on Konami Antiques MSX Collection Volume 2 are:
- Yie Ar Kung Fu 2
- Yie Ar Kung Fu (combination)
Starting from stage 3, once your life bar is almost depleted, Lee Young from Yie Ar Kung Fu will drop you some tea.
- Yie Ar Kung Fu (combination)
- Knightmare
- Invisibility on demand
+
You will become invisible for 100 in-game counts. This can be done 3 times. - Invisibility on demand
+
You will become invisible for 100 in-game counts. This can be done as often as you want. - 26 lives
+
(on MSX with LEFT+RIGHT+SELECT+N).
You will start with 26 lives in stead of 3 lives. - 26 lives & invisibility on demand
++
This combines the two afforementioned cheats.
- Invisibility on demand
- Gradius 2
- Penguin Adventure (combination)
+
Metalion will turn into Penguin and power-up capsules will turn into fish and a seagull. - Q*Bert (combination)
+
Enter passwords for special features:
Fully power-up Metalion.
Skip to the next stage.
Create a temporary green shield around Metalion. - The Maze of Galious (combination)
+
Get a Weapon Backup feature when you die. This does not apply after a Game Over.
- Penguin Adventure (combination)
Volume 3
The games affected on Konami Antiques MSX Collection Volume 3 are:
- Salamander
- Gradius 2 (combination)
There is no special combination to specifically start this combination.
Enables the possibility to reach the Good Ending of Salamander.
- Gradius 2 (combination)
Referenced pages
http://urawaza.in/ps/konami.htm
http://urawaza.in/ps/konami2.htm
Monday June 04, 2018 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
El pasado viernes 2 de Junio fuimos invitados por Konamito a participar en su canal de Youtube para hablar de la PG Card y otros proyectos que tenemos en curso. Konamito, Pablibiris, Caballero Lerma y un servidor pasamos unas horas explicando los proyectos y resolviendo las dudas de los espectadores. Visitad la web MSX Blog […]
Monday April 30, 2018 | by Germán Díaz Fuentes
El sábado 28 de Abril de 2018 presentamos en RetroMadrid el primer prototipo de la PGCard. Un nuevo formato físico para MSX con la intención de bajar drásticamente el coste de los soportes a los desarrolladores y con la esperanza que también se traslade esta rebaja al usuario final. En MSX Calamar llevábamos unos años dándole vueltas […]
Thursday February 22, 2018 | by George van Halderen
MSX Information Network has tested the MSX USB Mouse and Joystick Adapter, in short UMJA, produced by TMTLOGIC. There is always a reason to buy one of these handy devices, either you need it to use a graphical interface like SymbOS uses or you want to draw with it in AGE. Let’s get to our […]
Thursday February 22, 2018 | by Erik Luppes
Today we have added a mirror of one of the oldest MSX Archive’s to our domain: The (ex)FuNET MSX Archive. You can find the MSX Archive mirror at the following URL : https://msxarchive.msxinfo.net/ The official FuNET MSX Archive was discontinued in 2005, since the archive was hosted by Omega on http://www.msxarchive.nl Nowadays the archive is hosted by Tristan […]
Tuesday February 20, 2018 | by Erik Luppes
Last month, the download section of the MSX Information Network stopped functioning, because of a changed license model of previously used download manager. Today we finished migrating to another download manager. Unfortunately the migration has spammed our Facebook page, but on the other hand, this is one of the most promising features. Every time a […]
Sunday December 31, 2017 | by
Today I released the start of a toolset for the DalSoRi R2.0 OPL4 extension.
Changes:
- new: DSR2SET, configure every setting in the DalSoRi R2.0
- new: DSR2SROM, load a customised Sample ROM in SRAM
The toolset is released as TNI product.
Monday December 11, 2017 | by supersoniqs
If you have your Windows PC next to your MSX setup this tip we got might be for you. There are ways to use your Windows PC as the MIDI playback device. You need a few things. First of all, … Continue reading
Friday July 21, 2017 | by
A new version of the Multi IPS Archive tools have been released. Version 1.1 comes with an addition to the MIA format as well:
- added a disk switch feature
- added a rename feature
The disk switch feature will allow applying patches on multi-disk file based software. MIAPPLY will display which disk to insert and wait for a key press. The rename feature should preferably only be used to change filenames that are part of a translation and which are not hardcoded in the software.
Also the MIA format specification has been given an update in the existing part. More information regarding this is available in the package to create MIA files.
The tools are available on MSX Banzai!, BiFi's Home Page and MSX IPS Patch Archive.
Saturday October 15, 2016 | by
Introduction
A long time ago someone asked me if I knew how Konami embedded the RC-codes their games. At the time I noticed 2 methods which are also used by many of the combination detection code. The Konami Game Master also uses one of these methods to detect cartridges that were released after the Konami Game Master. Many of the smaller games are detected using a different mehod.
Konami was a big fan of the BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) notation. In this notation the letters A-F are never used. This choice was made to speed up the displaying of regularly updated values, such as scores.
This article explains the methods as seen from the different ROM sizes.
16K ROM modules
The last 2 bytes of the ROM (addresses 7FFEh and 7FFFh) contain the RC-code in BCD, followed by 170 (0AAh). Testing this from other Konami titles, usually the last 6 bytes (7FFAh) are tested to increase the improbability of false positives.
The Konami Game Master detects these cartridges by adding the values of the 128 bytes starting from 5000h, which will be matched with a table directing to the actual Game Master data.
32K ROM modules
The last 2 bytes of the ROM (addresses 0BFFEh and 0BFFFh) contain the RC-code in BCD, followed by 170 (0AAh), just like in the 16K ROM modules. Some Konami titles use this method to test the last 6 bytes (0BFFAh) to increase the improbability of false positives. Other Konami titles use the second method.
The second method is split up into 2 formats for the Konami Game Master.
With the absolute format. From address 4010h the format is as follows:
- The ASCII value of the letter "A" (41h)
- The ASCII value of the letter "B" (42h)
- The value 7 (07h)
- The last 2 digits of the RC-code in BCD
Following this are 17 bytes of the Game Master data. These include addresses for the number of lives, stage number, the high score and the players scores. The exact explanation of this table goes beyond the scope of this article.
With the relative format. From address 4010h the format is as follows:
- The ASCII value of the letter "C" (43h)
- The ASCII value of the letter "D" (44h)
- The value 7 (07h)
- The last 2 digits of the RC-code in BCD
Following is a byte for option flags followed by addresses and maximum value you can input for that option. The exact explanation of this table goes beyond the scope of this article.
MegaROM modules
There are 3 games known which use the 32K ROM module method with the relative format: Nemesis or Gradius, Penguin Adventure and Ganbare Goemon. Also, some Konami titles had extra zeroes in that sequence (for coders: DW in stead of DB): Vampire Killer and Pennant Race. Finally some titles use the relative format with the letters "E" and "F" in stead of "C" and "D": Shalom and Pennant Race 2. All other titles only use the relative format as described in the 32K ROM modules section.
The Konami Game Master 2 has its own detection. Check on address 4010h for "Y" (59h) and "Z" (5Ah). This allows Konami titles to use the built-in SRAM disk.
Tuesday February 02, 2016 | by supersoniqs
Hi all, You know these questions that start with “What if?”. Here at SuperSoniqs it is all about making our own “What if’s” possible. One of those was of course the lack of stereo sound in any MSX. A while … Continue reading
Tuesday February 02, 2016 | by supersoniqs
Dear all, Due to populair demand we hereby publish the .stl files of the Franky cartridge enclosure too. Some people had problems converting the Sketch-up files. With these .STL files you can 3d-print a compatible casing for your Franky project. … Continue reading
Sunday March 01, 2015 | by supersoniqs
BiFi informs us that PSQTOOLS, the toolset for the PlaySoniq module has been updated. SMSSAVE is completely new and can savegame data for Sega Master System roms that had support for battery back-upped save states. SMSLOAD now not only loads … Continue reading
Saturday January 31, 2015 | by supersoniqs
TNI informs us that PSQTOOLS, the toolset for the PlaySoniq module has been updated! Three new tools have been released: PSQSAVE and PSQLOAD, to save and load PlaySoniq module settings and SMSLOAD, a tool to load and run Sega Master System ROM images. … Continue reading