Msx Thread !!!

[RetroMan]

So ..... to ALL MSX ENTHUSIASTS!!!

I bought a MSX Computer some days ago (Philips VG-8010). The problem was, I got no Cartridges, no disk or other storage media. Now I thought, how could I get games from the Net to the MSX ?? Solution is simple ...... There are MSX games, that came on tape (lots of them), so I build a cable, that connects my PC Soundcard to the MSX Tape Recorder Plug .... All I had to do after that, is type RUN"CAS:" at the MSX and play the tape file on my PC as a WAV file with any Media Program like WinAMP, WMP or whatever you like to use ...... Two things :

1.) The games MUST be in .WAV format
2.) If you have .CAS games (to use in Emulators) you have to decode them back to WAV, I found a Util for that, but i´m currently testing to get the correct BitRate, so be patient ....

P.S : Here you go AKIRA, READ AND REPLY !!!!

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by RetroMan
2.) If you have .CAS games (to use in Emulators) you have to decode them back to WAV, I found a Util for that, but i´m currently testing to get the correct BitRate, so be patient ....

P.S : Here you go AKIRA, READ AND REPLY !!!!

There, read that. there are no emulators that support RAW TAPE FORMATS, only that .CAS format. That's what I tried to say and I failed

BTW I moved this thread, it has to do with retrogaming! Remember the Off-Topic forum is the trashcan of the board :P Don't post stuff that's good in there!

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Akira


There, read that. there are no emulators that support RAW TAPE FORMATS..............

Also not QUITE true you can load .WAV format games into MESS and use it

Inside the MESS archive there´s also the tool to convert .CAS files back to .WAV, it´s called IMGTOOL !! oh well, gotta go playing JETSET WILLY on my MSX

[Amiga1992]

Then MESS does. Anwyay, WAV is still not a raw image of a tape

Yes, I'm being a nitpicker on you

I need to get a 5 1/4 drive to transfer stuff to the MSX, cant wait to play it damnit

Where did you get teh schems to make this cable btw? might keep me entertained while I buy a 5 1/4 drive

[Fissuras]

When I first got my MSX there was no disk drive available. I had many tapes around. I was quite used to tapes since my TK 85 (ZX81 with a whole 16Kb RAM) didn't had any other input device (besides the keyboard, if one can call that a keyboard).

It took quite sometime to get a disk drive. It was quite expensive, I recall it was more or less the same price a new MSX.

What happened to those tapes? I don't know. I remember seeing them (and some ZX81 tapes) two years ago at my parent's house. But they should be uselesses by now.

[RetroMan]

Ever read the MSX FAQ ?? Great piece of Website, a MUST read : http://www.faq.msxnet.org/

Also there are ALL connector descriptions and so on The cable took me 7 minutes to build, oh and btw. I would suggest getting a 3 1/2" Disk Drive for your MSX, cause then you can write software to disk, using the PC and just plug the disk into the real MSX

Edit : @fissuras : if you get the chance to get hold of your old tapes, get them and transfer them to PC via the Soundcard (there are utils to do so, also the emu VIRTUAL MSX can read REAL tapes and save them to PC HD afterwards) .....

[Amiga1992]

Thanks for the link, Retroman. I will kick Shatterhand in the neck for not pointing me to that direction!

Anyway, I CAN'T connect a 3 1/2 drive to my MSX because my FDD interface has a slightly older Western Digital IC that does not allow me to use 720KB disks (it's one very rare old FDD controller, one of the first). I still can transfer stuff to the MSX using 5 1/4 disks. I just need to get a WORKING 5 1/4 PC diskdrive... mine is busted!

[RetroMan]

Hmm, ok then lemme look ....... I still have 5 or 6 old 5 1/4 disk drives, if ANY of them are still working (I´ll check at weekend) you can have one, just have to pay shipping, you want it ?? Anyway, i´m still in search for some SHMUPS on tape, so if anybody got a link, please reply

[birdy-scc]

I never used an msx, but I just got the BRMSX emulator,

It comes *without* instructions !! But (after looking around) found out that I need to press the mouse button to bring up the file loader.

When I do this the program crashes. Any ideas?

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by birdy-scc
I never used an msx, but I just got the BRMSX emulator,

It comes *without* instructions !! But (after looking around) found out that I need to press the mouse button to bring up the file loader.

When I do this the program crashes. Any ideas?

You got all the needed Rom files ?? lile MSX.ROM etc. ??? Without them, the emu will crash ....

[Ian]

Originally posted by birdy-scc
When I do this the program crashes. Any ideas?

It might be because it's an unstable beta

What OS ya using Birdy-Scc, if it's Windoze try RuMSX, I used to use it when I was going through my MSX fetish

[Fissuras]

Well, the BrMsx emulator comes with no roms at all... you must have got a crippled version.

Here are some Goodies:

BrMsx site (latest version = 2.06):

http://www.lsi.usp.br/~ricardo/brmsx.htm

You can read the online user's manual in many languages:

english (1.160)
dutch (1.160)
spanish (1.160)
portuguese (1.155)
italian (1.145)
french (1.136)

Here is a copy of the english BrMsx manual (ops. it is version 1.160):

[Shatterhand]

Oh man, I am so excited to reply in this thread ! The MSX is my fav machine ever, it's more inside of my heart than even the Amiga. It's a bit like the C64 for your english guys.

I think I have a lot to say here, so I'll take slowly and easily

@Akira

I GAVE you this link, probably eons ago. You probably lost it or something, and I also told you I've lost all my MSX Urls. Now you have the MSX faq.. :-)

ALL msx games can be put in tapes if you want. You can even put 128 Kb games in tapes (If the tape is that big), but it will take ages to load, obviously. I just had an idea, there are MSX programs that copy files from disk to tape and vice-versa. I had a program that does this in my MSX collection, but I don't know if I kept it after transfering all my tape games to disks. I'll take a look later, maybe using this program you can copy .DSK files to .TAP files using the emulator, and then put it in a tape using the program Retroman was sepaking about. If I don't have this program, I bet won't be hard to find it. I''ll take a look at BRMSX page, as it has a link to the author site, and I bet he has a program that does this disk-tape-disk copy.

There are NO .CAS format, when you use Run"Cas:" you are just telling MSX to search the next file in basic format in the tape. If you use Bload"Cas:",r you are telling the MSX to load the next binary file in the tape,and run it.

About emulators, I use FMSX-DOS with a front-end (FMSX-Shell) most of time. There are a few games not working with it, but the emulator is fast in a Pentium machine, the sound emulation is perfect (even SCC, only the FM cartridge isn't as good as the real one, but maybe that's my soundcard). For speed sake, get BRMSX, IF your machine can run it. The author himself say his target public is people using 486s and DOS 6.22. . Most people have problems using it in modern machines. BRMSX is also compatible with nearly everthing for MSX. You may also use NO$MSX, a very fast emulator, with good sound support and runned EVERY game I tested. The DOS version only supports .DSK files, but the Windows versions supports .ROM files too. If you want Turbo-R emulation, RuMSX is the one (Only use RuMSX for Turbo-R emulation, everything else sux on this emu). There's also MSX-KISS, this emulator is the one recommended by the BRMSX author, so it gotta be good. I never tested it.

And about tape support. FMSX-DOS supports tapes, in .tap files, but I don't know how those files work. I use it to save games in "Metal Gear" and "Pay-Load"

About how many MSX roms exist: I don't know how many games in ROM format exist. Although most classics come in cartridges, not all games were selled in cartridges, and actually, there were more games sold in disks than in cartridges. I have about 1000 MSX games in my collection, and I am sure I am not even close to have all games. There was a spanish site called D-MSX that had about 3000-4000 Games. (And we're speaking of COMERCIAL games, not PD).

I belive most games Fissuras had in tape are also available in disks. There were just a few games sold in "Tape-only" format, and they were all converted to disk later. (And all those games were crap ZX Spectrum ports, like Shinobi or California Games)


Aff, I'm tired of typing, I'll may say a little more later

[RetroMan]

I´ve found this site : http://msx.hop.to

There you can download a bunch of games in .WAV format and also there are utile, to make .WAV out of .ROM (Cartridges)..... I haven´t slept until now and it´s now 8:00 AM in the morning and I have to go to work .... but I´ve tested these fine Utils for some hours now and it WORKS ..

So now it´s possible to create tapes out of your fav. Cartridge Dumps (.ROM) !!! Also there are utils to extract the .bin files out of .dsk files ..... My next thing I´m planning is, convert all games I find to .wav, burn them to CDR and use my Portable CD Player on my MSX to load the games

[Twistin'Ghost]

There has been some really thorough, huge MSX floods in usenet (again, alt.binaries.emulators.misc) with gads and gads of MSXware.

[RetroMan]

Seems, that I got to set up Usenet once again anyway, I got a problem here, maybe someone got a solution ..... As I stated above, I have a Philips VG-8010, well it IS at last MSX1 standard, BUT it only got 48KB, not 64KB like most MSX computers got so all I can use on that neat little machine are 32KB Cartridges, so I sorted them out, and put them to an extra directory ....

Now I trying to convert to .WAV which works out fine, the Problem is after typing RUN"CAS:" (or BLOAD"CAS:",R if it´s a binary) the MSX only returns to the MSX-DOS screen with an OK prompt May it be, that some 32KB Cartridges require 64KB ??? or is there another problem ?

One more thing, I have read that there was a 16KB Ram Cartridge Expasion Module for the VG-8010, does anyone got it and would sale it to me ? Or swap ? ...... ah well, as I said, I had to be really lucky with this, but it IS worth a try

[Twistin'Ghost]

Maybe everything you are trying to dump has already been dumped? Why don't you post a list of the MSX stuff you are trying to dump and I will see if I have it already, in which case I can send it to you somehow.

[RetroMan]

@Twistin'Ghost

I´m not trying to dump those carts *again* .... These are .rom files from the Net and I doubt you allready have them as .WAV file, do you ??

[Fissuras]

I have found this litte program... "MSXCas2Files"

eh.. I didn't really find it... I just read a note about it on EMULATRONIA...

Here is what the author has to say:

"MSXCas2Files is a Visual Basic made program for record the files contained in an audio tape into a MSX emulator.

I am referring on those prehistoric games recorded in three / four minutes tapes (each side), which sounded something similar to: "Piiiiiiiii-ouch! piiiiiiiiiii grgrgrgrgrrrgrgrrrrjjj...".

What MSXCas2Files does is reading the sounds from a WAV file, analyzing it, and if everything goes OK, it generates some files in your hard disk: the files which were in the tape.

Then, you just save them as a .DSK file in order to use it with the emulator and, let's play!"

here is the address:

http://www.terra.es/personal7/miguel...msx/msx_en.htm
(english version)

http://www.terra.es/personal7/miguel.colom/msx/msx.htm
(spanish version)

In the links section there is a link to a site called "Wav Games"

http://www.dlcsistemas.com/msx/html/...wav_games.html

It seems to be offline, but it is said to have a lot of utilities and stuff for MSX, games in WAV format and an explanation of how to convert binary files into sound files, just the inverse process of MSXCas2Files...

happy hunting

[Fissuras]

I've found this other link too

"The author(s) of the No$MSX emulator also made a tool to use cassettes in emulators. It is a DOS program called TAPE2HDD. Look here for details and download."

http://www.work.de/nocash/tape2hdd.htm

It may be usefull, who kows?