andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:47:

As for floppies, can I use whatever cartridge I end up getting and use floppies to store the save files? I'm looking forward to use them for some disk based games from time to time as well.

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy disks are needed to run games that cannot be launched other methods, you can also write MSX DOS and several roms to a floppy disk and launch them from the floppy disk.

Some great ColecoVision games was converted/ported to MSX, for example: Choplifter, Montezuma's Revenge, Polar Star, Tutankham

And I know at least one Sega Master System ported game: Sky Fighter

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-10, 16:58:

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:47:

Lovely machine you got there. How's the experience been? I've seen various MSX for sale that have already been recapped, but any […]
Show full quote

MAZter wrote on 2025-06-09, 18:22:

Since I already had a 8bits4ever 4MB MEGA-MAPPER for Sony HB-F1XD, instead Megaflashrom SCC+ SD, I bought the BackBit Pro cartri […]
Show full quote

Since I already had a 8bits4ever 4MB MEGA-MAPPER for Sony HB-F1XD, instead Megaflashrom SCC+ SD, I bought the BackBit Pro cartridge, and I can use it simultaneously with some other 8-bit consoles, such as the Atari 7800.

Backbit pro works well with all the roms I tried, however it may have some problems with floppy games, but as I understand you are going to use floppy disks for them. I have case with tens of floppies individually marked and it is great method to use console as it supposed to be.

I bought Sony HB-F1XD 5 years ago with the power cable cut off by previous owner?:

The attachment 129cb02.jpg is no longer available

Luckily the cable was the only problem, the floppy drive works fine after some tweaking, no capacitors replacement required. So I think Sony is pretty reliable.

The original controllers are too small and not very comfortable, I found Arvel and generic NES are the best and could be used for FM towns computers too:

The attachment 43609a2.jpg is no longer available

The attachment i-img1200x900-1684195182uephgo878922.jpg is no longer available

Lovely machine you got there. How's the experience been? I've seen various MSX for sale that have already been recapped, but anyway if it got to that I'd do it myself, shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll go the controller adapter route as I already have some Mega Drive 3 button pads. I tried to look for some cheap knockoffs of those to mod, but I only found the 6 button version, which doesn't quite fit my hands so nicely. Funny that I only found the mod tutorial for the 6 button version too.

As for floppies, can I use whatever cartridge I end up getting and use floppies to store the save files? I'm looking forward to use them for some disk based games from time to time as well.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-09, 23:08:

My MSX also doubles as my Master System, as I enjoy pumping MS games through the MIDI-PAC.

In the long term, I think most new MSX users will end up spending a lot more on hardware then they originally planned, but it is quite a lot of fun. The European, Brazilian, and Japanese communities are highly active, and new stuff appears almost randomly.

Master System games on MSX? I thought only the reverse was possible! How does that work, can the MSX be used for more stuff like that and are Sega SG-1000 games a possibility then? I'd love to turn the MSX into a 8-bit sort of hub for computers / consoles of that era.

I wouldn't be surprised if I fell into the rabbit hole you mentioned. Feel free to suggest hardware expansions / mods / new products...

It may seem like I'm in some analysis paralysis or something, I'm just getting good info from you all while I'm gathering the funds to splurge on the entry set, so to speak. I read some more and I'm pretty settled on the Carnivore2. It just has everything, and if it's harder to use than MFR SCC+SD so be it, but at least I get the FM Pac outright for the same price. I didn't quite understand the need for game presets for some titles, its reason so to speak, but shouldn't be that hard I suppose.

The CF card interface put me off a little, as many people say CF Cards are getting expensive, is it true? What size should I look for for a comprehensive ROM set?

Thanks as always everyone, so much to learn...

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more space than you will ever need anyway. Colecovision and SG-1000 roms are very easy to run on MSX, as the hardware is basically the same, the major difference is the sound chip as those systems use the SN7. The "Musical Memory Mapper" cartridge contains the SN7 chip and also serves as a 1MB RAM Mapper, it can load Coleco and SG1000 roms into RAM and run them directly.

Now MarkIII/Master System is a bit harder, as the VDP is completely different. I use the "Playsoniq" which is quite an awesome expander cartridge. It contains the MS VDP chip (which also contains the SN7 sound chip), supplies 12MB of RAM, SCC music, and even a legit Commodore 64 SID chip allowing MSX to play PSID files. Note that this hardware setup has some quirks (some games will only run at 50htz, while others will only run at 60htz), but it is a nice setup. I like it a lot, as I can turn FM on or off as I like (MS and MSX use the same OPLL FM chip). Also, I can combine it with the MIDI-PAC2 to play MS games on my favorite MIDI modules, something that a real MS or Genesis can't do. But as you can imagine, this stuff gets expensive very quickly. 😜

Here's my MSX+Playsoniq+MIDI capture playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHZUP16OLiE&l … 1AMkAvE&pp=gAQB

And here's me playing GG Aleste II (GameGear rom patched to MasterSystem) and playing it on the Playsoniq:
https://youtu.be/U5D9yZTrwqs

If you look through my channel, you can see some of the crazier stuff available on MSX, but I've buying this stuff slowly over 10 years now.
Pace yourself, or you will go broke 🤣.

Your channel clearly showed how deep the rabbit hole could go, amazing collection. I've noticed how many of the MSX expansion products are out of stock or not even for sale, I couldn't find the Playsoniq cartridge for sale, just wanted to see how much it would cost.

So I could in theory just launch Sega SG-1000 roms and play them on a plain MSX straight away via Carnivore2, I just wouldn't have sound? I would take that honestly. So plain MSX - SG-1000, Colecovision roms (no sound), with Playsoniq - SG-1000, Colecovision, Sega Mark III, Commodore-64 roms. Missing anything? If I really wanted the missing sound I could go for the Musical Memory Mapper, at least it's readily available for purchase (for now!).

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-10, 18:03:

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typicall […]
Show full quote

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typically have very specific memory/device requirements. Using the profile is as easy as placing the profile file next to the ROM you want to install into C2 and that's it. The majority of games install correctly without profile files.

I'm more of a Sanyo guy for my MSXs. The AX170 looks very unique and elegant, and the AX370 is an MSX2+ in disguise of an MSX2. One aspect to keep in mind is ease of maintenance. Some Yamaha MSXs are terrible for maintenance. Hard to open, impossible to disassemble keyboard..

I use an SD2CF card adapter for my C2, and it works great. I have a 4GB SD card partitioned in 16MB, 2GB and 2GB. The 16MB root partition is for DOS, and the other two partitions contain ROMs and my development environment. The SD card can be easily plugged into the PC to transfer data.

Very few games to my knowledge save to disk. For example, King's Valley 2 has a fan-made patch to enable it to save to disk, but otherwise it only saves to cassette.

Maybe I read something about SD Snatcher saving to floppy or something, and just wrongly assumed that's always the case?...

Thank you for the SD2CF adapter tip, I never dealt with CF cards nor ever had any, seems simple enough then.

So glad you mentioned the Sanyo MSX models. I remember last year just searching for MSX models to take a look, and the Sanyo Wavy form factor was so striking, very appealing, loved it right away. Forgot about it until yesterday, so thanks. If there were MSX2 versions in that form factor that came in white or red I would go for it without hesitation. I could only find it in gray, which doesn't draw me in as much. In fact, I like the red / white versions so much I would even consider getting an MSX to join the Sony MSX2, just for the looks...

MAZter wrote on 2025-06-11, 16:20:

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy di […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:47:

As for floppies, can I use whatever cartridge I end up getting and use floppies to store the save files? I'm looking forward to use them for some disk based games from time to time as well.

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy disks are needed to run games that cannot be launched other methods, you can also write MSX DOS and several roms to a floppy disk and launch them from the floppy disk.

Some great ColecoVision games was converted/ported to MSX, for example: Choplifter, Montezuma's Revenge, Polar Star, Tutankham

And I know at least one Sega Master System ported game: Sky Fighter

I seemed to have read that SofaRun is able to launch disk based games too, or am I mistaken?

When I first bought an Everdrive for the Mega Drive / Genesis I only found out months later that I could also launch Game Gear roms that were made to work for it. Would you mind listing that type of stuff that is possible for the MSX regarding other platforms' games? Not necessarily game ports one by one, I'll happily search for all of those later, but just the overall platforms that are possible to play in it today, either as stock with cartridge or with enhancements / hacks / modifications. I'm already more than interested as it is, it's just to avoid finding out half a year later that X, Y, Z are possible and I didn't know it. Thank you

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-11, 16:41:

Your channel clearly showed how deep the rabbit hole could go, amazing collection. I've noticed how many of the MSX expansion pr […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-10, 16:58:

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:47:

Lovely machine you got there. How's the experience been? I've seen various MSX for sale that have already been recapped, but any […]
Show full quote

Lovely machine you got there. How's the experience been? I've seen various MSX for sale that have already been recapped, but anyway if it got to that I'd do it myself, shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll go the controller adapter route as I already have some Mega Drive 3 button pads. I tried to look for some cheap knockoffs of those to mod, but I only found the 6 button version, which doesn't quite fit my hands so nicely. Funny that I only found the mod tutorial for the 6 button version too.

As for floppies, can I use whatever cartridge I end up getting and use floppies to store the save files? I'm looking forward to use them for some disk based games from time to time as well.

Master System games on MSX? I thought only the reverse was possible! How does that work, can the MSX be used for more stuff like that and are Sega SG-1000 games a possibility then? I'd love to turn the MSX into a 8-bit sort of hub for computers / consoles of that era.

I wouldn't be surprised if I fell into the rabbit hole you mentioned. Feel free to suggest hardware expansions / mods / new products...

It may seem like I'm in some analysis paralysis or something, I'm just getting good info from you all while I'm gathering the funds to splurge on the entry set, so to speak. I read some more and I'm pretty settled on the Carnivore2. It just has everything, and if it's harder to use than MFR SCC+SD so be it, but at least I get the FM Pac outright for the same price. I didn't quite understand the need for game presets for some titles, its reason so to speak, but shouldn't be that hard I suppose.

The CF card interface put me off a little, as many people say CF Cards are getting expensive, is it true? What size should I look for for a comprehensive ROM set?

Thanks as always everyone, so much to learn...

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more space than you will ever need anyway. Colecovision and SG-1000 roms are very easy to run on MSX, as the hardware is basically the same, the major difference is the sound chip as those systems use the SN7. The "Musical Memory Mapper" cartridge contains the SN7 chip and also serves as a 1MB RAM Mapper, it can load Coleco and SG1000 roms into RAM and run them directly.

Now MarkIII/Master System is a bit harder, as the VDP is completely different. I use the "Playsoniq" which is quite an awesome expander cartridge. It contains the MS VDP chip (which also contains the SN7 sound chip), supplies 12MB of RAM, SCC music, and even a legit Commodore 64 SID chip allowing MSX to play PSID files. Note that this hardware setup has some quirks (some games will only run at 50htz, while others will only run at 60htz), but it is a nice setup. I like it a lot, as I can turn FM on or off as I like (MS and MSX use the same OPLL FM chip). Also, I can combine it with the MIDI-PAC2 to play MS games on my favorite MIDI modules, something that a real MS or Genesis can't do. But as you can imagine, this stuff gets expensive very quickly. 😜

Here's my MSX+Playsoniq+MIDI capture playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHZUP16OLiE&l … 1AMkAvE&pp=gAQB

And here's me playing GG Aleste II (GameGear rom patched to MasterSystem) and playing it on the Playsoniq:
https://youtu.be/U5D9yZTrwqs

If you look through my channel, you can see some of the crazier stuff available on MSX, but I've buying this stuff slowly over 10 years now.
Pace yourself, or you will go broke 🤣.

Your channel clearly showed how deep the rabbit hole could go, amazing collection. I've noticed how many of the MSX expansion products are out of stock or not even for sale, I couldn't find the Playsoniq cartridge for sale, just wanted to see how much it would cost.

So I could in theory just launch Sega SG-1000 roms and play them on a plain MSX straight away via Carnivore2, I just wouldn't have sound? I would take that honestly. So plain MSX - SG-1000, Colecovision roms (no sound), with Playsoniq - SG-1000, Colecovision, Sega Mark III, Commodore-64 roms. Missing anything? If I really wanted the missing sound I could go for the Musical Memory Mapper, at least it's readily available for purchase (for now!).

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-10, 18:03:

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typicall […]
Show full quote

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typically have very specific memory/device requirements. Using the profile is as easy as placing the profile file next to the ROM you want to install into C2 and that's it. The majority of games install correctly without profile files.

I'm more of a Sanyo guy for my MSXs. The AX170 looks very unique and elegant, and the AX370 is an MSX2+ in disguise of an MSX2. One aspect to keep in mind is ease of maintenance. Some Yamaha MSXs are terrible for maintenance. Hard to open, impossible to disassemble keyboard..

I use an SD2CF card adapter for my C2, and it works great. I have a 4GB SD card partitioned in 16MB, 2GB and 2GB. The 16MB root partition is for DOS, and the other two partitions contain ROMs and my development environment. The SD card can be easily plugged into the PC to transfer data.

Very few games to my knowledge save to disk. For example, King's Valley 2 has a fan-made patch to enable it to save to disk, but otherwise it only saves to cassette.

Maybe I read something about SD Snatcher saving to floppy or something, and just wrongly assumed that's always the case?...

Thank you for the SD2CF adapter tip, I never dealt with CF cards nor ever had any, seems simple enough then.

So glad you mentioned the Sanyo MSX models. I remember last year just searching for MSX models to take a look, and the Sanyo Wavy form factor was so striking, very appealing, loved it right away. Forgot about it until yesterday, so thanks. If there were MSX2 versions in that form factor that came in white or red I would go for it without hesitation. I could only find it in gray, which doesn't draw me in as much. In fact, I like the red / white versions so much I would even consider getting an MSX to join the Sony MSX2, just for the looks...

MAZter wrote on 2025-06-11, 16:20:

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy di […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:47:

As for floppies, can I use whatever cartridge I end up getting and use floppies to store the save files? I'm looking forward to use them for some disk based games from time to time as well.

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy disks are needed to run games that cannot be launched other methods, you can also write MSX DOS and several roms to a floppy disk and launch them from the floppy disk.

Some great ColecoVision games was converted/ported to MSX, for example: Choplifter, Montezuma's Revenge, Polar Star, Tutankham

And I know at least one Sega Master System ported game: Sky Fighter

I seemed to have read that SofaRun is able to launch disk based games too, or am I mistaken?

When I first bought an Everdrive for the Mega Drive / Genesis I only found out months later that I could also launch Game Gear roms that were made to work for it. Would you mind listing that type of stuff that is possible for the MSX regarding other platforms' games? Not necessarily game ports one by one, I'll happily search for all of those later, but just the overall platforms that are possible to play in it today, either as stock with cartridge or with enhancements / hacks / modifications. I'm already more than interested as it is, it's just to avoid finding out half a year later that X, Y, Z are possible and I didn't know it. Thank you

And this is why I said to go slowly 🤣.

Anyway a lot of Coleco and SG1000 roms have been directly converted to run on MSX directly.

For playing unmodified roms the basics are:

Musical Memory Mapper: Colecovision and SG1000

Playsoniq: SG1000 and Master System.
Playsoniq does not play Commodore 64 games. The Playsoniq does contain a MOS SID soundchip, so that it can play C64 (PSID format) music files.
For chiptune freaks such as myself, this is a nice addition, as I love SID tunes, but have no real interest in owning an actual C64.

Playsoniq is produced by Supersoniqs, and is basically made to order by hand. Typical wait time is about 5 months, as parts are hard to find and Sander
puts each component through a lengthy test process. I believe he is taking a break from producing them as he is focused on finishing the IF-7900 clone, as that
is a project that has been in development for several years now.

My main reasons for playing MS via Playsoniq as opposed to say MegaEverdrive is that I have more control about how the games run. I can choose to run the games at 50 or 60 hertz,
and this very helpful as a lot of the best MS games (such as Powerstrike II) were only released in Europe and designed specifically for 50 hertz. (Of course you will need a monitor that
supports this if you are in 60 hertz land like me.) Also, I can enable or disable OPLL FM as I wish, and most importantly, I can use the MSX MIDI-PAC2 to convert the FM to MIDI in real time
and play MS games with MIDI music.

Another way to play MS games on MSX is with a "WonderTang" cartridge, but this is just an FPGA type device that basically emulates the MS and uses the MSX only for power and controls,
such devices don't really interest me.

Other then that, the other VDP upgrade available is the V9990 (Graphics9000). There are about a dozen games that run on this. To me, it's basically the MSX version of the PC-Engine SuperGraxf.

Games that save do so as they see fit. A lot of older games use passwords or tape saves, newer games used SRAM or floppies. As a Turbo-R owner, I use "nandemoSRAM" to trick games that save to
tape (such as Metal Gear 1) to save to SRAM.

There are multiple ways to run floppy games without using a real floppy drive. MegaFlashRomSCC+SD has two different methods, but sofarun and sofarunit are also supported. I believe Carnivore
is meant for sofarun, but I do not own one myself.

Regarding all the crazy hardware I own, sometimes it's available for sale, sometimes not. I just follow the main European, Brazilian, and Japanese MSX groups and buy what I like as it's made. A lot of
my Japanese sound carts are just hobby projects, typically only around 20 or so are made, then the creator moves on to new projects. Just how it is.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-11, 23:37:

And this is why I said to go slowly lol. […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-11, 16:41:

Your channel clearly showed how deep the rabbit hole could go, amazing collection. I've noticed how many of the MSX expansion pr […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-10, 16:58:

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more […]
Show full quote

Nextor/MSXDOS2 is limited to Fat16, so basically 2gb is the limit. You can get a 4gb card and partition it though. 2gb is more space than you will ever need anyway. Colecovision and SG-1000 roms are very easy to run on MSX, as the hardware is basically the same, the major difference is the sound chip as those systems use the SN7. The "Musical Memory Mapper" cartridge contains the SN7 chip and also serves as a 1MB RAM Mapper, it can load Coleco and SG1000 roms into RAM and run them directly.

Now MarkIII/Master System is a bit harder, as the VDP is completely different. I use the "Playsoniq" which is quite an awesome expander cartridge. It contains the MS VDP chip (which also contains the SN7 sound chip), supplies 12MB of RAM, SCC music, and even a legit Commodore 64 SID chip allowing MSX to play PSID files. Note that this hardware setup has some quirks (some games will only run at 50htz, while others will only run at 60htz), but it is a nice setup. I like it a lot, as I can turn FM on or off as I like (MS and MSX use the same OPLL FM chip). Also, I can combine it with the MIDI-PAC2 to play MS games on my favorite MIDI modules, something that a real MS or Genesis can't do. But as you can imagine, this stuff gets expensive very quickly. 😜

Here's my MSX+Playsoniq+MIDI capture playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHZUP16OLiE&l … 1AMkAvE&pp=gAQB

And here's me playing GG Aleste II (GameGear rom patched to MasterSystem) and playing it on the Playsoniq:
https://youtu.be/U5D9yZTrwqs

If you look through my channel, you can see some of the crazier stuff available on MSX, but I've buying this stuff slowly over 10 years now.
Pace yourself, or you will go broke 🤣.

Your channel clearly showed how deep the rabbit hole could go, amazing collection. I've noticed how many of the MSX expansion products are out of stock or not even for sale, I couldn't find the Playsoniq cartridge for sale, just wanted to see how much it would cost.

So I could in theory just launch Sega SG-1000 roms and play them on a plain MSX straight away via Carnivore2, I just wouldn't have sound? I would take that honestly. So plain MSX - SG-1000, Colecovision roms (no sound), with Playsoniq - SG-1000, Colecovision, Sega Mark III, Commodore-64 roms. Missing anything? If I really wanted the missing sound I could go for the Musical Memory Mapper, at least it's readily available for purchase (for now!).

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-10, 18:03:

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typicall […]
Show full quote

The Carnivore2 game profiles are needed only for certain ROMs that C2 cannot guess well when loading them. Those titles typically have very specific memory/device requirements. Using the profile is as easy as placing the profile file next to the ROM you want to install into C2 and that's it. The majority of games install correctly without profile files.

I'm more of a Sanyo guy for my MSXs. The AX170 looks very unique and elegant, and the AX370 is an MSX2+ in disguise of an MSX2. One aspect to keep in mind is ease of maintenance. Some Yamaha MSXs are terrible for maintenance. Hard to open, impossible to disassemble keyboard..

I use an SD2CF card adapter for my C2, and it works great. I have a 4GB SD card partitioned in 16MB, 2GB and 2GB. The 16MB root partition is for DOS, and the other two partitions contain ROMs and my development environment. The SD card can be easily plugged into the PC to transfer data.

Very few games to my knowledge save to disk. For example, King's Valley 2 has a fan-made patch to enable it to save to disk, but otherwise it only saves to cassette.

Maybe I read something about SD Snatcher saving to floppy or something, and just wrongly assumed that's always the case?...

Thank you for the SD2CF adapter tip, I never dealt with CF cards nor ever had any, seems simple enough then.

So glad you mentioned the Sanyo MSX models. I remember last year just searching for MSX models to take a look, and the Sanyo Wavy form factor was so striking, very appealing, loved it right away. Forgot about it until yesterday, so thanks. If there were MSX2 versions in that form factor that came in white or red I would go for it without hesitation. I could only find it in gray, which doesn't draw me in as much. In fact, I like the red / white versions so much I would even consider getting an MSX to join the Sony MSX2, just for the looks...

MAZter wrote on 2025-06-11, 16:20:

I don't remember any games with the ability to save, but maybe I didn't notice since I don't use saves on any console. Floppy disks are needed to run games that cannot be launched other methods, you can also write MSX DOS and several roms to a floppy disk and launch them from the floppy disk.

Some great ColecoVision games was converted/ported to MSX, for example: Choplifter, Montezuma's Revenge, Polar Star, Tutankham

And I know at least one Sega Master System ported game: Sky Fighter

I seemed to have read that SofaRun is able to launch disk based games too, or am I mistaken?

When I first bought an Everdrive for the Mega Drive / Genesis I only found out months later that I could also launch Game Gear roms that were made to work for it. Would you mind listing that type of stuff that is possible for the MSX regarding other platforms' games? Not necessarily game ports one by one, I'll happily search for all of those later, but just the overall platforms that are possible to play in it today, either as stock with cartridge or with enhancements / hacks / modifications. I'm already more than interested as it is, it's just to avoid finding out half a year later that X, Y, Z are possible and I didn't know it. Thank you

And this is why I said to go slowly 🤣.

Anyway a lot of Coleco and SG1000 roms have been directly converted to run on MSX directly.

For playing unmodified roms the basics are:

Musical Memory Mapper: Colecovision and SG1000

Playsoniq: SG1000 and Master System.
Playsoniq does not play Commodore 64 games. The Playsoniq does contain a MOS SID soundchip, so that it can play C64 (PSID format) music files.
For chiptune freaks such as myself, this is a nice addition, as I love SID tunes, but have no real interest in owning an actual C64.

Playsoniq is produced by Supersoniqs, and is basically made to order by hand. Typical wait time is about 5 months, as parts are hard to find and Sander
puts each component through a lengthy test process. I believe he is taking a break from producing them as he is focused on finishing the IF-7900 clone, as that
is a project that has been in development for several years now.

My main reasons for playing MS via Playsoniq as opposed to say MegaEverdrive is that I have more control about how the games run. I can choose to run the games at 50 or 60 hertz,
and this very helpful as a lot of the best MS games (such as Powerstrike II) were only released in Europe and designed specifically for 50 hertz. (Of course you will need a monitor that
supports this if you are in 60 hertz land like me.) Also, I can enable or disable OPLL FM as I wish, and most importantly, I can use the MSX MIDI-PAC2 to convert the FM to MIDI in real time
and play MS games with MIDI music.

Another way to play MS games on MSX is with a "WonderTang" cartridge, but this is just an FPGA type device that basically emulates the MS and uses the MSX only for power and controls,
such devices don't really interest me.

Other then that, the other VDP upgrade available is the V9990 (Graphics9000). There are about a dozen games that run on this. To me, it's basically the MSX version of the PC-Engine SuperGraxf.

Games that save do so as they see fit. A lot of older games use passwords or tape saves, newer games used SRAM or floppies. As a Turbo-R owner, I use "nandemoSRAM" to trick games that save to
tape (such as Metal Gear 1) to save to SRAM.

There are multiple ways to run floppy games without using a real floppy drive. MegaFlashRomSCC+SD has two different methods, but sofarun and sofarunit are also supported. I believe Carnivore
is meant for sofarun, but I do not own one myself.

Regarding all the crazy hardware I own, sometimes it's available for sale, sometimes not. I just follow the main European, Brazilian, and Japanese MSX groups and buy what I like as it's made. A lot of
my Japanese sound carts are just hobby projects, typically only around 20 or so are made, then the creator moves on to new projects. Just how it is.

After searching a little bit more it's clear that the great majority of expansion cartridges are home made and in batches, but still to find that in many cases the instructions/ list of components needed are readily provided and available for DIY is really cool.

Very glad to have made all these noobish questions, it won't change the considerable entry cost but it will be of great help to plan out the approach step by step. I'll probably start with a MSX2 plus a cartridge once I have the funds. But having seen every model of MSX I could find, and as someone whose interest in hardware is intertwined with its visual appeal when possible, I just can't promise myself I won't go for a Sanyo wavy form factor MSX1 and a Panasonic MSX2+ further along the line. Costs aside, at least it's all much clearer for me thanks to you guys.

What's attractive in the MSX and SG-1000 platforms and games for me is that they feel their own "thing", as opposed to say a Sharp X68000 and FM Towns for example, which I've looked at as more of illustrations of technical achievements in home computing, while also trying to reach the level of arcade games that already existed. Very hard to beat on looks though...

Good luck with your adventure. I think MSX has uniqueness to it for sure.. MSX's Salamander is my favourite version even more than the arcade or other platforms, with its unique pacing, scenery, dual play weapons and the Nemesis 2 combination trick.

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-13, 14:57:

Good luck with your adventure. I think MSX has uniqueness to it for sure.. MSX's Salamander is my favourite version even more than the arcade or other platforms, with its unique pacing, scenery, dual play weapons and the Nemesis 2 combination trick.

Salamander is a good one. The insane fan patched version with smooth scroll, more colors and double-SCC (adds voices) is an incredible achievement from the community too.

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-13, 14:57:

Good luck with your adventure. I think MSX has uniqueness to it for sure.. MSX's Salamander is my favourite version even more than the arcade or other platforms, with its unique pacing, scenery, dual play weapons and the Nemesis 2 combination trick.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-13, 16:45:

Salamander is a good one. The insane fan patched version with smooth scroll, more colors and double-SCC (adds voices) is an incredible achievement from the community too.

I've been checking out the library, a lot of games have cartridge and disk versions, and I'm not sure what I'm suppose to choose in order to have the best version of each title when it's available in both formats. Most enhanced / fan patched versions of games are in .rom, but more demanding games like Pleasure Hearts are in .dsk. so what gives?...

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-14, 21:43:

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-13, 14:57:

Good luck with your adventure. I think MSX has uniqueness to it for sure.. MSX's Salamander is my favourite version even more than the arcade or other platforms, with its unique pacing, scenery, dual play weapons and the Nemesis 2 combination trick.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-13, 16:45:

Salamander is a good one. The insane fan patched version with smooth scroll, more colors and double-SCC (adds voices) is an incredible achievement from the community too.

I've been checking out the library, a lot of games have cartridge and disk versions, and I'm not sure what I'm suppose to choose in order to have the best version of each title when it's available in both formats. Most enhanced / fan patched versions of games are in .rom, but more demanding games like Pleasure Hearts are in .dsk. so what gives?...

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy saving and cheap to produce, plus swappable for bigger games. All the Konami shooters were cartridges, Snatcher and SD Snatcher were floppy games but came with SCC sound carts to generate the music.

Pleasure Hearts is a doujin game, and was naturally sold on floppies.

However, piracy is everywhere, and games were often converted between formats for this reason. Any cartridge version of Pleasure Hearts you find is a bootleg.

These days there are some people who want everything on cart. So lots of hacks exist.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-15, 05:25:

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy savin […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-14, 21:43:

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-06-13, 14:57:

Good luck with your adventure. I think MSX has uniqueness to it for sure.. MSX's Salamander is my favourite version even more than the arcade or other platforms, with its unique pacing, scenery, dual play weapons and the Nemesis 2 combination trick.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-13, 16:45:

Salamander is a good one. The insane fan patched version with smooth scroll, more colors and double-SCC (adds voices) is an incredible achievement from the community too.

I've been checking out the library, a lot of games have cartridge and disk versions, and I'm not sure what I'm suppose to choose in order to have the best version of each title when it's available in both formats. Most enhanced / fan patched versions of games are in .rom, but more demanding games like Pleasure Hearts are in .dsk. so what gives?...

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy saving and cheap to produce, plus swappable for bigger games. All the Konami shooters were cartridges, Snatcher and SD Snatcher were floppy games but came with SCC sound carts to generate the music.

Pleasure Hearts is a doujin game, and was naturally sold on floppies.

However, piracy is everywhere, and games were often converted between formats for this reason. Any cartridge version of Pleasure Hearts you find is a bootleg.

These days there are some people who want everything on cart. So lots of hacks exist.

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 ones, out of curiosity would it harm a MSX1 to try and run a MSX2 rom on it by mistake? I'm asking because some specific homebrews aren't quite clear which platforms they run in, and I couldn't discern from the images / gameplay.

I've seen some SCART cables around in case the unit I buy doesn't come with one, and I noticed a page where the seller specifically mentioned the compatible MSX models. I thought all MSX models with RGB had the same pinout and were universal?

Lastly, I've checked some instances of SofaRun booting etc., regarding running games with various.dsk files is there more than one method other than uniting the .dsk files into one via command on MSX-DOS / Nextor? Just in case there are faster / more practical methods. Thank you as always

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-16, 01:54:

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-15, 05:25:

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy savin […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-14, 21:43:

I've been checking out the library, a lot of games have cartridge and disk versions, and I'm not sure what I'm suppose to choose in order to have the best version of each title when it's available in both formats. Most enhanced / fan patched versions of games are in .rom, but more demanding games like Pleasure Hearts are in .dsk. so what gives?...

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy saving and cheap to produce, plus swappable for bigger games. All the Konami shooters were cartridges, Snatcher and SD Snatcher were floppy games but came with SCC sound carts to generate the music.

Pleasure Hearts is a doujin game, and was naturally sold on floppies.

However, piracy is everywhere, and games were often converted between formats for this reason. Any cartridge version of Pleasure Hearts you find is a bootleg.

These days there are some people who want everything on cart. So lots of hacks exist.

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 ones, out of curiosity would it harm a MSX1 to try and run a MSX2 rom on it by mistake? I'm asking because some specific homebrews aren't quite clear which platforms they run in, and I couldn't discern from the images / gameplay.

I've seen some SCART cables around in case the unit I buy doesn't come with one, and I noticed a page where the seller specifically mentioned the compatible MSX models. I thought all MSX models with RGB had the same pinout and were universal?

Lastly, I've checked some instances of SofaRun booting etc., regarding running games with various.dsk files is there more than one method other than uniting the .dsk files into one via command on MSX-DOS / Nextor? Just in case there are faster / more practical methods. Thank you as always

If you ran an MSX2 game on MSX1, it just won't boot. VDP is different, and not enough memory. Most machines will just ignore the game and boot into BASIC, some may freeze up, etc.

The MSX RGB was mostly standardized in Japan with MSX2. MSX1 machines often didn't have RGB output at all, the ones that did had no standard to stick to.

There are several ways to run disk games without a real floppy drive. I'd say Sofarun is the most popular. Personally I use Sofarunit within Multimente most of the time. This involves canocating disk images into one file via msxdos2/nextor. However, some game aren't compatible with this method. The MegaFlashRomSCC+SD has it's own way of running disks, two methods actually and they work differently than the sofa loaders.

Sometimes you can even just copy all files to your storage device and trick games to run directly.

There are fancier devices too, like FDC-EMU (Gotek in a cartridge), or RookieDrive.

I do not use Carnivore, but it seems to be focused on sofa.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-16, 04:05:

If you ran an MSX2 game on MSX1, it just won't boot. VDP is different, and not enough memory. Most machines will just ignore t […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-16, 01:54:

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-15, 05:25:

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy savin […]
Show full quote

Depends on the game. Basically, early games were tape or cartridge. But as time went on, floppies took over because easy saving and cheap to produce, plus swappable for bigger games. All the Konami shooters were cartridges, Snatcher and SD Snatcher were floppy games but came with SCC sound carts to generate the music.

Pleasure Hearts is a doujin game, and was naturally sold on floppies.

However, piracy is everywhere, and games were often converted between formats for this reason. Any cartridge version of Pleasure Hearts you find is a bootleg.

These days there are some people who want everything on cart. So lots of hacks exist.

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 ones, out of curiosity would it harm a MSX1 to try and run a MSX2 rom on it by mistake? I'm asking because some specific homebrews aren't quite clear which platforms they run in, and I couldn't discern from the images / gameplay.

I've seen some SCART cables around in case the unit I buy doesn't come with one, and I noticed a page where the seller specifically mentioned the compatible MSX models. I thought all MSX models with RGB had the same pinout and were universal?

Lastly, I've checked some instances of SofaRun booting etc., regarding running games with various.dsk files is there more than one method other than uniting the .dsk files into one via command on MSX-DOS / Nextor? Just in case there are faster / more practical methods. Thank you as always

If you ran an MSX2 game on MSX1, it just won't boot. VDP is different, and not enough memory. Most machines will just ignore the game and boot into BASIC, some may freeze up, etc.

The MSX RGB was mostly standardized in Japan with MSX2. MSX1 machines often didn't have RGB output at all, the ones that did had no standard to stick to.

There are several ways to run disk games without a real floppy drive. I'd say Sofarun is the most popular. Personally I use Sofarunit within Multimente most of the time. This involves canocating disk images into one file via msxdos2/nextor. However, some game aren't compatible with this method. The MegaFlashRomSCC+SD has it's own way of running disks, two methods actually and they work differently than the sofa loaders.

Sometimes you can even just copy all files to your storage device and trick games to run directly.

There are fancier devices too, like FDC-EMU (Gotek in a cartridge), or RookieDrive.

I do not use Carnivore, but it seems to be focused on sofa.

From what I've been reading around canocating disk images into one via msxdos2/nextor seems to be the go to method on all cartridges. I've also seen people recommending to keep the .dsk files at use on a favorites folder uncompressed just to make it a little faster to access via Sofarun. i didn't know it was possible to zip the whole collection into one file and still use the roms inside normally. With that method allowing to read the roms with longer filenames within Sofarun, I won't mind waiting a little more to open each one just for the benefit.

I've been looking for rough general dimensions of MSX models but I can't find accurate info. I assume you have many different models of MSX, when you have a minute could you please do me a favor and take some rough dimensions of a Sony MSX model and a Panasonic one for example? If you have a Sanyo one too that would be great as well. I'm trying to look for cheap solutions with tilted shelving so the MSX models would be stored but also clearly displayed. Sort of like large shoe racks or something.

Freedom units are ok 😀

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-18, 16:11:

From what I've been reading around canocating disk images into one via msxdos2/nextor seems to be the go to method on all cartri […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2025-06-16, 04:05:

If you ran an MSX2 game on MSX1, it just won't boot. VDP is different, and not enough memory. Most machines will just ignore t […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2025-06-16, 01:54:

Yes exactly, saw many conversions to rom, and those reasons do make sense. I think I've correctly separated MSX1 games from MSX2 ones, out of curiosity would it harm a MSX1 to try and run a MSX2 rom on it by mistake? I'm asking because some specific homebrews aren't quite clear which platforms they run in, and I couldn't discern from the images / gameplay.

I've seen some SCART cables around in case the unit I buy doesn't come with one, and I noticed a page where the seller specifically mentioned the compatible MSX models. I thought all MSX models with RGB had the same pinout and were universal?

Lastly, I've checked some instances of SofaRun booting etc., regarding running games with various.dsk files is there more than one method other than uniting the .dsk files into one via command on MSX-DOS / Nextor? Just in case there are faster / more practical methods. Thank you as always

If you ran an MSX2 game on MSX1, it just won't boot. VDP is different, and not enough memory. Most machines will just ignore the game and boot into BASIC, some may freeze up, etc.

The MSX RGB was mostly standardized in Japan with MSX2. MSX1 machines often didn't have RGB output at all, the ones that did had no standard to stick to.

There are several ways to run disk games without a real floppy drive. I'd say Sofarun is the most popular. Personally I use Sofarunit within Multimente most of the time. This involves canocating disk images into one file via msxdos2/nextor. However, some game aren't compatible with this method. The MegaFlashRomSCC+SD has it's own way of running disks, two methods actually and they work differently than the sofa loaders.

Sometimes you can even just copy all files to your storage device and trick games to run directly.

There are fancier devices too, like FDC-EMU (Gotek in a cartridge), or RookieDrive.

I do not use Carnivore, but it seems to be focused on sofa.

From what I've been reading around canocating disk images into one via msxdos2/nextor seems to be the go to method on all cartridges. I've also seen people recommending to keep the .dsk files at use on a favorites folder uncompressed just to make it a little faster to access via Sofarun. i didn't know it was possible to zip the whole collection into one file and still use the roms inside normally. With that method allowing to read the roms with longer filenames within Sofarun, I won't mind waiting a little more to open each one just for the benefit.

I've been looking for rough general dimensions of MSX models but I can't find accurate info. I assume you have many different models of MSX, when you have a minute could you please do me a favor and take some rough dimensions of a Sony MSX model and a Panasonic one for example? If you have a Sanyo one too that would be great as well. I'm trying to look for cheap solutions with tilted shelving so the MSX models would be stored but also clearly displayed. Sort of like large shoe racks or something.

Freedom units are ok 😀

All I have is a Turbo-R A1ST with internal 512kb RAM upgrade. It's the perfect machine, I have no need for anything else.