This comes from another forum post...

Yes, I know that this is a weird idea when almost everybody has got SCSI/IDE/CF hard-disk in his MSX, but hey, sometimes I feel nostalgic and I would like to have new MSX cartridges. There is nothing like the sensation of plugging a cartridge into your lovely old MSX computer.

I have no idea about electronics, but looking at Konami's cartridges, they are not very complex. I mean producing new MSX cartridges without mapper, that is it, 32 KB maximum.

In this page www.multi-pcb.com they seem to print PCB circuits for a reasonable price if the order is big enough. Is there anyone else interested in these little marvels? We will also need the right EPROMs/EEPROMs (27512, aren't they?) and plastic cases.

Any volunteer to design/copy the cartridge schematics?

I am waiting for your replies.

I'd love new carts for MSX... Even with the USB cart reader it would be fantastisc to have!

Lets use this forum thread to see if more people are interested, who can do what etc. etc. etc. if something serious comes out of it, we could do an announcement on our frontpage and try to get as many pre-orders as possible.

I think the PCB's is least of your worries.. Getting the plastics produced will cost big amounts of money. :/

Very cool !
We already have five persons.
I had a similar idea.
This can't be so difficulty , I have some old cartridges that use a EPROM for MSX.
There is those "programmable" cartridges for MSX and Atari , there was even a EPROM writer for MSX.
With cool games, it's even possible to sell the final product to game stores!

Hey! I think that you are going too far! I am enthusiatic about all this, but keep in mind that MSX community is minoritary and there is not much commercial activity. I would like to build my own cartridges to have a "real" version of the ROMs that I code, and eventully sell or give some of them at cost price to interested users, but everything that I code is just freeware: no money for MSX software!

About plastic cases, I know that it is expensive, but perhaps we can find an interesting offer somewhere. SUNRISE produced his own casings, am I wrong?

As Snout said before, if there is enough interest, perhaps we could do something about all this.

Kind regards,

Ed Robsy

Our cases can be obtained for around 2 euro each nowadays.
In the early days we had to invest in the entire project of letting develop it.
Based on 1000 cases. So now we have to pay only the costs of the plastic cases which is around these price since almost 1000 cases we used.
We can still order 9000 without quality loose
The gates we have to make for connectors we do ourselves .
So they can be used for many purposes.
Bitwise, Leonardo Padial ( although I have never seen it from him) and Hans Otten purchased already cartridges in that way

I would like to see some new cartridge titles being released. It's a challenge to cope with a little bit more obstacles... The main obstacle is reserving and using a block of RAM for the variables in stead of wanting to write to it somewhere within the compiled space.

Besides, inserting a cartridge and switching on the MSX beats loading from SCSI, IDE or CF any day.

maybe put inside one EPROM like 512mb and use little jumper to select the current viewable 32KROM for obtain a multiple konami cartridge ( if by copyright reason can be) or better use flash rom in the same way....

of course if is a flash i can put inside konami games because i have some originals.

But, who are interest really in a cartridge without any real device conectivity? of course i love insert "that old original MSX cartridge", but a new ???.

i want a PS2 or USB conectivity for mouse (because a SERIAL optical mouse not can't buy, they not exist more), that can be great for MNBIOS user's interfaz.

With a mouse pointer on user interfaz i able to program a GUI object oriented library...as a MNBIOS extern driver .

That can be great....

Quote:

i want a PS2 or USB conectivity for mouse (because a SERIAL optical mouse not can't buy, they not exist more), that can be great for MNBIOS user's interfaz.

On a japanese MSX site, I saw pictures of a USB Mouse -> Joystick port convertor. It was for an ATARI machine, but works on MSX too! I wonder if these are for sale somewhere...

Yes, BiFi, you are right: coding ROMs is a bit harder, but all MSXdev'03 entries can be directly burned into a EPROM/EEPROM and installed in a cartridge with no modifications.

Bah.. ROM coding is easy.

Just get tniASM, put an ORG 0C000h at the end of your code and put there all variables, just use 'RB' in stead of 'DB'...

Then the only thing you have to think about is not using self-modifying code, but you'll never use that 'by accident'.

Even MegaROM coding is easy with tniASM, as you can just use ORG 4000h more than once. (for code that will be switched to page 1)

With tniASM you can even use multiple source files and multiple compile steps (if you like) to output to the same file! You can patch just bank 23 in a 512K ROM file, leaving the rest intact.

It's EASY!

In the case of a 32k 8-bit ROM, I think it's just a matter of connecting all pins of the ROM to their appropriate MSX cartridge connector pins... They both have address pins, and a databus, and RD and WR pins, and they should be 'compatible'. Only logic you would have to add is:
- xor for address pin 14 (and not connecting pin 15)
- only pass on the RD and WR signals to the ROM if the slot select is on.

At least, I don't see why it should be any harder than that. Still leaves PCB design and casing, ofcourse... Of which PCB design is imho the most important, after all you can still insert a cartridge even if it has no casing, or fabric one from a cassette case or something .

On the MSX fair in Bussum I gave away some 'empty MSX cartridge PCB's', which I got from Ginseng... Those could be used pretty easily for this purpose I'd say. So if you could figure out who made them... Maybe you can buy more.


~Grauw

Quote:

"maybe put inside one EPROM like 512mb and use little jumper to select the current viewable 32KROM for obtain a multiple konami cartridge ( if by copyright reason can be) or better use flash rom in the same way...."

It's like the 2in1 Brazilian cartridge's for MSX !?
There is multi cartridges for MSX (16-32KB).
Yes, I know about it.
There is more interesting things!

I have a cartrige from some hardware builder from the past.
white bank switch on it some one intrest???