It seems I'm on a new-thread-roll here. Here's another one. Now think carefully about this one, as the question is easier than it seems: "What is MSX lacking?". I'd like you to see this question in the perception of what is capable on MSX. What do other homecomputers of the 80's era have by now that MSX doesn't? What kind of software is missing on MSX? Tell us what you think about it! Perhaps you can give a few developers some good ideas

A *decent* tracker, preferably for all soundchips available

A proper soccer game.

A Heroes of Might and Magic 3 like game

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A *decent* tracker, preferably for all soundchips available

What about SME? Is it no good? I've never tried it, but I guess it was cool to drive 73 soundchips at the same time. I can still remember Andries' funky tunes blaring out of every soundchip I owned. (Which was only 3 by the way )

he was probably about the only user who could even use that program

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A proper soccer game.

You've got a bull's-eye

In my opinion there aren't good soccer games for MSX (except Konami's Football/Soccer which in my opinion is too "canonical"; a 1985 game for MSX1...).

I can only imagine a good MSX soccer game using the GFX9000 videocard.

- Notepad (or ted) type of simple text editor with possibility to edit multiple files at a same time. (I know that one for DOS1 was made in Russia, but for 40 column display) Memory mapper & swap memory support for it would be needed as well

- web server & real time audio server software (www.dunkels.com/adam/tfe/software.html)

- Good sample editor

- Fast way to load MSX programs from PC HD (Cartridge - USB link & disk ROM and client ?)

More 'serious' drawing-tools..

There are only a few high-end apps and tons of smaller-scale apps. Tho, I'm not the one to tell who should use which program, fact is that AGE and Graphsaurus are the most commonly used tools for demo/game stuff..

2 apps.. some choice..

I do miss a wealth of scrolling platform games like Psycho World. Esp. early-90's gameconsoles had lots of them. And smooth-scrolling sortof forces you to use screen 4, but Psycho World proved it was possible to do that with nice gfx. (not to mention Space Manbow with its outstanding gfx, but that's not a platformgame )

MSX already has a web server!

Wolf, and what about using screen 5 with either a v9958 for smooth scrolling... And in case people don't have that, support Gfx9000 aswell... Creating a dual engine for that should be peanuts (well, kind of). Screen 5 works pretty much the same, create 2 versions of the set scroll routines, and a special copy command execution routine which translates v9938 to v9990 copy commands.

Or while we're at it, might aswell use screen 10/11 for the graphics then (Gfx9000 also has that mode, so no probs there). Only the sprites might be a bit of a bother... Hardware-sprites, that is.


~Grauw "fan of double engines "

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- Notepad (or ted) type of simple text editor with possibility to edit multiple files at a same time. (I know that one for DOS1 was made in Russia, but for 40 column display) Memory mapper & swap memory support for it would be needed as well

Have you ever tried MPW ? It's really good, works in 80 column mode, allows to tune up the interface with whatever colors you might prefer AND allows editing multiple files at the same time (and copy/paste from one to another). This is the only editor I'm using on MSX. Really worth trying it out (F1 for help with all the commands). A version 2.0 was supposed to come out but I don't think it was ever finished.

Ok, what I think the MSX really lacks:

* A good 2D topdown view racing game, a bit like "Micro Machine". If possible with multi player mode.

* Good Platform games with scrolling. Psycho World is technically great but I'm just not having any fun playing it. I'm thinking more Mario, Turrican, Metroid, Alex Kid.

* Tactics game, a bit like Final Fantasy Tactics or Advance War on the GBA. I only saw very few on the MSX and mostly all in Japanese.

* A decent PSG tracker.

* Games like "Day of the Tentacles" or "Monkey Island" :-)

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- Fast way to load MSX programs from PC HD (Cartridge - USB link & disk ROM and client ?)

Yeah... Bitwise is still busy developing this kind of hardware. At the moment, our hardware developer is busy drawing the final circuit. It was meant to be shown in Tilburg (again), but too bad all Bitwise members decided not to go to Tilburg (except me, that is). So there will be NO demo this year...

game develop/build tools for platformgames, horizontal/vertical shooters, rpg, racegames etc...

ok.. we have gamebuilder, swell

What I really miss? Hm, let's think about that...

Software:
- A proper MSX-aware C cross-compiler
(That's Linux soft, but targeted for MSX, does that count? )
- A scrolling pinball game (a la 'SIlverball')
- A decent PSG+FM-PAC+MusicModule tracker
(Nope - SME, MoonBlaster and Oracle just don't do the do)
- A Screen 0 version of MultiMente would be welcome, too
(MM is ok, but dead slow )

Hardware:
- USB interface