Well actually with tapes... near everything is possible

Who said "tapes" ? I boot from DVD player
Anyway I don'think 128K RAM + 128K VRAM will be enough to both SymbOS and ramdisk (or maybe I am wrong ?)

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have a question regarding MSX-DOS1 and 2. Seems, that a normal MSX2 can't boot DOS2? In BlueMSX I recognized, that it only works, when the Sunrise IDE is present. Do you always need extra hardware to boot DOS2 on a MSX? As DOS2 already chooses the biggest memory mapper (which DOS1 doesn't do, right?), it would be better to boot SymbOS here, or I need to write an own mapper detection.

As some users have said, MSX-DOS 2 has two parts: hardware part (ROM cartridge) and the software part (MSXDOS2.SYS+COMMAND2.COM). Most MSX storage interfaces (IDE, SCSI, upcoming USB...) comes already with the MSX-DOS 2 ROM, meaning that you can use it in any MSX2 by just plugging the cartridge. You can fastly see if a MSX has the MSX-DOS 2 ROM by looking at the basic prompt: if it says "MSX DiskBASIC 1.0" it's just MSX-DOS 1, but if it says "MSX DiskBASIC 2.x" you have DOS2 ROM working. Note that MSX turboR has DOS2 already as standard.

Regardless of the advantages of MSX-DOS 2 (it's far superior to the 1) I think that you should work with plain MSX-DOS 1, just to support non-HD users. It's true that MSX-DOS 2 can work with floppys (and that was intended for), but the original ROM cartridge is a rare item and most of MSX-DOS 2 users, or have an HD interface or have a MSX turboR. Floppy disk users usually don't have DOS2. So should try to keep in MSX-DOS 1.

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Thanx to PingPong I was able to test SymbOS on my real MSX2 the first time, which arrived today! Wow, the MSX is such a great machine!! The feeling is so different compared to the emulator

Indeed it is I hope that helps you to understand why we love so much the MSX system. Emulators are also great of course.

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Is it possible to connect a normal TFT to the MSX, or would it be better to buy a TFT with antenna/scart input? Or what kind of monitor do you use with your MSX? (unfortunately my 16:9 TV cuts the left part of the screen, but only on mode 6)

Unfortunately the is not a direct way to do that, unless you use a TFT TV with scart input (try avoid antenna, scart quality is far far far superior). You can also use your MSX with an VGA TFT monitor using devices like VGA-box. Other way is to connect your MSX to a PC video capture card (that's my scheme, using turboR's SVHS video output), it's has the disavantage of making your MSX depend of the PC, but you can take nice screenshots and videos from your MSX

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And about 90 KB... this is the amount of RAM MSX-DOS 2 took when I used the IDE + FM PAC, and this is the reason which I've bought my 512 KB external mapper.

That's not normal. DOS2 just uses 2 extra segments, that's 32k. It means that you have 96kB free on a 128kB machine. FM-PAC has no influence on it.

FM-PAC has influence in memory amount: without FM PAC plugged I was able to run more games that with it plugged. Well, let's go on topic

Have you tried symbos with MSX MOUSE? It works perfectly

Yes, the mouse works fine on my real MSX, too Btw, its SonicAkaTs routine I am using.

@Leo: You can move the mouse pointer with Graph+cursor keys and click with Graph+space.

Prodatron, a simple question, has SymbOS a keyboard shorcut like CTRL + ALT + SUPR?

Yours,

Do you mean CTRL+ALT+ESC? Indeed this shortcut exists and called the "System Security" dialogue in the previous versions ( http://www.symbos.de/gfx/shots/os/symbos-os-security.gif ), but I removed it in the release 1.0 version from the core part of the OS to free some memory. You will be able to include a module in the future, so that this dialogues are available again.

From the "manual":

Keyboard shortcuts

The following is a list of general keyboard shortcuts, which do not depend on a special application:

ALT + ESC - switch to the next window
CTRL + ESC - open the start menu
CTRL + SHIFT + ESC - start the Task Manager
ALT + F4 - quit the current application
ALT + M - open the menu of the current window

In most dialogues you can use the following keys:

RETURN - apply changes and close dialogue
ESC - discard changes and close dialogue
(SHIFT+)TAB - jump to next/previous control

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Keyboard shortcuts ALT + ESC - switch to the next window ALT + F4 - quit the current application ALT + M - open the menu of the current window

/me starts searching for the [ALT] key on his NMS8280
I guess it's next to the [ANY] key

yeah, sorry, ist the graph key on the MSX (and the copy key on the cpc).

And on blueMSX, LeftAlt is the MSX Graph key

Prodatron, yes, I was asking for "System Security", that I saw at last BCN PARTY in Silenci's CPC 6128. It was very curious. Also, I've seen a "lock" and "unlock" feature, as you can see in the photo I took from the same CPC: http://www.perugorria.unlugar.com/bcn101/073.JPG As I see it was included on "System Security". You're right that being out of the core of SymbOS is better for memory, but it's good to know that it will be also a module-app

Finally, a stupid thing ^^, change SymbOS CPC names to SymbOS MSX when you can

PS: Enjoy the VG8235. My MSX is a MSX 2 VG8235 with 2DD disk drive (which was put on my MSX by Padial in December 2002) and it's totallly great, as most of Philips MSX are.

I get error code 02 when running any program.
I use a real msx2 with 256kB sony HB700 and sunrise ide with fat12 and 5 partition of 32mb.
symbos is launched from the first partition and from a subdirectory a:\symbos

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I get error code 02 when running any program. I use a real msx2 with 256kB sony HB700 and sunrise ide with fat12 and 5 partition of 32mb. symbos is launched from the first partition and from a subdirectory a:\symbos

Yeah, I have the same problem. After reading previous posts about this issue I tried to run SymbOS from the first partition as well as the fourth and fifth (in case that's what's meant with number 4) but to no avail. I can't do anything but pop up the start menu or the run dialog, everything else gives me an error 02. I'm using a VG8235 with 1 MB RAM and a Sunrise IDE and a Harddisk with only FAT12 partitions. Anybody else more luck with a config like this?

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I get error code 02 when running any program. I use a real msx2 with 256kB sony HB700 and sunrise ide with fat12 and 5 partition of 32mb. symbos is launched from the first partition and from a subdirectory a:\symbos

SymbOS needs to be copied to the root dir (A:\) of the 4th (windows) partition, which is the 1st MSX partition if you use fdisk310 which you get with you Sunrise IDE/CF. All applications need to be put in A:\APPS
It works like a charm here! Except that it's quite unstable on my TurboR ST with 1MB internal. On my NMS8250 it's rock solid. even with 7Mhz turned on :-)