For some people this post won't come as a surpise at all, and maybe expected a reaction earlier in this thread.

Exactly one year ago I received my MSX Gr (which I won with one of the MRC Challenges). The minute I received it I tried it out and was very happy with that. It took about probably five minutes before my real passion for the device kicked in; finding out how I could use it to write software for it. A few weeks later I succeeded, and contacted both Sander and Rob. The reaction I got was actually the opposite of what I expected; though positive I succeeded, overall a bit paniqued and I got the request to wait with publicly releasing it (at least for a few weeks). I did that, but unfortunately, it took a lot more time (like you can read in this thread).

It was never my intention to get people frustrated, nervous, or start emotional discussions; I wanted to give something to the public. Because the scene is small, and because I know the people involved, I waited.

As I understood this evening, it is clear to all parties involved that I am just an individual (and have zero relation with nor bazix, nor sunrise), and I just want more msx users to get more out of the MSX GR. It's a great product, with a lot more potention the software included has to offer. I also believe that if this was a regular product (like eg. the nintendo wifi, or pick whatever current technology), somebody else would already have published something alike and there wouldn't be any fuss about it.

To get to the point; I just publicly released the package that would help the Windows community to access the drivers that are delivered with the MSX GR package. You can download an example with source code from my homepage; http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~vincentd

hmmm... although (as you could have read before) I am personally in favor of multiple-emulator support for the Game Reader, I'm really a bit disappointed that you did not have the patience to wait for the freshly announced attempt to contact the parties involved about it all once more to get formal approval.

If you really like the Game Reader as a product, I feel you should respect the wishes of the companies investing time and money in creating, producing and distributing it - especially in a market as small as the MSX market.

Considering the fact that a common initiative of Sunrise/emu-developers in contacting MSXA to see if formal approval could be achieved in short term [after, admittedly, a long period of silence on both ends], releasing the tool at this point in time does come off as (mildly) impolite and could (if anything) negatively affect getting such an approval. What was it that made it so important to release it at this very moment?

First the emotional reaction, later, the reasonable explanation.

This whole GR stuff was for me a very disappointing project in a whole, with a lot of emotion and little common sense. My love for MSX is affected when people who I thought great of, don't answer mails regarding this issue; business aside, a personal note would have been sufficient.

If I look at it with common sense, it would be a very unwise decission to include myself in any official discussion with MSX-A, Bazix, or Sunrise. That way I would link myself with these parties, and I could be related to any NDA's signed. This would not be beneficial for either of these parties. The way I released it, I am the same individual as one year ago and I have a 100% chance in succeeding the goal I pursue.

EDIT:

Note, that my release is a 'half-way' release. What I expect from MSX-A is to open up the actual driver, to enable support in other operating systems too.

To me the Game Reader is the BEST thing that has happended to the MSX community the last 15 years. Way better and more useful than the OCM imo. But without useful applications, of which Vincent's is one even the greatest thing isn't more than a gadget.
Finally I think we'll see a boost in both interest, use and sales of the game reader. I really recommend people to get one. Its THE THING

I very much agree that the GameReader is a cool device (but think of the OCM of having a higher cool-factor though), but please look at it like this: if you like Bombaman, why don't you include it with the emulator? Right!

Especially if you like the device (and like to see more of it produced - or similar devices) I feel you should respect the wishes of the parties involved into bringing it to the market and making it all happen in the first place, even if you don't fully agree with them.

That's a strange comparison : Bombaman is not included in the emulator, but you can play it by using the disk images included with the official package of the game, as the emulator has for example MoonSound support.

As I said in the actual newspost, I don' think emulator support is the most interesting thing to do with the Game Reader. It could be useful during game development but I don't know any really good reasons really. But there are definitely other potential uses of it.

Since I also known about this package for a while I did my own ESE-RAM loader based on Vincents tool, which was of great help when developing MSX Unleashed. Before I had Vincents GR tools, I had to copy the Unleashed rom image to a floppy, load it into my WSX, then load the ESE cart and finally move the ESE cart to my MSX1 machine. With the gr tool I was able to directly load the rom on my PC and then run it on the MSX1.

I'm sure there are many other good ideas too. What about a Moonsound player on the PC, that uses the real hardware.

Btw, I like Bombaman almost as much as the Game Reader and I own a copy of both The difference is that I can play bombaman in my emulator but until now I couldn't use the Game Reader in the emulator. So in a way you can say that blueMSX already had support for Bombaman but not for the Game Reader. Soon we may have support for both.

Btw 2, Vincent's package doesn't include any software released by Sunrise. Similar to how an emulator is able to play the Bombaman disk, is Vincent's tool able to play with the Game Reader. So he is not including any of the Game Reader software in the package. I fully agree that that would be very bad.

Including Bombaman would be illegal, releasing a tool that uses a piece of hardware is not.

I have waited a year, but it took a public discussion to get it moving again. I aggree with an earlier post in the thread by Daniel; if we would wait for official support it would take years.

I think it's a good thing another project has been started to get MSX-A to enable support in other emulators too, but with the level of information I have at this point, I remain with my opion it would take a very long time before MSX-A will officially open up the msx gr for 3rd party support. I hope I am wrong though.

Take my release as a phase 1 delivery; if MSX-A _really_ wants to open it up, my library is a non-issue, which will be replaced with official libraries in future.

The point I'm trying to make is that I feel one should respect the wishes of those contributing to the MSX community, just as you surely would like your wishes to be respected as well. The parties involved in all this are trying to keep the MSX computer alive just as much as you are. You might not agree with the decision to keep the GR documentation disclosed for the time being, just as you might not agree with certain developers selling their software instead of releasing them as freeware. It's their choice to choose wheter or not (and when) to disclose the information.

Especially considering there were (and are) recent initiatives to get things sorted on a relatively short term, by the book, considering a release of your software -might- offend the parties involved in disclosing the requested information and considering the time you have already waited with releasing all this, I don't see why waiting a bit longer seemed like not to be an option anymore. I agree with you that there has been a long period of silence on GameReader support, and the topic has not been a high priority one at Bazix/MSXA, but that silence goes both ways.

If it is not a high priority, it is not a big issue.

The reason why I have little belief the gr will ever be officialy opened up, is probably best proven by the heat this discussion takes. If everybody really believed in the fact that the drivers would ever be officially opened, this discussion wouldn't have taken place at all. Why? I released very limited documentation of a blackbox device. To be more precise; the lowest level of documentation needed to get it supported by non MSX-A applications. If an official release is due, this is the least that will be released (but hopefully a lot more).

I think waiting a year for feedback and some action is really showing respect. I've been bringing up the issue every now and then during the last year so from my side its not been all silence. I fully understand that you don't like this release snout but there has been a lot of time to work on a different solution.

Hopefully we can reach an even better solution over time that will get even more out of the Game Reader, but I think this is a good start and will most likely increase the interest in the Game Reader.

Perhaps I'm sounding a bit more heated than I actually am. There's been too long a silence indeed, I agree on that, the current release is indeed a 'half-way' release and - is this the third time I stated? - on a personal level I'd even enjoy support for GameReaders in emulators other than MSXPLAYer. It's not that I don't like this release, it's just that I feel that - given this discussion - timing of its release could have been better, that's all. I understand your irritation and hope you understand me a bit better now as well

Could someone please explain me, who is the loser, if game reader support is implemented to other emulators as well?

At the moment I see the gamereader as dongle for games cracked 20 years ago. I would newer ever buy this device for playing games on PC as I find it way more convinient to switch ROM image than cartridge.

If MSX hardware could be used by MSX emulator I might think of geting the device. If the emulator is anyway not good enough for developing applications that pull out the last resources out of MSX, no even this is not good enough reason for me. (Sorry for not trusting fMSX based emulators too much) The reason to connect real hardware is anyway to get more accurate result than with software emulation.

AFAIK MSX-player is delivered with the device so no harm is done to sales of MSX-player. If game reader support is implemented to other emulators, larger scale of users get fun out of it and devices are sold more. When there are more devices there is bigger possibility that someone buys a cartridge to play it (also) on PC, Mac etc. So... I repeat my question, who will get hurt?

I see this as a good development. C-bios is an open source MSX bios and now the first step of an open source (?) game reader driver seems to be on it's way too.

Slowly we're getting away from all the copyrighted material replacing it with open source (free of use) stuff.

more game reader will be sold, I would buy one to just play the old original games I still have.

Quote:

. So... I repeat my question, who will get hurt?

Me, everytime I am used as playball between community , Bazix as well as MRC and MSX-A
For nine months I am really struggling with the question is it worth it anymore.
Question , personally absolutely not. But I cannot giving up to work for things I want to fight for such as the reader but Vincent it is even two years.!
Yeh, and who will have to do again the next step. Me again right,if I am busy with writing a letter to Bazix than the next one will miss his package , the next one has had no answer on his email of a hour ago and so on