Hi guys!

Well, it's a real pain to load software from cassete.

Is there any diy hardware project so i can upgrade my vg-8020 with a diskdrive / programmable cart / hd? I can make a baby while loading a tape, geeez :S

Cheers from portugal.

Have a look on ebay, you might find an inexpensive disk drive. The sunrise site also has some details about HD & CF interfaces

I suppose anything is possible, but, uhm, it's prolly not all that practical. It would take you a lot of time, and cost a lot more money than just buying the ready made product. If you like MSX, try picking up an old MSX2 from ebay.nl... For around 50 eurii you could prolly get your hands on a basic Phillips model (8235/8245), and those are great little computers for what they cost. If you're happy with your MSX1, consider buying just the drive. The difference in price is not much tho, and for a few extra bucks you could have a blast with some great MSX2 software as well.

Thanks, but ebay is out of question. Hate it (yeah... asking 45 euros for a shitty 2 KG package from germany) and paypal too (they are cancelling a lot of portuguese user accounts - They dont know what MBnet is...).

I was thinking more of a DIY solution and, oh, btw, what are the recommended volume settings of windows and tape decks when transfering cas to real tapes?

Is cassete a tabu matter? lol

Sonic_aka_t: I've seen some hd anc cf adapters but they are only for msx2 AFAIK. Are there any for msx1?

Cheers

Quote:

Thanks, but ebay is out of question. Hate it (yeah... asking 45 euros for a shitty 2 KG package from germany) and paypal too (they are cancelling a lot of portuguese user accounts - They dont know what MBnet is...). I was thinking more of a DIY solution and, oh, btw, what are the recommended volume settings of windows and tape decks when transfering cas to real tapes? Is cassete a tabu matter? lol Sonic_aka_t: I've seen some hd anc cf adapters but they are only for msx2 AFAIK. Are there any for msx1? Cheers

Well, if you don't like ebay you could try asking on the forums here. There are a number of people who sell hardware and are active on these forums. Postage to Portugal really isn't that expensive from Holland; expect to pay around 20 eurii for a 5kg package. Buying a CF IDE interface would be an option I suppose, I think sunrise adapted the BIOS to be able to work with MSX1 computers.

DIY is really out of the question I think, unless you're a real hardware wizard. If so, I suppose you could try building anything... If you want, try building the BEER IDE interface, which I think was somewhat meant for DIY. Be sure to check if it'll work on an MSX1 though. I suppose it's *possible* to build any of the other IDE/SCSI devices as well, if you can find the parts and technical info. Having said that, I'm clueless as to what you'd do with a harddrive on an MSX1!

Regarding volume for cassettes, just experiment. This really depends on your MSX, the original recordings, quality of the tapes and the recorder used. Just try changing the volume until you've found a setting which works okay. Start relatively low, then work your way up till you can get error-free data transmission.

The BEER interface seems to work on MSX1 computers indeed.

BEER interface docs: http://www.funet.fi/pub/msx/mirrors/hanso/hwdoityourself/IDE.zip
BEER FDISK prog: http://www.msx.org/Beer-202-IDE-interface-partitioning-tool.newspost2812.html
BEER thread on MRC: http://www.msx.org/forumtopic1509.html

Quote:

Hi guys! Well, it's a real pain to load software from cassete. Is there any diy hardware project so i can upgrade my vg-8020 with a diskdrive / programmable cart / hd? I can make a baby while loading a tape, geeez :S Cheers from portugal.

The BEER interface will do that, see
http://www.hansotten.com/msxdiy.html

For the Sunrise interface a mapper is needed. But it is more stable than the Beer interface of which the working on all hd's isnot sure

Remember you can load hi-speed tape images. Load times are really low and you will not need any extra software. You can "play" these images directly form your PC, CD, etc..
But keep in mind that, for some games, you will need 64KB RAM... also if you want to run DOS...
For more info: http://www.terra.es/personal3/superint/cas.htm

Thanks a lot guys! Really!

I was really freaking out with all these long loading times and tons of errors. I opted for cd loading using an util to transfer rom -> wav. It would be a pitty if i couldn't enjoy this wonderful machine. It brought back sweet memories. I remember glueing my face to a window to watch demoplays of games of a msx in a shop. That 80's feeling!



Just like it did when i recently watched verano azul

Cheers

Quote:

Remember you can load hi-speed tape images. Load times are really low and you will not need any extra software. You can "play" these images directly form your PC, CD, etc.. But keep in mind that, for some games, you will need 64KB RAM... also if you want to run DOS... For more info: http://www.terra.es/personal3/superint/cas.htm

Thanks. How do i load these? with bload"cas:",r ?

Cheers