In the early years of MSX emulation, it was absolutely not done for someone in the scene to like emulation. After a few years, some people realized that no computer lives forever, and that - some day - all real MSX computers from the eighties will be 'dead'. And - if that time had come - there'd better be a good way to continue running MSX software. Emulation is an option. (Creating a new MSX like the CIEL3++ another one). There are a lot of (decent) emulators available already (also see the emulator comparison) and I'm wondering... do you use currently an MSX emulator or not?

The first emulators were only interesting, because they weren't perfect , especially for the music emulation, but it was a good beginning and for most MSX fans, it was enough to launch some loved games
You can also say that each emulator has traced the way to new emulators, still better and more perfect. fMSX is the mother of a long list of emulators, others like BRMSX, Virtual MSX, RuMSX have opened other ways .... Now we have great emulators like NLMSX and openMSX that are really on the way to the perfection (including Turbo-R emulation!)
I like to use excellent emulators, because you can have additionnal functions (screenshots, save states or musics, ...).
Use of emulators can also be a step to buy a new real machine. Before the emulators, I only had a MSX 2 PHILIPS NMS 8280..... By using RuMSX, I've discovered partially the Turbo-R and was so impatient that I've buyed in 2001 on eBAY a Panasonic A1-ST ! 8)
So, I can really compare : the emulators have still a long way to emulate at 100% this great machine ...

I only use MSX Emulator on my old P133 Laptop if I´m not at home Emulators are nice but I really prefer the real thing, it´s maybe just those nostalgic feeling I really dunno ...

But I have to admit, that emulators were the reason for me, to buy a real MSX (I haven´t had one before 2001 btw. ) and I was really impressed by it´s capabillities

Now I got 5 of them (Sony HitBit 75P, HitBit F700D, Sanyo MCP-100, Philips VG-8010, Philips VG-8235) and I use most of them every day .... But since I bought my first MSX, the emulators are no option for me anymore 8)

I have never used an MSX emulator and I will never use one until my real MSX machines all died........Unless openMSX really is that good as it looks like

A good EMU is so handy!

- you can create disk images and organise them on your harddisk. I don't have that many free 720k disks left and my sucky ex-pc diskdrive isn't really fond of HD disks with tape on it
- it's so easy to get away from your normal work on pc and just quickly start an emu for a fast game
- you can use higher specs than what you might have on your real msx (in my case at least!), esp. when an opl4 amongst the things that can be emulated, imagine how easy it is to run meridian for example (which needs 512kb+, which I don't have
- when my pc acts as msx, this automatically means that as a listener I'm sitting at the sweet spot, between my speakers. Since my desk is rather occupied with stuff my msx is resting at a table somewhere in the backcorner of my room, not exactly at the ideal place!

Besides, what keeps the community together might also be the fact that ppl know eachother very well, and don't want to part from that.

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I have never used an MSX emulator and I will never use one until my real MSX machines all died........Unless openMSX really is that good as it looks like

Maybe that has more to do with the capabilities of your PC

Seriously, I do use emulators quite a lot these days, mainly because I don’t have the hassle of using floppydisks anymore that way. However, I do think there is no emulator yet capable of replacing a real MSX, so I have surrounded myself with MSX machines which I hope to keep running for as long as possible. Anyway, I do think that it will earlier be impossible to buy real floppy disks, long before all real MSXes have died…

Emulators are very handy in cross-development! But unfortunately none of them have a really good debugger
BrMSX has a debugger which is useful (not fantastic, but useful ^_^) but its compatibility is too low to be able to run my current project. I'm forced to use NLMSX now, but also found more than a few bugs in it.

But, my NMS8250 is right next to me, and I have to use it for Z380 and Gfx9000 programming, so emulators are really no replacement as of yet.

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I'm forced to use NLMSX now, but also found more than a few bugs in it.

The first step of fixing a bug is a bug report, so if you found some unknown bugs, it would be nice if you posted them on the NLMSX forum.

Back on topic: Another MSX emulator with a good debugger is NO$MSX.
*edit* snout, it works fine if you run it in win9x compatibility mode (rightclick on exe->properties->compatibility)

NO$MSX doesn't work on Windows XP iirc...

Ok, posted 2 bugs I remembered from the top of my head on the NLMSX forum. I'm not planning to frequent it though!

I do use emulators and I am proud to say that! Now I owe about 20 MSX computers, but at the beging I only had my little SANYO MPC-64, and the only way to use MSX2 and disk software was using an emulator.
Nowadays I am still using emulators for debugging purposes: BrMSX has got the best MSX1 emulation that I have seen, and its debugger is great, although I should agree that it is not very flexible. NO$MSX has got the best debugger that I have ever seen, but compatibility is a real problem and the sound is nasty and noisy.
Cross-development is a really excelent option for programming. I use MSX-related PC tools for all developmente, and I only test the programs in the "real thing" when everything runs fine in the emulator.

I must confess that I don't own a real MSX anymore, although if I ever saw a 2+ or TR for sale at a reasonable price, I'd probably pick it up. But then I'd have to pick up the extras, like IDE or CF to avoid using floppies, and I'm not sure I'd have a place to put all that stuff. I already have a PC hooked up to my TV.

The emulator I prefer to use these days is ParaMSX, because it has close-to-accurate sound and timing emulation and - best of all - it has state saving support, which makes it much easier to finish all those games that are virtually impossible to finish on a real MSX without cheating.

Currently I prefer paraMSX too... I think the main advantage of using emulators instead original hardware is the availability of the games and programs (i'm only have a few original konami cartridges but with emulator I can play any konami game... )

I only use an emulator to check if a game that I don't own yet is good, before bidding on or buying it

Kris.
http://www.msx.be.tf

woah ! this guys have done a great job... (it's in french ) don't miss this
www.marsupone.com/msx/msxemul.htm