I'm new to the MSX scene.

I'm interested in transferring .dsk and .rom files from my PC to a real MSX machine, and was wondering which was the best solution.

I've seen the Sunrise CF ATA-IDE card, and the Padial LPE-MMC card advertised.

Has anyone used either of these and wich is the best solution.

Or is there something out there that is even better.

id go for CF rom sunrise

it prolly looks better since as far as i know padial stuff doesnt have any casing...

My PC (at least under linux) does not understand the partition table used by sunrise, with as a result that I can not use the SD card to exchange data between MSX and PC. Any idea how I install a partition table that is compatible between MSX sunrise interface and PC?

Ps: I insert the SD card into the Sunrise CF interface via some adapter that adapts from CF format to many other formats.

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I'm interested in transferring .dsk and .rom files from my PC to a real MSX machine, and was wondering which was the best solution.

I have no experience with Padial's MMC interface, but the IDE-CF works flawlessly. For .dsk files, it might be easier to write those to real floppy on PC and then transfer the floppy to your real MSX, provided both machines do have a FDD For .rom files look for tools like ROMLOAD. AFAIK, ROMLOAD and the likes work equally well on Padial's MMC interface and Sunrise's IDE-CF.

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My PC (at least under linux) does not understand the partition table used by sunrise, with as a result that I can not use the SD card to exchange data between MSX and PC. Any idea how I install a partition table that is compatible between MSX sunrise interface and PC?

The CF interface can hold 2 CF cards: master and slave. I have the master partitioned and formatted on FAT12, and an AUTOEXEC that loads Okei's FAT16 driver. The slave card has no partitions and is formatted on FAT16, which my Linux PC accepts without any qualms. Mount with option -t msdos though, not -t vfat!

Beware of Windows PCs, though! On occasion Windows may decide to 'upgrade' your FAT16 to FAT32 to be able to use long filenames. This completely screws up your data and you won't be bale to read the card anymore on MSX. Well not until you reformat the card, that is

AFAIK ROMLOAD is for a Snatcher or SD-Snatcher sound cartridge. If you want to run ROMs on a real MSX, better just buy a MegaFLashROM SCC.

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My PC (at least under linux) does not understand the partition table used by sunrise, with as a result that I can not use the SD card to exchange data between MSX and PC. Any idea how I install a partition table that is compatible between MSX sunrise interface and PC?

I partitioned my CF card on my linux pc and initialised the fat12 file systems with MSX-DOS2.
This way, the number of primary partitions is limited to four and the MSX and PC disagree about the order of the partitions, but otherwise exchanging data works fine.
To transfer small amounts of data I prefer diskettes.

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Quote: My PC (at least under linux) does not understand the partition table used by sunrise, with as a result that I can not use the SD card to exchange data between MSX and PC. Any idea how I install a partition table that is compatible between MSX sunrise interface and PC? I partitioned my CF card on my linux pc and initialised the fat12 file systems with MSX-DOS2. This way, the number of primary partitions is limited to four and the MSX and PC disagree about the order of the partitions, but otherwise exchanging data works fine. To transfer small amounts of data I prefer diskettes.

Cool. It works. I can finally exchange data again in an easy way between my current PC (which does not have a floppy drive) and my MSX turbo R :-)

Thanks for this tip.

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I have no experience with Padial's MMC interface, but the IDE-CF works flawlessly. For .dsk files, it might be easier to write those to real floppy on PC and then transfer the floppy to your real MSX, provided both machines do have a FDD For .rom files look for tools like ROMLOAD. AFAIK, ROMLOAD and the likes work equally well on Padial's MMC interface and Sunrise's IDE-CF.

Yes, IDE-CF works fine. Padial's SD-MMC too. The problem of Padial's interface is, sure, that it has no casing. The advantage is that Padial's cartridge is smaller, it is Konami size. Also (I don't know if that's possible with IDE-CF), the Padial's SD-MMC allows the emulation of DSKs. Although I've not tested it, you can copy a DSK file into the card and use it as a diskette.

Regarding to ROM files, surely there are very good programs to load and execute them into RAM. I have successfully tested, both on IDE-CF and SD-MMC programs such as LOADROM, TRLOAD and ODO. Of course, the best choice to execute ROMs (specially megaroms) is some of the existing flash cartridges. Now I remember the Padial's one and also the Manuel Pazos' MegaFlashROM SCC.

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AFAIK ROMLOAD is for a Snatcher or SD-Snatcher sound cartridge.

To be honest, I really wouldn't know. Never been there never done that B)

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If you want to run ROMs on a real MSX, better just buy a MegaFLashROM SCC.

Agreed