(...) From what I read here and in other sites, retro-users of the MSX platforms are mostly from Northern Europe, France, and Spain.
There are many of us in Brazil too. And some fun meetings! 
Hi guys!
Here I am again, after a busy period, distracting me from the very BASIC retro-activities 
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Welcome orion70 to the MSX´s world
I am a Spanish user. If you are interested in programming in msx basic I will tell you that I am making a game, its name: 'Cavernator '. You can follow his evolution at https://www.msx.org/node/48396 and (for the moment) the ultimate version of the game: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5dJMlHyX5j1cXJ1a0pWUEU2cFU...
It's made in 'pure & hard´ BASIC B-) nothing more than that (not machine code etc). I think it is a ´little´ :) sample of what can be done in BASIC on a Japanese computer. Soon I will upload a new version of the game.
I hope you enjoy our MSX world as much as you did in your native computer.
PD0. Sorry for the English ;( translator.
PD1. Sorry again ;( the game is in MSX-2 version and uses OPL-4 (Moonsound), i think no problem with emulators (BlueMSX etc.) but i presume... the major problem: It's in Spanish language.
Thank you very much Yodh, I'll follow your creation as it takes shape for sure. Too bad I don't have a MSX2 platform, but will try it in the emulator nonetheless. Good to learn some Spanish, too (I learned very basic French at the secondary school, then English mostly "on the street" travelling abroad and writing posts in crazy retrocomputing forums :)). So I guess my English is no better than yours!
hi, orion. you know the old c64 with the VIC II had the best hw sprite system on 8 bits machines. however the idea of sprites on c64 came from the videochip of the msx the TMS vdp. they improved a lot the system but the roots are in the TMS ;-)
I really didn't know that. This further confirms that the MSX standard was way ahead of the competition, and did not succeed in imposing as the market dominator because of concurrent factors, none of which inherent to hardware and software engineering. Too bad it didn't: IBM itself would have suffered from the MSX rule, and maybe we could have had MSX businnes computers as well.
Regarding the Hobbit, there is a disk rip of The Hobbit for MSX that may allow you to avoid some of the woes of cassettes. The TOSEC name is "Hobbit, The (1985)(Melbourne House)(GB).zip", in case you can "find" it online.
Thank you for the tip. I'm currently using this DSK file with the newly acquired MegaflashROM :). I still have questions about some functions of this wonderful piece of harware, so expect more posts with silly question from me in the immediate future. For now, I am content with the Hobbit playing in a nice looking Italian TV set from the "Space Age" era of design (pictures to follow).
There are many of us in Brazil too. And some fun meetings! :)
Brazil and fun meeting in the same sentence are not so uncommon I guess! I'll just save money to attend one ASAP :).