Jer's Musix Disk and MSX-BASIC games added to downloads

Randam Hajile is a Dutch guy that probably many of us, MSX fans, can relate to. As isn't exactly a secret, our beloved 8-bit powerhouse was so accessible and easy to use that it spawned an entire generation of exceptionally resourceful, creative and versatile programmers, graphic designers and sound engineers.

Randam Hajile, also nicknamed "Jer" after his actual first name, is one of those inspired people who got a knack for creating beautiful things thanks to the household MSX. To this day, he still works succesfully in computing. He uploaded two interesting disks to our Downloads Section. One of them, Jer's Musix Disk is (gasp!) a music demo featuring 22 MSX-Audio tunes created with Moonblaster 1.4, when he was only 14 years old, and the other one contains no less than 20 games written in MSX-BASIC.

Concerning the games, Randam Hajile points out that our expections shouldn't be too high, as he still was in primary school when creating them, but recommends giving especially these titles a try: Airplane, Letter Attack, Amazing Joe, Survival, Trons and Fantasy Land, as those should be relatively enjoyable. It's safe to say that a blast from the past is always commendable. In for some nostalgia? Then let's do the Time Warp again to days of yore with Randam.

Relevant link: Jer's Musix Disk
Relevant link: Jer's MSX-BASIC games
Relevant link: Author's personal blog (Dutch)

Reacties (21)

Van mars2000you

Enlighted (6266)

02-06-2017, 11:37

It's not MSX-Audio, but MSX-AUDIO (just like MSX-MUSIC and not MSX-Music).

See Japanese Wikl: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX-AUDIO and https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX-MUSIC

Van JohnHassink

Ambassador (5605)

02-06-2017, 12:25

I would like to respectfully reject that fashion of spelling as far as the English language is concerned.
God bless them all, but some Japanese people appear to enjoy capslocking when it's not necessary. I therefore do not think those Wikipedia links are a factor in deciding the 'correct' spelling (if there even would be one), and am going to stick with my intuition and "gut feeling" on lingual esthetics in this case.

Though I see you have reverted my edits on the article about the particular soundchip, because I noticed that spelling when referring to it, and your reply may stem from exactly that.
It's not like a matter of life or death to me how the thing is spelled, but maybe a little discussion is in order.

Van mars2000you

Enlighted (6266)

02-06-2017, 12:54

Because it's a product first made in Japan, I simply use the spelling decided in Japan.

If the product was first created in The Netherlands, I should have used the spelling MSX Audio (without -) used by Philips in the Music Module manual.

Van ren

Paragon (1928)

02-06-2017, 13:53

A rather purist matter I guess. They also write YAMAHA in all caps, while in the West we simply don't do that. Of course Yamaha has it's native Japanese name: ヤマハ株式会社 (or ヤマハ in short).

I believe they tend to use (all-)caps to make some Western/romanized words stand out (between the Jp characters), isn't it? And they're not really familiar with the use of capitalization in Western languages.

I recently used the name in some writing, and decided to write 'MSX-Audio', because: less loud.
We're not in Japan here / not writing Japanese, I think it's perfectly fine to *not* use all-caps, and actually makes more sense

(And now back to something useful here.. )

Van meits

Scribe (6509)

02-06-2017, 15:46

Is there anyone who got the music disk to run? 16 downloads so far and no one mentioning the Disk I/O error.

Van mars2000you

Enlighted (6266)

02-06-2017, 16:58

Meits wrote:

Is there anyone who got the music disk to run? 16 downloads so far and no one mentioning the Disk I/O error.

Tip! Remove the first byte with an hexadecimal editor to get a working DSK.

Besides, the BASIC games disk has a wrong format - 54kB instead of 720kB.

Most games are missing. For example, RUN"AIRPLANE.BAS" will lead to a Dusk I/O error

Van luppie

Paladin (864)

02-06-2017, 17:03

So funny if you google on Japanese Caps Lock:

Quote:

IM USING A JAPANESE KEYBOARD AND I CANNOT TAKE CAPS LOCK OFF, MY MOM GOT MAD AT ME BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT I WAS SHOUTING AT HER WHEN WE WERE CHATTING ON FACEBOOK, AND MY DAD DELETED ME FROM HIS MYSPACE BECAUSE HE THOUGHT I WAS ALSO SHOUTING AT HIM

It seems to be hard to switch Caps Lock off on a Japanese Keyboard.

Van meits

Scribe (6509)

02-06-2017, 17:11

mars2000you wrote:

Meits wrote:

Is there anyone who got the music disk to run? 16 downloads so far and no one mentioning the Disk I/O error.

Tip! Remove the first byte with an hexadecimal editor to get a working DSK.

Besides, the BASIC games disk has a wrong format - 54kB instead of 720kB.

Most games are missing. For example, RUN"AIRPLANE.BAS" will lead to a Dusk I/O error

Maybe a reupload would be in place.

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2419)

02-06-2017, 17:51

luppie wrote:

It seems to be hard to switch Caps Lock off on a Japanese Keyboard.

Weird, it's not that hard on MSX

Van Randam Hajile

Expert (81)

03-06-2017, 09:28

Hi guys, I'm really embarrassed that the disks I uploaded were indeed faulty. I've have fixed them and posted a link to the fixed version to the download pages.Thanks for pointing out the mistake. Hope this hasn't frustrated too many MSX enthusiasts.

It's interesting to see that there is such a discussion about spelling considering the contents of the disks, which contain loads of spelling errors

Van meits

Scribe (6509)

03-06-2017, 12:27

Checked your website. Your tracker looks interresting. Got plans to release it or share it? I'd like to give it a go.

Van Randam Hajile

Expert (81)

03-06-2017, 20:06

Yes it's freeware, you can download it here:

DOS version: http://www.derwort.nl/migtrack.shtml
Windows version: http://www.derwort.nl/mml.shtml

Beware that it might take some effort to get them to work. MiGTracker Pro for some reason hangs in DOSBox, it requires real DOS to work (has something to do with interrupts I think). MiGTracker Millennium worked fine until XP. It might be hard to install on 64 bit systems.

Also if you're checking out the trackers, don't forget Avalon. A simple RPG inspired on SD Snatcher, Dragon Slayer 6 & Pumpkin Adventure to name a few. The music was made with MiGTracker.
http://www.avalonrpg.net

And then there's Avalon Arena. A network game inspired on StraCon II (don't know if anyone remembers that awesome tank game?) http://www.derwort.nl/avalonarena.shtml

Van Grauw

Ascended (10604)