The combo boards are on their way to me! I will announce when I get them and the amount available. Two boards are already reserved by Nyyrikki. Timo, please ask Ahti and Saku whether they also need those boards.
Btw guys, I have patched MSX2+ ROMs for the Russian YIS503III that got the annoying keyboard layout fix (you needed to press shift to type a number) as well as the fix for F4 register (you don't need it any more). Please contact me if you need them.
I was not sure whether you wanted them because you were still asking questions about the functionality. Ok, 2 boards reserved for you. Now all boards from the first batch are reserved.
I was considering it for my NMS8245 upgraded with a v9958 and basic3 rom, but no logo on boot neither fmsound inside.
I don,t know if my msx has the F4 ok, any way to know it?
Anyway maybe your solution would be useful to me.
1- On which slot your fmlite will appear? i hope it will not use any of the 2 slots available
2- could i setup easy it on my nms8245? I have not soldering skill
3- consider my z80 is maybe under the floppy drive, what about needed space to mount it?
4- is there a way to know if it wuold be compatible with my msx?
5- any rewiev by the users who bought it?
1. Depends on how you connect it. If you want to use the EEPROM on board, you will need to find a free CS1 and SLTSEL signals. On my Yamaha there's an unused slot, so I will use the signals from it. If no free signals are available, you will have to sacrifice one of the main slots. Without EEPROM you won't have this problem, but older games won't be able to detect the presence of FM-PAC
2. I have not tried the board on Philips MSXs - these boards were primarily designed for Yamahas, but very likely can be installed to other MSX machines. If there's no space to install the board on z80 socket, the board can be wired directly to z80. Without soldering skills you have no chance to install this board in your MSX, sorry. You will need to either install a socket for your z80 or to connect all 40 wires from the board to CPU. Even if your z80 is socketed, you will need to solder a few wires to provide power and take sound output from the board
3. The board is 80x61mm and with the soldered (not socketed) chips its hight will not exceed the hight of z80 with its pins - 8mm (unless you will install a socket for z80 on FM-PAC board). If there's not enough space you can always mount the board somewhere else, but you will need to solder 40 wires
4. When I finally get the boards (my first order from August was lost by fckn HK Post) I will be able to check if the board fits into several MSXs that I have. I haven't had the board in my hands yet though I designed it. Waiting for my shipment to arrive on Monday
5. No one has bought or tested the board yet. We had a prototype successfully tested on modern games, but for the old games we had to put an EEPROM on board. That solution has not been tested yet, but likely to work because the original designs by Jipe worked well
For FM-PAC, having the ROM is pretty mandatory for software support I think. It’s used for detection mostly, as the OPLL itself is read-only and can thus not be detected. VGMPlay also requires it. Some scene games perhaps don’t do that and just assume the OPLL to be there, but all MSX-MUSIC machines and cartridges on the market have the ROM and the detection method is very common so… I wouldn’t install it without the ROM.
