Description

Carnivore2 is a multi-function MSX cartridge developed by the Russian Bear Service Crew (RBSC) in 2017.

The project was released as open-source and several manufacturers were authorized to produce the cartridge commercially.

The 8bits4ever and Carmeloco officially produce and sell this cartridge. Also, the cartridge is produced by the new RBSC member SuperMax in Russia.

Notes:

On the Arabic and Korean MSX machines a different boot block and main utility must be used
The first batch of cartridges produced by RBSC had tinned slot pads, the cartridges produced by 8bits4ever and Maxiol have gold-plated slot pads (fingers) but other makers not.

Price: About €100-€115 including shipping costs worldwide.

Note that the Carnivore2 is manufactured by several people. Prices vary between €70 and €115, the quality of manufacture also varies. Tin-plated contacts are frequent.

Gallery

Hardware

8bits4ever Carnivore2 cartridge

8bits4ever Carnivore2 PCB front (v2.2)

8bits4ever Carnivore2 PCB back (v2.2)

Carnivore2 by Maxiol (SuperMax)

Maxiol Carnivore2 PCB front (v2.2)

Maxiol Carnivore2 PCB back (v2.2)

Carnivore2 produced by Carmeloco

Carmeloco Carnivore2 PCB front (v2.2)

Carmeloco Carnivore2 PCB back (v2.2)

Software

Carnivore2 main screen

Carnivore2 help page 1

Carnivore2 help page 2

Carnivore2 main setup

Carnivore2 volume setup

Carnivore2 PSG/PPI clicker setup

Carnivore2 Dual-Slot setup

Specifications

Removable media: Compact Flash card
- Maximum partition size: 4GB
- Uses Nextor as DOS (native FAT12/16 support)
- High speed transfer (read and write)
- Supports CF-to-MicroSD adapters
- Nextor supports DSK emulation
- MSX-DOS and MSX-DOS2 capable tools
- Can be configured as RAM expansion, disk drive, FM-PAC or SCC/SCC+ cartridge or as a combination of those
RAM: 2048KB (2MB)
- Distribution:
  - 1024KB Memory mapper
  - 256KB for BIOS ROM shadowing
  - 720KB MegaRAM-alike mapper
  - 4KB (in the last 64KB block) for PAC SRAM (requires in internal battery to preserve data after power-off)
FlashROM: 8MB (64Mbits)
- Fast Writing
- first 256kb used for service areas and BIOS ROMs
- Mapper emulation:
  - up to 64K plain ROM
  - ASCII 8K
  - ASCII 16K
  - Konami4
  - Konami5 (SCC/SCC+)
  - custom-configurable mapper
Sound
- Extra PPI clicker and PSG emulation (at the normal I/O ports, to have PSG output on the mini jack)
- Konami SCC and SCC+ emulation
- Emulated OPLL (YM2413, MSX-MUSIC) with its ROM BIOS translated to English
- volume control for each emulated device
- PSG and PPI can be disabled in the UI
Additional info
- Boot menu with multiple entries (ROM or configuration)
  - Entry sorting
  - Customizable UI (colors, entry sorting, key repeat speed, fade effects)
  - Help pages
  - Volume control for all emulated sound hardware
  - Joystick and joypad support
  - 50/60Hz instant switching support
  - Turbo/R800 mode switching support
  - Supports entry's auto-start with timer
  - Allows to run 2 ROMs at the same time in the Dual-Slot screen
  - Mono/stereo modes for FMPAC output
  - Allows to set the default startup frequency (50 or 60Hz)
- Konami sized cartridge
- Operates at standard 3.58 MHz as well as at overclocked 7.11 MHz bus speeds
- Powered by a FPGA (EP2C5Q208C8 Altera CYCLONE II)
- Uses proprietary software to manage all functions
  - ROM loader into FlashROM and RAM
  - backup tool for FlashROM, configuration mini FlashROM and PAC SRAM
  - IDE interface testing tool, etc.
- Noob friendly

Minimum System Requirements

Any MSX computer with one free standard cartridge slot

Links

Retrieved from "https://www.msx.org/wiki/RBSC_Carnivore2"

Contents