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fMSX
by Marat Fayzullin

fMSX is a portable emulator of MSX/MSX2/MSX2+ home computers, written in C. Because of its portability, fMSX runs on many different systems including Unix, MacOS, AmigaOS, MSDOS, and Windows.

INFORMATION

Homepage: http://www.komkon.org/fms/fMSX/
License: Freeware
Released:
Language: English
Platform: MS-DOS, AcornOS, MacOS, Win9x, and others
Programmed in: C

DOWNLOAD

CONTACT

David McEwen - AcornOS Porter [Homepage]
John Stiles - MacOS Porter [Homepage]
Krister Bergman - OS/2 Xfree86 Porter
Hans Guijt - AmigaOS Porter [Homepage]
Marcel de Kogel - MS-DOS Porter [Homepage]
Alexander Perezhogin - OS/2 Porter
Krister Bergman - OS/2 Xfree86 Porter
Henk-Jan Ober - Playstation Porter
Tsuyoshi Iida, Ryo Sugahara, and Syoichi Kamio - TOWNS-OS Porters
Yasushi Yamasaki - X68k Porter [Homepage]

DOCUMENTATION EXCERPT

fMSX by Marat Fayzullin

New in This Version (2.0b)

This is a highly experimental beta version.
The documentation may be incomplete and wrong in many places. Many things
do not work properly or got broken since the last release. As I now have
four (!) different emulators to maintain in addition to my academic
studies, I expect <U>you</U>, people, to look for bugs and fix them, if
possible. Please, submit fms@cs.umd.edu your fixes and bug reports!


-Major code rewrite!
-Line-by-line screen updates implemented
-Standard modular Z80 emulation
-Support for 16bit and 32bit X11 screens (possibly 24bit)
-Support for KANJI.ROM
-Mouse support
-Joystick support
-Multiple bug fixes
-Multiple new bugs (look for them!)

  MSX is an old Z80-based family of home computers which appeared in 1982
as an attempt to establish a single standard in home computing similar to
VHS in video. They were popular in Asian (Korea, Japan) and South American
(Brazil, Chile) countries as well as in Europe (Netherlands, France,
Spain) and former Soviet Union, but they are virtually unknown in USA.
Although MSX standard quietly died to year 1988, the world got to see
MSX2, MSX2+, and TurboR extensions of the standard. 

  The MSX standard has been designed by a company called ASCII in
cooperation with Microsoft which provided a firmware version of its BASIC
for the machine. There is a widespread rumor that "MSX" stands for
"MicroSoft eXtended". The MSX machines were produced by such giants as
Sony, Yamaha, Panasonic, Toshiba, Daewoo, and Philips. The only MSX model
ever sold in USA appears to be an early SpectraVideo machine. 

  In spite of its sad history, MSX is a very nice computer, especially
useful for educational purposes which is clearly indicated by example of
the Soviet Union. Russian Ministry of Education bought hundreds of MSXes
(and later MSX2s) grouped into "computerized classroom systems" of 10-16
machines connected into a simple network. Entire generation of programmers
has grown up using these computers. 

  Hardware-wise, MSX represents a hybride of a videogame console and a
generic CP/M-80 machine. Its heart is a Z80 CPU working at 3.58MHz in the
base model. The clock frequency has been doubled in the TurboR. The video
subsystem is built around a TI9918 or TI9928 VDP chip also used in Texas
Instruments' TI-99/4 computers, ColecoVision, and Coleco Adam. In the
later MSX models this chip has been upgraded to V9938 (MSX2) and V9958
(MSX2+ and TurboR). The latest version of it is V9990. The audio system is
handled by AY-3-8910 chip by General Instruments, same as the one used in
Sinclair ZXSpectrum128 audio. AY-3-8910 provides 3 channels of synthetized
sound, noise generation, and two general purpose parallel IO ports which
are used for joysticks and some other things in the MSX design. Due to
their hardware structure, MSX machines were perfectly suitable for games
and there is a lot of good games either written or ported to them.

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