MSX-C User Manual - Eng

Well, I've been scanning a number of Dutch books lately. Most of them too aren't worth translating. The thing is, and I think this holds true for other languages as well, at the time when printing MSX books was economically feasible, knowledge was still poor.

In the Netherlands we were lucky with having multiple magazines. The longest surviving magazine ran from 1985 till 1997. In the long term, magazines would spread a lot of information. Which ultimately would lead to great games in the Dutch scene in the nineties.

Today, the best places for tech info about MSX are this forum and the Wiki. I don't think we need translated books anymore. There will be a few exceptions though, and the MSX-C manual definitely is amongst them. Thanks for your effort, it's highly appreciated.

I'm trying to breakthrough into MSX programming (C & assembly), but I'm struggling to find a guide that takes me through the process in a progressive way. Something that starts by describing the platform (hardware/timing/memory layout) then delves into the programming topics (video/audio/input/output).

I guess I was spoiled by how MS used to write help systems (MSDN, or even older DOS IDEs like MS-C and QBasic). For each area, it had a "Programming Guide" that explains the high level concepts and how things work together, then it also had a "Reference" that listed each and every function with explanation of inputs/outputs/side-effects/remarks/example. You get a hollistic picture and you can drill to details whenever you are about to use that function. All in one organized place.

That's why I'd still prefer a book over jumping around links scattered on the net. I guess many people here are already well versed with the platform, so they are ok with just using the net for reference to find details about a particular instruction etc. If I end up cracking the entry barrier to this, I'll be sure to document my learning process for any upcoming beginners to follow.

Thank you Takamichi for the feedback. I'll implement the correction. If you find anything else please don't hesitate to let me know, I'll be more than happy to address it.

I'm well-versed in C/C++ and I have no problem with asm too (not good, but can figure out things with a little effort). I know BASIC too, and of course BASIC offers some facilities (e.g. PLAY, SPRITE, shape drawing), but these aren't something to use if one wants to make a performance game. This is where IO and registers knowledge becomes necessary, and the programming languages won't make that easier IMO. But I see your point that BASIC is a good starting point to allow one to focus on a certain aspect before moving to the other.