One Chip MSX1 on sale soon?

Not a problem at all, Ag0ny.. your post contains a lot of valuable information nonetheless. Besides, this reaction saves me a mail/call to MSXA ^_^. Thanks for clearing things up this soon.

On a sidenote, wouldn’t it have been nicer to instead of basically integrally quoting Agony’s web log, to instead give a short summary and link to it and telling people to look there for more information?

I like the KnightRider leds!!!! (check the MP4 movie)

me too.

Aww come on, you know that's not true. The point is that I'm deeply disappointed in the negativism of some members of the MSX community these days, and how others let their opinions get affected by that. I think it's absurd that one of the first things you apparantly think after reading this post is 'hey, snout quotes a lot of text from ag0ny's website, what would be behind all that?'. I think it's sad, even. As if I never quoted texts on the MRC before.

I don't think about every letter I write on the MRC. I don't want to have to think about that either. But explaining time and time again that the MRC is a hobby website doesn't seem to help at all, so I didn't even bother this time. If you want to search some secret, hidden message behind everything I write on the MRC, then there's apparently very litte I can do about it. I can't help but wonder though, did you read the MCCM with the same conspiracy-mindset as you are apparently reading the MRC?

If you really want to know: One of the reasons I posted/quoted this much on the One Chip MSX1 is because this post gets translated to Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese (and in the future Russian and who knows what other languages), making the information available to all our visitors who will not always be capable of understanding the original English source. As ag0ny's website clearly states 'Permission granted to use any of the contents of this site (programs, source code, pictures, information, etc) for any purpose' and his text was quite compact and good already, I took the liberty of not editing a lot. If anyone should make a problem out of that, it should be ag0ny, not you, imho.

Please, then just approach remarks I make seriously instead of suggesting that I am thinking of conspiracy theories and spreading FUD (a word you have kindly adopted lately). Such answers are highly annoying, and an insulting of my intelligence.

Example of this:
If you want to search some secret, hidden message behind everything I write on the MRC, then there's apparently very litte I can do about it. I can't help but wonder though, did you read the MCCM with the same conspiracy-mindset as you are apparently reading the MRC?

This makes me want to scream: GET A FUCKING CLUE, READ WHAT I WRITE, NOT WHAT YOU THINK I WROTE.

I have ag0ny’s homepage in my RSS feed, and I read the news there before I read it here. When I came here, I noticed that it pretty much said everything ag0ny’s page said as well. I would prefer it to be different, that is, merely a summary striking the most important and interesting points and referencing to the original post for the full details.

This is how a games blog I read works (joystiq.com), and it works really well. Not only gives it the author more credit (after all, it is ag0ny who published the information, on his page) and the visitor more incentive to visit the page of the author, it also gives the important information in relatively compact bits to the reader, and he (or she) can then decide to read the full details on a per-post basis.

Now if you see that as terribly negative critisism damaging the reputation of the MRC into eternity, that is your fucking problem.

Instead of causing me to be annoyed by your fucking stupid responses every time lately, over and again, I would rather have you take what I say seriously, and not personally. Not having to write page-long responses to justify my perfectly valid remarks which you may or may not agree with but for some reason are always taken wrongly by you guys will be a relief too.

Bah. You really have a tendency to piss me off lately. Believe me, THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE MRC. Or at least I am not part of it, so don’t presume I am.

~Grauw

Sure, I believe that instantly. But the phrase "If anyone should make a problem out of that, it should be ag0ny, not you, imho" is off, because it was not about supposedly uninvitedly taking content from ag0ny’s site, but against the form of newsposts when quoting from a source. I hope that amongst all, my point still got through.

We were friends in the past, and I hope we still are. I for one don’t see why we shouldn’t. So let’s not spoil that with misunderstandings or being on edge.

~Grauw

Ok .

Are you pushing me into giving another spontaneous round of drinks already?

ok,

Well, I dunno what to think about it yet, as long as that 1cm isn't more advanced than my current MSX, I don't see much use in getting one for myself.
Perhaps in the future -when the 1cm is a succes- there'll be more powerful FPGA's to be included in the next gen msx'es .. but then we're having various 'standards' again.. the 1cm and the 1cm+ orso. Does this mean the 1cm becomes what the msx1 became at the release of the msx2?
So, in short: history repeats itself: the first model isn't that powerful and the possible next models (1cm+) will be in charge, leaving 1cm owners with a system that's not majorly supported anymore.
At the moment a tR is still the best MSX you can get (2nd hand).. and I don't see a consumer-prize FPGA to take that torch over for a while..

all IMHO, worth 2ct. ofcourse ^_^

That's what I thought ^_^ ... so if it isn't the end-of-line.. then that means more powerful FPGA's will show up?

That does result in different 1cm models and thus in different platforms/users/developers.. or can the current 1cm then be 'updated' somehow? (like: pop-out current FPGA, plug-in new FPGA)

Ofcourse it would be backwards compatible, I wouldn't have thought otherwise. The issue here is that eventually one would prefer a *way* improved performance in order to really speak of a 'new' MSX .., sofar the 1cm doesn't seem to deliver that performance.. It could deliver in the future, with a better FPGA.
My question is: can you upgrade the first-generation of 1cm's with a better FPGA (DIY, or by hiring some technician), or do we eventually end-up with different 1cm models? ( -> different userbase/developers etc. )

wolf_:

I don't think the word "standards" applies to this concept anymore. The 1-chip-MSX will be launched as a new generation of MSX computers, while in fact it's much more than that. I think it's going to be a new generation of consumer-oriented hardware. If successful, it might change the way developers work with computers.

On this board the line between hardware and software is blurred because the user can update the contents of the FPGA. The result is that the 1-chip-MSX doesn't belong to any MSX generation as we know them. We won't be classifying these computers based on what hardware they have, but on what hardware could be implemented on them. It's like the RAM memory in your computer: what is loaded on it right now? A game? A development environment? A business application? Is the RAM in your computer any of those? It IS neither, but it can CONTAIN any of them in order to allow your computer to perform any of these tasks: play a game, develop an application, write a spreadsheet.

The 1-chip-MSX works in the same way, but at the hardware level. You don't have a CPU, VDP or PSG anymore. Instead, you have a single FPGA chip that "contains" these chips, in the same way that RAM memory contains programs. What hardware is implemented on the FPGA depends on what code you load on it. Initially this board will ship as an MSX1, but it can be anything that fits in those 12060 logic elements: a Commodore 64, a NES, the Bionic Commando arcade, an MSX2 with a SID sound chip instead of a PSG, etc... This, of course, as long as someone cares to learn VHDL and implement those. And there are already many people doing that: http://www.opencores.org

I said before that this might change the way developers work. At this point it should be clear why. Until now, they were writing software FOR the hardware, but now, since we can change what's in the FPGA, developers can "write hardware" for the software. Let me explain that:

Imagine that you're coding a game for this platform. It's a 3D game, so it requires some heavy calculations that a Z80 won't be able to handle. As long as there are enough free logic elements in the FPGA, you could design a circuit to do these calculations in hardware. You would write that circuit in VHDL and integrate it with the MSX VHDL code. Then, when your game is finished, you would distribute the code for YOUR MODIFIED MSX and the game code.

Or, let's say that your application would benefit from running on a dual-Z80 MSX: since a Z80 can be implemented in as little as 3000-4000 logic elements (see "Implementations results" at http://www.cast-inc.com/cores/cz80cpu/index.shtml), you might very well make a bit of space by removing the SCC code, add some logic to control the second CPU, and then bundle that "hardware code" with your "software code".

So, going back to "standards", MY OPINION is that as soon as we start writing our own hardware (just as we write our own software today), the concept of writing software for a given hardware configuration will look as outdated as the pre-electronic era computers that were built to do a single task.

But, of course, for this to happen, FPGAs have to evolve a lot. Modern CPUs contain millions of transistors, while the biggest (and most expensive) FPGAs can hold up to 200.000 logic elements at frequencies up to a few hundred Mhz. FPGAs won't be replacing your Pentium 4 anytime soon.

I agree with what snout said about the 1-chip-MSX being a proof-of-concept machine. If it is successful, more powerful models will follow. But I won't see them as just MSX computers, that would mean putting artificial limits on what these things can do.

Like "static hardware" VS "dynamic hardware".

Shit, this is the longest comment I've ever written. I really should give up coffee.

The Altera chip is soldered to the board, so no, you cannot replace it.

But would you want to? This board will be sold for around 10.000 yen. It will be at least one or two years until a better one is released (if ever), so why would you waste your time and money upgrading an old board when you can buy a new one for less money?

And yes, there are faster and bigger FPGAs right now. I guess you could solder one of those on the 1-chip-MSX board, but then you would be developing for a system that only you would be using.

10000 yen... 72 euro...

Well, I doubt the current 1cm performance would be something I'd pay that for. That's my main arguement. If a follow-up 1cm would run circles around a tR with many extra goodies then I'd consider it really interesting. For now I see the 1cm mainly as a boosted msx1 ... :\

Ahwell, let's first wait a bit more.. who knows..

But then again .. the SCC is nothing more or less than some waveplayer... not something Konami invented.
Anyone could code a waveplayer and include some dirtyness regarding bitdepths etc. If you make sure it listens to Konami games that try to access their own SCC, then you've got yourself an SCC-clone.

Of course it is, as the One Chip MSX1 has 2 fully MSX compatible cartridge slots .

indeed, those would be great features. As MSXA/ASCII already hinted they will release MSX2 compatible FPGA code in the future, I don't worry too much about that. Question is how far the first 1chipMSX can be stretched beyond that. On the other hand, speeding up the Z80, VDP and implementing an ADVRAM trick should not take too much hassle, I suppose

still though, I have doubts about the SCC emulation; the amount of stuff that can be programmed in is limited, right? well, then, why emulate a chip that is mostly used in the cartridges itself? It seems like a waste of valuable space to me. As, no offence, but about the only *legal* program (yes, there are a few more, I know) that profits from this is Fony's Demo Disk 1 or something
Aside from that, the SCC is AFAIK not a part of the MSX standard even. It's just odd to include it. But oh well...

Correction :

Until now, Konami is NOT officially involved in this project

>You are missing the only important question: has it got a cassette port? ;-)

As it is not a One Chip Turbo-R, it should have a cassette port

Don't forget that LOADS of MGS musics also use the SCC! Quite legally.

cas port? why the all the fuss about it. Why would you use it?

Nice