Hi there,
>Tell me about your history.
Nice subject, this, btw.
I have some spare time, so I will now write about myself (yawn).
Despite of being born in 1974, my first encounter with a computer must
be somewhere in 1982 or '83, when my cousin had a ZX Spectrum. I really
liked Scuba Diving on that. Later, I met Arnold Oudshoorn (ex-Moonsoft
in spe) who showed me some great games like Antartic Adventure and Yie
Ar Kung Fu. I was impressed and wanted an MSX. It was not until 1987
that my brother decided to buy a VG8235 MSX2 computer (single sided
discdrive). In between those days, I worked with Apple IIe computers at
school. Very ancient... I still remember the moment the computer
arrived: it was very cold, my hands were frozen and I wanted to use the
computer rightaway, but I couldn't because my hands were frozen.
Anyway, it wouldn't last long until I had my own MSX, a Sony HP700D with
German keyboard (qwertz, in stead of qwerty), some people might have
seen this computer run at fairs, it was the computer with the Return key
missing. Together with this computer, I got Usas.
I recontacted Arnold (who was busy in the demo-scene with Remco
Schrijvers under the name of Moonsoft). He showed me some SCC demos and
games and I was flabbergasted... Really impressed... like... wow! this
is music! I wanted my own SCC cardridge and I traded Usas against
Nemesis 3, which was brand new around that time. A friend of ours, Bert,
well known for the SCSI interface, build in a connector so I could turn
off the Nemesis 3 "boot" and use the SCC for other applications...
(illegal copies?? ehm... no :-) ). Later, Bert build in MSX2+ and
repaired my computer several times.
When the FM Pac was introduced in Japan, Arnold and me got both one via
import and were impressed. Especially games which were quite old like
Greatest Driver, Psycho World (still one of the best MSX games) and
Feedback. At that time, the little documentation we had on MSX Music
Basic we used for making demos with FM music. It didn't work though, it
was too slow. We must have a program for making FM music with a replayer
in ML, so we decided to buy a music program from Engine (the predecessor
of their more popular FM Studio or something like that). It sucked, but
FST was a lot better, still not perfect for FM Pac. And from there we
could make Awesome and with the help of Marco v/d Berg we could make
Awesome 2 with stereo music. This was the first step in the direction of
Moonblaster.
The idea of MoonBlaster started after several problems with FST (the
replayer was too slow, FM Pac was not used good in FST, etc.) Remco
started with MB and I did the beta testing and giving advice and tips
for additions. The rest is MSX history. Too bad Arnold quit Moonsoft
during that time, he bought a Megadrive :-( I think I will call him one
of these days... He has a PSX now.
After MB we wanted to make a game, but it all failed, despite some
promising ideas and tests. Partly to do with not having a graphical man
(Arnold was gone). Some little demo games were made, like Fairplay and
the intro for one of the Sunrise Picturediscs.
In '91 our MSX Club Rijnstreek decided to merge with Genic to become
Stichting Sunrise. Our goal was to give people information by using the
good name of MSX Club Rijnstreek and the quality of the Genic
programmers (Genic had some ... dubious... reputation in the past) and
their magazine. Too bad some ideas didn't work out well (I miss those
club days).
We decided to work on the Sunrise Picturedisc, a demodisc with demos
from all kinds of MSX groups. It was nice to do, but because of school I
had to quit and it was also the end of my MSX activity. The Moonsound
was released using the same development phase as MB, where I had to use
the Moonsound (and I created most of the sounds of the program, it was
exhausting...) But I still have my MSX and I still use it to make music.
I don't have the Moonsound, Remco has it, so I use my FM Pac and MSX
Audio for it. (Remco is now living in the same flat as Ray from 2
Limited)
Now I have the following setup: your standard MSX2 (Sony HBF700D still)
with FM Pac and Music Module (like I said: standard), SD Snatcher + SCC,
Nemesis 3 + SCC, MSX2+ chips, DOS 2.
Grtz
Coen
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