Re: Brazilian MSX Maling list (In Portuguese)

[Pablo Vasques Bravo-Villalba]

"�iogo Sperb Schneider" wrote:
(...)
>  Doesn't seem very smart for whose opinion? Is that a
> standard? I try to keep up-to-date with anything I
> consider interesting, that's not a geographical issue
> here.

I meant you could ignore something that
otherwise you could know with a minimum
effort. `:) At least, it's a waste of
those tiny grey cells... <:)

> Maybe. The problem about brazilian MSX computers and
> their developers is that they tried to get away from
> the MSX standards. The Expert has it's character table

Jesus Rice, this is not true! Character tables
aren't part of MSX standard, as you can see in
any Japanese MSX ROM. Some games, like Payload,
even use extended characters which don't look
the same in every MSX. You can find 10 different
character tables in different MSX models and
this doesn't mean they're incompatible.

> altered, while the HotBit has serious hardware
> problems. "Sorry, you won't be able to run this

What were those hardware problems? Unless you mean
those horrid cursor-keys... :P Just kidding, I
know it's just a matter of personal preference... ;)
But, really, I never heard about HotBit hardware
compatibility issues...

> software on your HotBit / Expert". Everybody knows how

Of course, this means this specific software isn't
well written and doesn't take into account possible
differences which *are* supported under MSX standards.
Like the main RAM slot, for example.

> standards are important. Fortunatelly with emulators,
> you can run a virtual MSX with the original Microsoft
> MSX ROM.

This is no big deal, because if you follow the
MSX standards you could rewrite the entire ROM, but
then it would be too much of a hassle, and you
wouldn't take into account differences between
real MSXs, and you would introduce incompatibilities
with badly written software which doesn't comply
with MSX standards.

Theoretically, any machine following MSX standards
should behave the same way, software-wise. Entry
points should be the same, supported Basic state-
ments should be the same, hooks should be in the
same place, etc.

> > And, of course,
> > not all Brazilians can speak English.
> That's exactly their worst problem. Like it or not,
> everything related to technology is released first in

This isn't really true! There is some *very* active
MSX developing and it is discussed *every* night and
day in IRC and mailing lists in *a lot* of countries,
and Brazil isn't an exception. We have a quite active
scene with a lot of good ideas popping out and most
of them are discussed *first* in Portuguese. Why?
Because it's easier for us and reaches the widest
audience in our own country, where we can sometimes
meet and make more things come true. Just to tell
two creative names in software and hardware scenes:
Ricardo Bittencourt and Ademir Carchano. And they're
not the only two, there are more people.

> english. Waiting until someone with the time to spend
> translates new material to your home language is to
> waste precious time.

You probably already got what I mean, but the bottom
line is: not everything is available in English. There's
a lot of good material in Dutch and Japanese, for exam-
ple, and I bet Dutchmen and Japanese people don't shy
away from that kind of info. Why wouldn't they? :)

> Not to mention how easily it would be to communicate
> about anything (not only about computers) if everybody
> knew the same language. Damn Babel Tower!! :)

This is unavoidable. It would be a great thing if some
goodwilled person translated every Dutch, Japanese,
Spanish or Portuguese-only document to some lingua
franca like English. But we don't have enough people
for this job... :) And of course not every MSXer has
time to learn Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Spanish,
then why don't you want to use your knowledge of
Portuguese? ;)

> I could talk about that for hours but I don't want to
> disappoint the list with off-topic subjects. Please
> don't think I'm a rude kind of guy, that's definitely
> not true. It's just the way I think and the ideas I
> fight for. :)

I don't think that, as I expect you don't
think that too. ^^ But really, you missed
*a lot* of stuff by not keeping contact
with Brazilian MSX Scene...

[]s,

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