On Saturday 21 April 2001 22:07, you wrote:
> I'd agree that's not more than actually marketing his new idea -- which is
> a nice idea indeed. Assuming this is true, why did he come to Tilburg see
> 50-odd people to tell us about his new "MSX"? To Spread The Word (word of
> mouth is very powerful marketing tool of course).
Another reason is to tell MSX developers that they can publish their software
through ASCII once the MSX Server is up.
> > He claims they want to keep the clockrate of the CPU
> > down to spare battery power, but also want people to program for the
> > thingy in MSX code instead of native 'intend?' code... Seeying that a CPU
> > needs to be between 10-30 times as fast as the original emulated CPU this
> > seems an illogical remark..
I asked Nishi the question "If there is also Linux and Intend on the same
machine, why would developers choose to program MSX?". Nishi stated that they
didn't have to program MSX, they could choose freely. In practice, this means
most developers will choose Intend, because it's easy (compared to plain
Linux) and powerful (compared to MSX). MSX emulation is there to allow old
games to run and maybe a handful of new MSX productions, but certainly not
the majority of software written for this new device.
Also, filling the FPGA with MSX related programming is just one of the
options. It could also be GameBoy emulation, or video (de)compression or
whatever needs relatively simple tasks done at a very high speed. The name
"new MSX" is a bit misleading, it's actually a flexible machine that is very
suitable for MSX emulation, but is not inherently MSX compatible.
> It's NOT emulated. The one-chip-solution is on FPGA, which can be
> loaded with an MSX. So it is NOT emulated; the FPGA can easily handle MSX
> speeds.
As I understood it, the FPGA only handles the performance sensitive parts of
MSX emulation, like the VDP and the sound chips. Things like memory, I/O to
peripherals, disk emulation etc could be done by the ARM core.
> > Respects go to Nishi though... even
> > though he seems to claim that he invented the wheel from time to time.
I had that feeling too; the connection between MPEG and MSX is still unclear
to me...
> Also this one-chip idea -- which is FPGA of course -- is meant to be 100%
> like the MSX computers we're using now.
It will definately be different, for example in the sense that there is no
disk drive and no cartridge port. Nishi said that it is possible to create an
MSX cartridge adaptor using the USB 2.0 connection, but he clearly did not
make a commitment that ASCII would produce such an adaptor.
Bye,
Maarten
--
For info, see http://www.stack.nl/~wynke/MSX/listinfo.html
