mardi 28 février 2023

MSX Omega board : first game!

Difficult start to the year. I haven't published much in 2023. But here's a little new that delights me: I was finally able to launch and play a game with my Omega board.

The Omega board :


I didn't have a keyboard at the time, and given the cost of building this board, I decided to use a standard USB keyboard. So I made an adapter to connect a cheap commercial keyboard to the Omega:


The results of using this adapter were satisfying, but I didn't know why I couldn't use the Omega board correctly. And then someone gave me a new BIOS that was visibly better suited. From that moment, I was able to use the MEGAFLASHROM SCC+ SD cartridge to install the Galaga game on it.

Why Galaga? because a user of my USB keyboard adapter project (https://github.com/sillycony/USB-keyboard-to-OMEGA-converter) told me some problems with Galaga. So I solved these problems and tried this game with my corrections.

The system being fixed and tested for 'small' USB converter bugs:


There you go, the game works perfectly. Maybe I'll make a little video, but before that, I'd have to improve at this game where I'm particularly bad!


Champagne: first time I run a 'real' game on my 'own' computer!
Little video of the game. It's obvious, I'm not an inter galactic champion ;-)


Small note anyway. You have to know a lot of little things to successfully operate such a system. Nothing complicated but the documentation is fragmented. You often have to try to put the pieces together to understand how it all works. This is what I 'reproach' the most to this type of system. Too bad, because it's really fun to work with.

UPDATE 03-07-2023

As I have to perform various tests on several games in order to fine-tune the operation of the USB keyboard converter, I realized that this requires somewhat tedious cartridge loading manipulations. I am therefore in the process of preparing a somewhat particular type of cartridge which will be very easy and quick to use. I say no more for the moment. If you are interested in a simple and easily reloadable cartridge, let me know in the comments, indicating a price that seems 'reasonable' to you.