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.

Drumulator in FPGA & OMEGA MSX computer.

THE DRUMULATOR

I continue the experiments of recreating the audio outputs of the Drumulator.

At this stage, I know that I am able to read all the Drumulator sounds correctly with the digital/analog converter used, once the data has been passed through the decompression table to the µLAW standard.

But, for the moment I reproduce the sound directly at the output of the audio converter. I now have to test on the one hand the individual volume adjustment part then the sample&hold outputs, in order to verify that the reproduction is going well on all the outputs.

It's a bit complicated because in order to minimize the need for board routing, I opted for serial interfaces for all the commands. Originally, the interfaces are of the parallel bus type with all that this implies of buffer circuits and bus locking.

And above all, I like to condense ;-)

Apart from the analog converter and the serial control circuit, I use the same components as those present in the Drumulator, just to preserve as much as possible the sound signature of this machine.

THE MSX OMEGA

This morning I received a package directly from Poland. Even if I blurred some information on my home address, I note that the French postal service still retains within it, some real clairvoyant eyes. I doubt that it happened correctly in the machine-reading system... Long live to the world of real people!

And what's beautiful inside this 'survivor' package? 

Everything you need to build a great case for the OMEGA board. All I have to do is find the few screws needed to fix the board to the bottom of the case. Interesting thing: I find that my USB to OMEGA keyboard conversion interface fits perfectly inside the box without any problem. I should even have room to attach a USB connector to the front panel. From the cutout informations, I thought my interface wasn't going to fit inside. In fact, it does it very well and I'm very satisfied!

The difference in this version is that there is no cutout for the Omega keyboard as originally planned since I am replacing it with a USB keyboard. I indeed thought that it was not going to be practical to type on the keyboard placed in the high position. I was right. It will be much more practical with a 'normal' keyboard.

So, I'm thinking about building a cartridge to easily develop software for the Omega. I know that there are many solutions, including the one that consists of using a ROM cartridge of the MSXROM512 type from Raphnet, on which we place an EPROM emulator to easily upload the code, once validated in the emulator,

but I am going to try to develop a cartridge that can be loaded natively via a USB port and also equipped with a serial port. 

Because in fact, I'm not very 'games' with computers but rather communication. I would love to connect this Omega somehow to the NET.

Many thanks to Krzysztof Odachowski for the realization of this enclosure...

OMEGA MSX COMPUTER

With Covid, it's not very easy to move forward with the projects I'm working on right now. For example, I am mounting an MSX type computer board. This is Sergey Kiselev's Omega project available on Github at this address: https://github.com/skiselev/omega. The computer looks like this when mounted:

https://github.com/skiselev/omega

This computer is built from standard 'old' components but still relatively easily available. On the other hand, this implies the use of a multitude of sources of supply because it is totally impossible to find all the components from one supplier. Not that it's complicated, but it really takes a lot of time and organization. We also have to face long delivery times due to the Covid. The assembly of the board is not of great complexity but requires patience and a good practice of the soldering iron. It is definitely not a beginner's job.

My first board is almost finished: 

In fact, I have ordered components for several boards. No need to generate all these global transports for a single copy. I may offer a few mounted boards for sale. I plan to use this first one as a prototype for some future developments, because the MSX standard is still active and dynamic.

The Z80 which equips this type of equipment is definitely an excellent processor for familiarizing yourself with the architecture of computers and their programming. This is obviously a totally different approach to the 'virtual' world that is programming under Windows for example. I think that creating an application for such a machine is much more rewarding than running your first (boring) 'Hello World' application in its 'little window' ;-)

Other projects will soon be completed. I'll post on this blog when it's done ....