Affichage des articles dont le libellé est USB keyboard converter. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est USB keyboard converter. Afficher tous les articles

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.