'De Grotten van Oberon' had a screensplit as well. I guess it wasn't really special even back then, since quite a lot of games had screensplits already.

Well, we have Zanac-Ex en Grotten van Oberon now. The last one is the oldest, huh. 1986. Would it be true that the very first screensplit was programmed by some Dutch Software Developer?

Now that you mention it, those Topografie titles by Radarsoft have screensplits as well. With a R#18 smoothscroller, like most of Radarsoft's titles btw.

The whole screensplitting stuff. Is it published in some official VDP manual or something? Or is it something programmers just had to find out?

I don't know if it mentions splitting. It does ofcourse mention generating line interrupts. I guess it's just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together...

And what about the first really smooth horizontal scroll? When did we see that for the first time?

Well... I don't think 'it's just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together'. I mean, behind *ANY* idea was sumkinda brilliant person. Others saw 'Hey! That's a great thing!', and copied it.
What I'm trying to say is that finding out about screensplits isn't a small thing.

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And what about the first really smooth horizontal scroll? When did we see that for the first time?

Was it Psycho World, Hydefos ?

Theseus on MSX1 got the first smooth scroll on MSX no ?

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Well... I don't think 'it's just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together'. I mean, behind *ANY* idea was sumkinda brilliant person. Others saw 'Hey! That's a great thing!', and copied it. What I'm trying to say is that finding out about screensplits isn't a small thing.

I'm sure it wasn't for the person that indeed invented them. Ofcourse for the person that thought 'Hey, MSX can prolly do that too' it was just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together...

AFAIK "Laydock" was the first MSX2 game that was available in Europe, at least. And it has a screensplit... So, maybe it was one of the first ones? (AFAIK it's from 1985)

EDIT: hmm, it is from 1985, but it doesn't have a screensplit after all, does it?

IIRC Bernard Lamers told me that many of the VDP tricks are well documented in ASCII's impressive collection of MSX Databooks.

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And what about the first really smooth horizontal scroll? When did we see that for the first time?

Super Cobra

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IIRC Bernard Lamers told me that many of the VDP tricks are well documented in ASCII's impressive collection of MSX Databooks.

Can't he and/or Rieks translate them?

There's so many pieces of information locked away in those japanese docs....

Hehe.. sure Bernard and Rieks can translate those databooks. If they start now and work 8 hours a day, I think they'll be finished somewhere in the year 3032. Brilliant idea!