Hi all,
Here are some Arabic carts and covers. I was intended to make them as a participation to the coming MSX magazine, but they were not availabe and ready at that time.
Hey Scratch.. those are local links.. so you're the only one seeing them right now ^_^. if you mail 'em to me I'll make sure everybody can see them... but as the release of MSX Magazine 3 was set to February 2005, perhaps you can still get these published? Did you contact Bernard about it already?
Hi snout
Sure I'll send them to your email; the high resolution for the magazine and the low resolution for the MRC.
What's your email? I'll send them right now
mine is ramzy_alawi@yahoo.com
I feel I can say many things about Russian MSX in USSR !
Of course, I can't know everything, and I suggest to open a different topic about it and ask people on ru.msx newsgroup on FIDO net to share their knowledge. Also don't forget to ask Marat Fayzullin...
- could someone confirm the existence of games which support the Yamaha classroom network?
As Jazzy said, many megarom loaders had the network sending feature - just because floppy drive was only on the teacher's computer, and in order to play the game on student MSX you have to send it via net.
I don't know about any game that used network during the game. Maybe such a game doesn't exist, and I think I know why - MSX computers were rarely used for gaming, and usually you had maybe 10 or 15 minutes between lessons to play something (an only if you got a permission from your teacher). Of course, arranging a multiplayer in such a conditions would be too hard.
- were there any Russian-specific peripherals released for the Russian MSX machines (printer with the cyrillic characterset for example) ? Pictures are more than welcome.
Yes, there was a printer with KOI-8 charset.
Also there were various educational devices, for example, for physical lab - you insert the cartridge, connect it to some elctronic scheme, and play with it - set/read the voltage, switch on/off switches, etc. - also with BASIC commands !
- does anyone have a list of software produced in Russia?
The MSX Resource Center mailbox is wide open for Russian software which is
either declared freeware, or for which the contributing party holds the rights.
First of all, most of the software produced in USSR was spread without even knowing who is the producer/rights holder.
I have a lot of russian software in my archive - educational games, programming languages, system tools, various editors, network utilities, etc, but 99% of it I got from unknown sources and all I can safely share with you is the names and screenshots of the mentioned programs.
DBG - debugger
TOR - text editor
ND - norton commander clone (with networking capabilities)
FIX - floppy low-level access tool
RAPIRA - russian programming language (a very advanced one for it's time)
(I can give more names after checking my archives)
- were there any publications in Russia about the MSX? If so, are pictures of these books/magazines available somewhere?
I didn't see any books or publications about MSX - all I remember is publications about computers made in USSR (BK-0010, UKNC, DVK, Korvet, ISKRA-226, Microsha, Radio-RK, Agat, etc), but I saw in stores some vynil disk with music composed on MSX...
- we would like pictures taken on Russian universities, usermeetings etc. which are in some way related to MSX to include in the article.
I also have some photos picturing myself near MSX in my school album :-)
(if you need them - I will scan. I also can take some pictures of my own Yamaha MSX2 I have at home)
Now, some info about which hardware exactly we had in our schools and universities:
The standard MSX2 networking class included:
- 1 teacher's station (YIS-805/128R, 2 floppy drives and PAINTER editor in ROM)
- 1 color RGB monitor
- 9 students machines (YIS-503IIIR, with CP/M in ROM)
- 9 green monitors
- 9 network cables,
- 1 loopback plug for the latest MSX in the net
- a set of labels to be sticked on cables and machines
- 1 cassette cable with 3 connectors - save, load and tape control
- 1 floppy disk with MSX-DOS on it
- 1 floppy disk with CP/M on it
- 1 mouse
- 1 printer with koi-8 encoding (just like in russian MSX itself)
- a set of manuals (MSX-BASIC and NETBios in russian and partially english are between them)
About MSX1 class:
I don't know about the number of machines in class and the kind of printer, but I remember I was able to print in russian too.
The most significant differences between MSX2 and MSX1 classes are:
1) there were no student and teacher machines - all were the same diskless model YIS-503IIR
2) networking was different - different chip, commands, etc.
3) floppy drive was a standalone device connected via cartridge slot.
Network module is connected via side slot - I think it's where musical Yamaha MSX computer has it's midi module.
(but as I said, in YIS-503IIR it used 8051 chip (if I am not mistaken), and in YIS-503IIIR it's YM3802 (or YM3802-X ?))
There is a least one demo of a Russian game made by Eternal what is called Logic Blob, me and Roald Andersen have a copy of it. And you can find it also on the internet as well. However, in the demo the names of the people are mentioned and even a phonenumber but no emailaddress. I donot know if Roald has it, but I donot
i'm not sure if this is still usefull information, but if it is, i can look in my email archive. Maybe i still have their email address or name(s).
emailaddress can be useful to see if the game can be finished.
Names and phonenumbers can be found on the gamedisk.
Maybe Dhau/Cax you can give one of them a phonecall
