Here in Italy the MSX home computer system wasn't as common as his direct market rival (Commodore 64), but nonetheless it was a good system for games and applications. Developing programs for this machine can be funny even in today's gigabyte era, so I collected here my MSX software products: hope you enjoy them.
Bison grammar on MSX: a brief tutorial describes the steps I followed to compile a simple Bison grammar on the sdcc compiler. Final result was an MSX ROM that runs correctly on BlueMSX (and hopefully on your real MSXes having at least 32KB of RAM).
img2spr v.1.2 [ZIP, 1.2 MB]: draw a 16x16 color image (24 bit png format, but some other file formats supported by the OpenCV library should work as well, try it by yourself...:) and run img2spr to extract the sprite patterns, ready to be cut-and-pasted in your game source!
Program outputs data to screen, but you can redirect it to a text file with the usual ">" redirect operator.
After obtaining the output, you'll need to do some retouch by hand: you'll have to assign the correct color codes. Since v.1.1, a color may be optionally defined as transparent.
Here's a screenshot that shows typical usage of the program; source code of img2spr is available in the zip file if you wish to change sources by yourself, but you'll need to download the OpenCV Library. img2spr was written in C language and compiled using gcc-MinGW.
This is a rough command line utility for game developers, so it's everything but user friendly, sorry. Anyway it might have future enhancements, so stay tuned :)
Snowclimber Demo, relocated version: a nice demo game written by Vincent Van Dam, initially packaged as a ROM at $4000; source code was available so I recompiled it as a .BIN file, it's BLOADable at address $C000.
iMsx Launcher for BlueMSX (news! iMsx v.2 sv.0006 is now available): this nice and colorful tool for BlueMSX was created by Aci, an italian MSX developer; he asked me to host it on my website; don't miss it if you make intense use of BlueMSX! Please read carefully the instructions page for correct install and usage of the software, and also note that some specific requirements must be satisfied to make it work (i.e. you should have installed a recent version of .NET runtime, further details on the instructions). If you want to contribute with any feedback information, please email directly to Aci, as I don't know the program's tech details, and I don't own the source code.
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. on MSXDEV website: MSXDEV is a game programming contest; MSX community contributes with some original new games for that platform; I wrote a small game and submitted it to the 2006 edition. You can freely download I.N.E.R.T.I.A. and other contestants' games from the contest's pages.
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. on this website: if you just want this single game, without exploring
the MSXDEV pages.
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. HOWTO and sources: setting up the SDCC compiler to build MSX ROMs wasn't immediate, so I wrote a short howto to help other MSX C programmers. As an additional gift, along the tutorial you'll find a link to download the full I.N.E.R.T.I.A. source code! Hope you enjoy. Warning: howto was written for Windows users, but similar steps can be done for Linux environments.
AcaBoom: a small BASIC puzzle game in which explosive tiles propagate fire to neighbourhood; try to clear the board in the lowest number of trials. As this is a BASIC program, you also get source code.
MSX Sprite Editor [Javascript, online]: an online sprite editor for MSX. Draw your multicolor sprites (8x8 or 16x16 modes available), click a button and save your sprites' source code. Stay tuned, as this entry will be updated soon.
Crazy Bullet Editor [DOS/WIN, ZIP file]: level editor for "Crazy Bullet", a 1 or 2 players game for MSX.
Blagger Editor [WIN95+, ZIP file]: level editor for "Blagger", a 1 player game for MSX. Warning: be sure to download also the updated version of the .exe file, as the original version had a bug in file open/save dialogs.
Sudoku [MSDOS and MSX, ZIP file]: a sudoku solver for MSX, with C source for both PC and MSX version.
Mandelbrot (BASIC on .CAS file): plot your own Mandelbrot fractal in screen3! Note: it requires some minutes to plot, please have patience.
Fading example (BASIC on .CAS file): a very simple way to fade from black to white in screen1.
A big gift from SHOCK-THE-DEV!: after the MSXDEV'06 contest, all participants received a great prize; I did some photos of the gift opening, enjoy!
HOWTO: parse a Bison grammar on MSX (with sources)
Bison grammar on MSX: a brief tutorial describes the steps I followed to compile a simple Bison grammar on the sdcc compiler. Final result was an MSX ROM that runs correctly on BlueMSX (and hopefully on your real MSXes having at least 32KB of RAM).img2spr sprite generator utility
img2spr v.1.2 [ZIP, 1.2 MB]: draw a 16x16 color image (24 bit png format, but some other file formats supported by the OpenCV library should work as well, try it by yourself...:) and run img2spr to extract the sprite patterns, ready to be cut-and-pasted in your game source!
Program outputs data to screen, but you can redirect it to a text file with the usual ">" redirect operator.
After obtaining the output, you'll need to do some retouch by hand: you'll have to assign the correct color codes. Since v.1.1, a color may be optionally defined as transparent.
Here's a screenshot that shows typical usage of the program; source code of img2spr is available in the zip file if you wish to change sources by yourself, but you'll need to download the OpenCV Library. img2spr was written in C language and compiled using gcc-MinGW.
This is a rough command line utility for game developers, so it's everything but user friendly, sorry. Anyway it might have future enhancements, so stay tuned :)
The Relocated Games Initiative
Snowclimber Demo, relocated version: a nice demo game written by Vincent Van Dam, initially packaged as a ROM at $4000; source code was available so I recompiled it as a .BIN file, it's BLOADable at address $C000.
The iMsx Launcher project (contribute from a friend)
iMsx Launcher for BlueMSX (news! iMsx v.2 sv.0006 is now available): this nice and colorful tool for BlueMSX was created by Aci, an italian MSX developer; he asked me to host it on my website; don't miss it if you make intense use of BlueMSX! Please read carefully the instructions page for correct install and usage of the software, and also note that some specific requirements must be satisfied to make it work (i.e. you should have installed a recent version of .NET runtime, further details on the instructions). If you want to contribute with any feedback information, please email directly to Aci, as I don't know the program's tech details, and I don't own the source code.
The I.N.E.R.T.I.A. project
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. on MSXDEV website: MSXDEV is a game programming contest; MSX community contributes with some original new games for that platform; I wrote a small game and submitted it to the 2006 edition. You can freely download I.N.E.R.T.I.A. and other contestants' games from the contest's pages.
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. on this website: if you just want this single game, without exploring
the MSXDEV pages.
I.N.E.R.T.I.A. HOWTO and sources: setting up the SDCC compiler to build MSX ROMs wasn't immediate, so I wrote a short howto to help other MSX C programmers. As an additional gift, along the tutorial you'll find a link to download the full I.N.E.R.T.I.A. source code! Hope you enjoy. Warning: howto was written for Windows users, but similar steps can be done for Linux environments.
Other MSX games and software
AcaBoom: a small BASIC puzzle game in which explosive tiles propagate fire to neighbourhood; try to clear the board in the lowest number of trials. As this is a BASIC program, you also get source code.
MSX Sprite Editor [Javascript, online]: an online sprite editor for MSX. Draw your multicolor sprites (8x8 or 16x16 modes available), click a button and save your sprites' source code. Stay tuned, as this entry will be updated soon.
Crazy Bullet Editor [DOS/WIN, ZIP file]: level editor for "Crazy Bullet", a 1 or 2 players game for MSX.
Blagger Editor [WIN95+, ZIP file]: level editor for "Blagger", a 1 player game for MSX. Warning: be sure to download also the updated version of the .exe file, as the original version had a bug in file open/save dialogs.
Sudoku [MSDOS and MSX, ZIP file]: a sudoku solver for MSX, with C source for both PC and MSX version.
Some simple demos and examples
Mandelbrot (BASIC on .CAS file): plot your own Mandelbrot fractal in screen3! Note: it requires some minutes to plot, please have patience.
Fading example (BASIC on .CAS file): a very simple way to fade from black to white in screen1.
MSX related photos
A big gift from SHOCK-THE-DEV!: after the MSXDEV'06 contest, all participants received a great prize; I did some photos of the gift opening, enjoy!
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