RuMSX
was one of the first MSX emulations for the 32bit Windows platform.
The main-problem is that no one of the existing emulators is really complete.
To finish such a project with success it is necessary, that this emulator is FreeWare.
In meantime many other Windows based emulations have been arrived.
Regardless the development of RuMSX continues and I attempt to complete
it's set of its implented features as well as introduce new ideas for
other developers...
The current version of RuMSX can be found on my download-page (see below).
Minimum requirement:
Windows 98 or Windows 2000
Recommended:
Windows 7 or higher
Mouse & Joystick
FM/MIDI and Wave capable sound-card
Video capture card
Contents & support
RuMSX is a multilingual emulation of MSX, MSX 2, MSX 2+ and MSX Turbo-R homecomputers.
The help files contain comprehensive documentation of MSX-Basic and MSX-BIOS as well as many original manuals.
They also contain detailed help for RuMSX itself. Help is available in english language only.
Tip: the RuMSX installation directory contains a MSXW.exe file. This is a unicode build,
which can be executed on Windows 2000 and later (but not on Windows 9X/ME). This build supports
all world-wide used characters, but the savestate-files are not compatible with the standard
MSX.exe. The advantage is that e.g. european machines can display japanese and arabic user-interfaces
with correct characters.
Changes from RuMSX V0.83 to V0.84
Please note: RuMSX v0.41 has a new installer! Therefore it is required to uninstall
a version prior RuMSX v0.41 before installing the new version.
You can uninstall RuMSX through the Control-Panel. Select "Software"
and "RuMSX" to uninstall.
Background color 0 on MSX1 was mistakenly adjusted for (unavailable) superimpose-mode.
CAS: Debug output improved.
Fixed ROM-Type detection for ROMs < 64KB (8K-48K). E.g. "Star Blazer" was recognized as "Chakkari Copy".
Arabic layout of toolbar and statusbar was incorrect.
Disk-, Tape- and Rom-Images can now also be changed using drag & drop, in the "Change Media" dialog tabs.
Added write-byte command to debugger (for cheat, ...).
Fixed POINT operation in V9938 specific screen modes. (returned color was previously always 0).
Extended FullScreen-Zoom modes with "stretch".
Added a "Edit" -> "Paste" function for text.
Because "Edit" uses the shortcut "E" the "Emulation" menu now uses the shortcut "M". Paste is usually available, except in the following cases:
RuMSX is paused (e.g. for debugging).
The clipboard does not contain text.
Paste of large content is still in progress - or a program (e.g. a game) does not process the pasted text.
The MSX keyboard-buffer is invalid (e.g. during boot or corrupted by some programs).
Video Computer did not display the error for the "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)" driver.
SET SCREEN and SET BEEP documentation was missing in help index (could only be found in search tab).
Optimization of internal debugger (write to file).
Changes from RuMSX V0.82 to V0.83
HALTED RuMSX instances did not immediately stop, if termination was attempted by using Windows TaskBar.
Accessing missing A: or B: drive now results in the correct error "The system cannot find the drive specified."
Fix for ASCII16-Mapper:
"Vaxol" writes to invalid memory locations, which are now excluded.
Added new "ASCII MegaROM (ASCII/16 KByte) V2" ROM-type.
Most copies of the "Andorogynus" ROM are using the ASCII/16K-mapper.
But a few copy copies require this special ROM-type, with switching
address &H8000.
Added new "ObsoNET" ROM-type (experimental)
TMS9918A EC bit was mistakenly ignored (MSX1 could not shift sprites 32 pixels to the left)
(e.g. affected "Actman" in MSX1-mode)
z.B. affected "Actman" in MSX1-mode)
e.g. affected "Actman" in MSX1-mode)
Fixed incorrect debug-message "Virtual error reading drive",
even if there was no read-error (but an error-file is present)
VDP IE1 interrupt-flag is reset on read, even if IE1 is disabled
Working (again): F-Nano 2, The Haunted Demo, ...
(Bug was new since RuMSX v0.41)
YM3802 operations always wrote debug-output to the console.
(Fix improves performance of MIDI commands)
Philips Music Composer was frozen in main-menu, due to missing ADPCM-interrupt.
Added experimental support for extended DSK file format
(using 128 Byte header and additional ending-block,
often used in games from www.msxgamesbox.com)
Improved support for DDI-images (now more DDI file-formats are supported)
Fixed SCC+ ROM/RAM mapper.
Fixed "Tape", "A:" and "B:" buttons:
Incorrect Tab was selected if number of disk-drives was not 2.
Example, if a 2nd DISK.ROM was mounted.
Improved autodetect for many classic Konami games with SCC/SCC+
with size of 40KB
(e.g. Antarctic Adventure SCC/SCC+)
Improved autodetect for Disk-To-ROM games with size of 48KB
(e.g. Confused?, Donkey Kong, Spy Vs Spy II)
Fixed autodetect of Zoids [ASCII/16 KByte, switch address $77F8]
Extended ROM-Database:
Alien Syndrome [ASCII/16 KByte]
Andorogynus [ASCII MegaROM (ASCII/16 KByte) V2]
Harry Fox MSX Special [Hydlide 2]
Harry Fox Yki No Maoh [Snow Demon King + patched ASCII/16 KByte]
Improved autodect for some versions of the following ROMs:
Aliens 2 (Zemina)
Barbarian
Bat Man
Darwin 4078
Druid
Fishing Freak
Humphrey
Mon Mon Monster
ObsoNET (experimental)
Strategic Mars
Syougun
XYZ / Zukkoke Yajikita Onmitsudoutyuu
Added experimental Dir-as-Disk feature (for MSX-DOS 1).
Do not (yet) use together with SCSI or IDE controllers.
When restoring a save-state "Sprites disabled" mode
was sometimes not restored.
When switching to MSX1 configuration sprites were
sometimes permanently invisible.
Pending SCSI configuration changes were not fully applied on reboot.
Coincidence of transparent sprites was mistakenly detected.
"Labirint" is now working (without cheat).
Fixed bug in debug-log of memory mapper, sometimes refering to the wrong slot.
Changes from RuMSX V0.81 to V0.82
Improved Epson printer emulation. Chakkari Copy can now print on emulated Epson JP-80 and SP-80 printers.
SRAM of "Koei" and "ASCII/8k" cartridges was not saved in SaveState file.
Added "Hydlide 2" ROM-type and ROM-database entry.
Internal build error in V0.81 may have caused load-errors of resource libraries (e.g. Spanish translation).
Missing Control-Panel label in Chinese translation.
Minor updates in Help (Error-codes, CALL BC)
MSX Control-Panel activation mistakenly paused RuMSX if "Save CPU" option was enabled.
Added "Printer form feed" command in menu, to flush pending print-pages without need to change the printer or close RuMSX.
Added PI-40 (color)printer emulation for use with "Game Master" and "Chakkari Copy".
Improved rendering-speed of printed PDF documents.
Note: "Microsoft Print to PDF" should prefered to "FreePDF", because FreePDF reports
a too small printing area (this is why pages are printed smaller than on real printers).
Fixed MSX2+ SoftBoot (includes unpatch of MSX2PEXT.ROM)
Fixed help for "Chakkari Copy" CALL statements: BPRINT, PAUSE, SCHANGE
Added exclusive command-line parameters BoostCount and BoostSeconds to temporary boost the MSX startup process.
Examples: /BoostSeconds:5 or /BoostCount:250
Added documentation of MSX TAPE I/O, thanks to Jose Manuel
Bugfixes and improvements in "MSX-host demo.dsk"
Improved MSX-HOST interface:
Interface version 1.1 now supports profiling and shutdown.
Full featuring ROM is the MSX-HOST.ROM version 1.2
See "Interface-ROM for the host operating-system" in Help for more information.
The correct functionality of the software being spread on this website
is not guaranteed by MSX Association nor Microsoft.
Both parties do not accept any responsibility concerning the results of
using this software. Please use this software at your own risk.
Development notes
On this place I want to thank the authors of really "free" code and/or their useful support!
For information about these peoples refer to the about-box of the current RuMSX release.
(in this list you can select a member and click "Details..." for more informations,
as homepage and e-mail adress...)
Source-code & translations
Because of several reasons I'm not able to publish the full source at this time.
If you still want to have a look on partial sources of RuMSX you can download the
limited release for RuMSX V0.84 here!
If you want to add support for other languages (translations) please contact me first!
Templates and basic guidelines are provided for reference only.