Maarten ter Huurne wrote:
>Nishi stated that they didn't have to program MSX, they could choose
>freely. In practice, this means most developers will choose Intend,
>because it's easy (compared to plain Linux) and powerful (compared to MSX).
And ofcourse you don't have to program Intent either, you can program
Linux, or you can choose to go around every OS and write to the hardware
directly! It's just like the current MSX where you disable the BIOS, or
write your own interrupt handlers.
>As I understood it, the FPGA only handles the performance sensitive parts
>of MSX emulation, like the VDP and the sound chips. Things like memory,
>I/O to peripherals, disk emulation etc could be done by the ARM core.
I saw a Z80 used as I/O processor on Nishi's design.
> > > Respects go to Nishi though... even
> > > though he seems to claim that he invented the wheel from time to time.
>
>I had that feeling too; the connection between MPEG and MSX is still
>unclear to me...
It's simple. ASCII/Nishi was involved in streaming video, to be run from
normal single speed CD-ROM's (150kB/s). At the time JPEG was working on
Motion-JPEG, but Nishi said it was bad and they needed a very low bandwidth
solution.
It's partly because of Nishi's pressure that work on MPEG and MPEG Audio
started. That's the connection with MSX. It's a fact the CD-ROM was
originally developed for MSX and that the PC-versions were created later!
Philips didn't name their MSX2 computers 'New Media System' for nothing!
Philips' vision was always to create a multimedia CD-ROM based computer
like their CD-i (which flopped).
>Nishi said that it is possible to create an MSX cartridge adaptor using
>the USB 2.0 connection, but he clearly did not make a commitment that
>ASCII would produce such an adaptor.
I think he said it was probable some company would produce something like that.
Anyway, who needs diskdrives when we have the memory cards and internet!
Greetz,
Patriek
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