I just got news of this amazing development.
The MSX scene is one of those incredibly loyal and active scenes, always pumping out incredible feats with this hardware from the 80s. Their forte has always been hardware development, and this news item is no different.
Apparently, the Sega Master System/Mark III VDP (Video Display Processor) is based on the MSX1 VDP.
The Supersoniqs, an international group of MSX techies, has gathered to bring you an amazing hardware add-on for the MSX range of computers: a SEGA VDP add-on.
What does this bring to MSX users? According to them.:
“The Sega VDP used in the Master System and others is actually a MSX1 compatible VDP with an extra screen mode. The extra screen mode not only gives you the possibility to use horizontal smooth scroll, but also allows for two color palettes of 16 colors, one for backgrounds and one for sprites, out of 64 available colors. Besides, this VDP also includes it’s own three channel PSG with noise generator (looks very much like the MSX PSG) so you will have the option of using six channels of PSG in your MSX. That’s pretty cool huh?”
It sure is.
So they are calling for support form developers to add support on MSX software for this new VDP, including tracker and PT3 replayer support for the extra PSG. I sure like the sound of tracking on 6 channel PSG! And you know what? These freaks also want to add SID chip support to this card! Freaky! Are they thinking about us? They sure do, as they say: “we want this card to be both appealing to gamers, and chip-tune enthusiasts.”
So, initially a graphics upgrade, turned into a monster add-on for any MSX enthusiast.
Can’t wait for the first tracker that uses 6 channel PSG + SID chip. I’d put my MSX2 finally to good use!
After the jump, you can check out a video of the unit prototype, in action:[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/CnsLWkhikUs" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]