blueMSX is a portable open-source MSX

emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...

that uses an emulation model to achieve the highest level of accuracy possible. It is available for the Microsoft Windows operating system and is ported to multiple other systems. It has been translated into 14 different languages. blueMSX includes a powerful debugger with support for several assembly formats and a machine configuration editor that allows advanced users to set up practically any MSX computer system ever made.

History

blueMSX was initially released in 2003 and soon became one of the most accurate and user friendly emulators. Like many other MSX emulators, blueMSX started as a clone of

fMSX fMSX is a portable MSX emulator written by Marat Fayzullin. It is one of the earliest MSX emulators, and is also the most ported. fMSX is written in C with emphasis on portability. fMSX was a very influential and a number of emulators started a ...

. The feature that made the first release, in November 2003, unique to the MSX emulator scene at the time, was the addition of monitor simulation. This feature made the video output look like an old TV or a monitor. Initially, blueMSX's emulation was quite poor and suffered from the same limitations and flaws as its mother fMSX. However, during the first year the development focused on improving and replacing the misbehaving emulation code, as well as redesigning the software architecture. With better architecture, emulation of new devices became easier, and wasn't very long before most audio devices and ROM types were supported. In August 2004 blueMSX became the first MSX emulator to support skins. In November 2004, blueMSX was finally 100% free of fMSX code. The November release was also a big milestone since it brought support for the Turbo-R, the last MSX produced. On top of that, it was the first release that included emulation for the

ColecoVision ColecoVision is a second-generation home video-game console developed by Coleco and launched in North America in August 1982. It was released a year later in Europe by CBS Electronics as the CBS ColecoVision. The console offered a closer exp ...

and the

Spectravideo Spectravideo International (SVI) was an American computer manufacturer and software house. It was originally called SpectraVision, a company founded by Harry Fox in 1981. The company produced video games and other software for the VIC-20 home c ...

SV-328 The SV-328 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Spectravideo in June 1983. It was the business-targeted model of the Spectravideo range, sporting a compact full-travel keyboard with numeric keypad. It had 80 KB RAM (64 KB available ...

. Since the November 2004 milestone, developer focus has been on improving the user interface and emulation accuracy, as well as extending the emulation to include more exotic devices such as the Konami Keyboard Master, an unreleased speech synthesis ROM. The emulation core was extended to support any Z80 based computer systems and is now supporting multiple systems, such as

SG-1000 The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nak ...

, and

. Later additions to the emulation include support for digitizers, IDE and SCSI hard drives, and emulation of the extensions in the

Yamaha CX5-M Yamaha CX5M is an MSX-system compatible computer that expands upon the normal features expected from these systems with a built-in eight-voice FM synthesizer module, introduced in 1984 by Yamaha Corporation. This FM synth itself has stereo aud ...

music computer. A big effort to make the emulator portable to other platforms started in 2007 and since then the emulator has been ported to multiple other systems. The current architecture of the emulator makes it easy to compile to any system with a c compiler and does not depend on any graphics, audio, or user input libraries.

Feature highlights

The emulation engine in blueMSX is cycle accurate, which means that the timing and synchronization between emulated hardware components appear the same as on a real MSX. The goal is to replicate each individual component as accurately as possible, which means that the emulator requires a more high end PC than emulators optimized for speed. Most hardware released for the MSX system is emulated and the emulator includes a configuration editor to mimic real MSX systems by choosing components such as floppy drives, memory, sound chips and video chips. Several pre-configured machines are available for users that don't want to build their own machines. Common emulator features are supported, like screen shots, AVI rendering, and a cheat system. The emulator has a theme-based GUI with buttons to control the emulation, a

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...

, and controls to change sound and video settings at runtime. blueMSX is capable of emulating major sound chips including programmable sound generator

sound chip A sound chip is an integrated circuit (chip) designed to produce audio signals through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics. Sound chips are typically fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal chips that process ...

s (

AY-3-8910 The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice programmable sound generator (PSG) designed by General Instrument in 1978, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers. The AY-3-8910 and its variants were used i ...

, SN76489),

Konami SCC , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casinos ...

Moonsound Moonsound is the name of a sound card released for the MSX home-computer system at the Tilburg Computer Fair in 1995. It was designed by electronic engineer Henrik Gilvad and produced by Sunrise Swiss on a semi-hobby basis. It arrived after the U ...

( OPL4), FM-PAC (

YM2413 The YM2413, a.k.a. OPLL, is a cost-reduced FM synthesis sound chip manufactured by Yamaha Corporation and based on their YM3812 (OPL2). To make the chip cheaper to manufacture, many of the internal registers were removed. The result of this is th ...

), MSX-AUDIO (Y8950 sound chip) and a couple of different PCM devices. The volume and pan of each sound chip can be configured in a basic mixer. blueMSX simulates six different monitor types, from sharp modern monitors to old TV sets. The emulator has controls for real time modification of gamma, brightness, contrast, saturation and color shifting, and it supports horizontal and vertical stretch, as well as a slider for adaptable scanlines on all monitor modes to make the ratio of the video output match a real system. It also supports multiple video sources, for example an external 80 column card. blueMSX includes a graphical debugger with register windows, memory windows, call stack windows, breakpoints, trace and other features. This makes blueMSX a good development platform for the supported systems.

References

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History

Feature highlights

References

External links