MiSTer es un proyecto de implementación de Consolas clásicas, microordenadores y arcades utilizando una placa denominada Terasic DE10-Nano.
Se trata de un proyecto libre, esto es, tu puedes ver el código fuente de los cores de los sistemas que implementa, e incluso también son libres los esquemas de las placas accesorias que podemos conectar en los conectores GPIO de la FPGA DE10-Nano para dotarla de funcionalidades extra.
Verás que lo normal es llamar a la placa Terasic DE10-Nano igual que el proyecto que la integra, esto es, MiSTer.
Características técnicas de la placa Terasic DE10-Nano conocida como «MiSTer»:
FPGA Altera Cyclone V SE con 110K celdas lógicas
CPU de doble núcleo ARM Cortex A9
Salida de video HDMI
Lector de tarjetas Micro-SD
Conector RJ-45 (red)
1GB de memoria ram DDR3 disponible para la CPU ARM y el chip FPGA.
Conector de alimentación
Micro-USB otg.
Mini-USB para acceso por consola.
Multitud de pines GPIO para expansión.
El procesador ARM que contiene funciona con Linux, y este no participa en la implementación de los sistemas, sino que se encarga de las tareas auxiliares como: la interfaz de usuario, manejo de la tarjeta SD, manejo de la red y la gestión y control de los dispositivos que conectemos por USB.
Al igual que ocurre con la Raspberry Pi, puedes comprar la placa y luego por separado irle comprando accesorios, o existe la posibilidad de comprar packs con la placa y unos cuantos accesorios incluidos (al final del punto os pongo los links de los packs completos)
Vamos a suponer que quieres ir poco a poco: Lo primero que necesitas comprar es la placa Terasic DE10-Nano. La venden en webs como Mouser o Digikey:
Ahora mismo en Mouser sale por 147,23 € puesta en casa. Incluye el cargador, una tarjeta micro sd de 8gb, cable usb, y una pequeña carcasa de metraquilato.
¿Y ya está? No, necesitas un adaptador de clavija de enchufe (1 euro en los chinos) y un hub de micro-usb a usbs normales para conectarle teclados, ratones, joysticks y demás. (4 euros en los chinos) Con esto ya puedes jugar a varios sistemas haciendo uso del puerto hdmi y un teclado/joystick usb. Concretamente ya puedes jugar a los siguientes sistemas: Viejos Arcades (ni cps1 ni neogeo) – Atari 2600 – Sega Genesis/Mega Drive – Nintendo Game Boy Advance – TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine/CD/SuperGrafx – Vectrex – 486 PC – Apogee – Apple II+Aquarius – BBC Micro – ColecoVision – Commodore 16 – Commodore PET – Commodore – VIC_20 -Jupiter Ace – MultiComp – Sharp MZ – Specialist MX – TI 99/4A – Vector 06C – ZX81
Huy, pero hay faltan algunos de mis sistemas favoritos, ¿como puedo jugar a tooooodos? Entonces ya necesitas comprarle un modulo de 32 MB de SDRAM y pincharselo a los pines GPIO de expansión de tu MiSTer, ya que muchos sistemas no son compatibles con la memoría DDR que integra la MiSTer. El precio de este módulo de 32 megas ronda los 20 euros gastos de envío incluidos y se la puedes comprar a:
También es muy recomendable que, por precaución, te gastes un par de euros y compres un pequeño disipador de máximo 22mmx22mm y 10mm de altura. Ejemplos:
¿Qué diferencia hay entre comprarme un módulo de memoria SDRAM de 32 Megas a comprar un módulo de 128 Megas? A día de hoy (mayo 2020) la única diferencia es que 128 Megas te permitirá jugar a 28 juegos más (que son los que más tamaño ocupan) de NeoGeo. Su proceso de fabricación es más complicado (el módulo lleva dos chips de 64 megas y la velocidad que se obtiene es menor), por lo que asegurate bien que funciona correctamente dandole caña al core de MegaCD y a los juegos grandes de NeoGeo. Intenta evitar comprar los módulos SDRam de 64 megas, ya que no están soportadas oficialmente y pueden dar fallos aleatorios.
Opcion 1: Vale, ya tengo la MiSTer y la memoria sdram, y estoy jugando a todos los cores por hdmi, pero me gustaría jugarlos en un televisor de tubo (CRT) y no quiero gastarme mucho más dinero ni necesito nada más. ¿Cuál es la opción más barata? En ese caso te recomendaría el cable RGB-MiSTer, de aTg, el creador del cable RGB-Pi. Vale 30 euros y se lo puedes pedir en su web (en construcción) o a través de Telegram: https://t.me/RGB_MiSTer
Opcion 2: Vale, ya tengo la MiSTer y la memoria sdram, y estoy jugando a todos los cores por hdmi, pero me gustaría jugarlos en un televisor de tubo (CRT), y también por VGA, y tener salida de audio analogica/digital, jugar con mandos nativos y con 0 lag, etc…? En ese caso necesitas una tarjeta I/O Board que expande las posibilidades de tu MiSTer y aprovecha casi todos los pines GPIO de expansión, pinchándose encima de estos. Te pongo 3 ejemplos:
Las 3 opciones, más o menos, traen lo mismo pero si te interesa jugar con un mando de megadrive de 6 botones a todos los cores entonces te recomiendo la opción de Antonio Villena, ya que tiene un puerto db9 que se conecta directo a los pines de la FPGA lo que te supone 0 lag absoluto (un mando por usb pasa antes por la gestión de Linux y te consumirá unos pocos milisegundos) Además, a través de su web, te vende los adaptadores de db9 al resto de conectores clásicos: NES, SNES, NEOGEO, MASTER SYSTEM/MEGADRIVE/ATARI, PCENGINE/TURBOGRAFX y en un futuro N64 y PSX.
Opcion 3: Bufff, que jaleo!! Mira, paso de andar comprando piececitas e ir montándolo todo, que si la mister, que si la memoria, que si el disipador…. a ver si me voy a cargar algo. ¡Quiero un pack «full-equipe» con todo ya montado y sin lios!
En ese caso te muestro tres mister ya montadas cada una con sus características y expansiones:
Aquí ya va en gustos. La más completa es la de Antonio, por el puerto db9 con lag 0 y posibilidad de mandos nativos, porque te incluye el adaptador a vga a SCART, y porque es 100% compatible con el adaptador JAMMA que vende para meterla en una máquina recreativa de forma directa.
¿Qué aporta MiSTer?
¿Qué diferencias hay entre la emulación de un sistema y las implementacion de un sistema en una fpga? Si la implementación de un core en fpga está bien hecha, y se dispone de los esquemáticos de los chips a replicar, siempre va a ser mejor el feeling y fidelidad que nos ofrezca un core fpga que un emulador. Los gráficos y colores son limpios, los sonidos llenos de matices, y las instrucciones se van a ejecutar en paralelo al ritmo de un pulso de reloj entre los chips implementados en la fpga, no secuencialmente como en un emulador. Para más información sobre el funcionamiento de las fpgas escucha el podcast de «Quemando el mando»: https://www.ivoox.com/quemando-mando-programa-104-preservacion-de-audios-mp3_rf_46599483_1.html o este otro de NeoGeo Pocket España: https://www.ivoox.com/ngpe-podcast-2×05-audios-mp3_rf_51902312_1.html
¿FPGA? Una matriz de puertas lógicas programable o FPGA (field-programmable gate array), es un dispositivo que contiene bloques de lógica cuya interconexión y funcionalidad puede ser configurada en el momento, mediante un lenguaje de descripción especializado. La FPGA tiene celdas que se configuran con una función específica ya sea como con una función lógica tipo AND, OR, XOR, como un multiplexor, o como una memoria (FLIP-FLOP tipo D). La labor del programador es describir el hardware que tendrá la FPGA lógica pudiendo reproducir desde funciones tan sencillas como las llevadas a cabo por una puerta lógica o un sistema combinacional, hasta clonar sistemas complejos formados por uno o varios chips.
¿Cuál es la forma más fiel de jugar a los sistemas clásicos en MiSTer? Para asegurarte el 0 lag utiliza el puerto db9 para los mandos y un televisor de tubo (crt). Para más información general sobre MiSTer, y soporte DB9 únete en Telegram en el grupo de MiSTer en Español: (https://t.me/joinchat/DwDFfFF3d_4vK-glu8BKiA
¿Y la salida HDMI de MiSTer tiene lag? La MiSTer emite la señal por HDMI sin lag pero mientras que los crt muestran la imagen según les llega linea a linea, los lcd necesitan almacenar toda la imagen en un buffer antes de mostrarla Por lo tanto, cualquier monitor tft/lcd/oled/plasma/ips… siempre va a tener 1 frame de lag mínimo, no pueden competir con un crt, son tecnologias distintas.
¿Y los mandos USB tienen lag? Las pulsaciones en un mando USB pasan antes por el Linux que las gestiona en forma de interrupciones y luego se las pasa a la FPGA. En este proceso se pierden unos pocos milisegundos, dependiendo por ejemplo del mando/interfaz USB que utilices y del polling del Linux (En la sección de cacharreo de más abajo te explico como poner el polling al máximo). En cambio, con el puerto DB9 esto no ocurre, ya que va conectado directamente a los pines de la fpga y las pulsaciones se tratan igual que en el sistema original.
¿Qué me supone que mi mando/interfaz USB tenga, por ejemplo, 8 milisegundos de lag? Simplificándolo al máximo, si tenemos en cuenta que un frame son 16 milisegundos, y que al pulsar un botón en nuestro mando (durante esos 16 milisegundos) se espera una reacción en el siguiente frame, estadísticamente, un 50% de mis pulsaciones entrarán en el frame siguiente correctamente (las que pulse entre los milisegundos 1 y 8 del frame actual), y al otro 50% ya no entraran a tiempo. Por lo tanto 8 milisegundos de lag me suponen que 50% de mis pulsaciones tendrán 1 frame de lag, y un 50% de mis pulsaciones 0 lag.
Os dejo un link con los lag de varios mandos/interfaces usb: https://inputlag.science/controller/results. El mejor es el Brook Universal Fighting, que te garantiza que el 95% de tus pulsaciones tendrán 0 lag. El mejor calidad/precio es el Xinmotek XM-10 Dual con un 75% de tus pulsaciones sin lag.
Que supone 1 frame de lag:
Si Nintendo ideó que un gancho de Tyson en el Punch-Out de NES dejara al jugador 20 frames para esquivarlo, con un 1 frame de lag solo tendrás 19.
Esquivar o no a tiempo una bala en los juegos de naves
Encadenar o fallar una serie de combos en los juegos de lucha
Conclusión: El lag hace los juegos un poquito más difíciles, ya no estás jugando al juego original, es «otro juego». Además, el lag total es la suma del del lag de tu mando usb y el lag de tu monitor plano. Si no quieres nada de lag utiliza un crt y el puerto db9.
Bueno, ya está, tengo la Mister en casa, quiero empezar a jugar ya. ¿Que hago?
Primer Paso: Preparar una tarjeta microsd con las particiones necesarias. Puedes utilizar mismamente la tarjeta de 8GB que te trae la MiSTer de regalo. Para ello, mete la tarjeta microsd en tu ordenador con Windows y formatéala con la siguiente utilidad llamada SD-INSTALLER: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SD-Installer-Win64_MiSTer
(baja abajo del todo y descárgate la release más actual, descomprimela en tu escritorio mismamente y ejecútala)
Segundo Paso: Meter los cores en tu tarjeta. La forma más sencilla de meter todos los cores actualizados a la última versión es ejecutando el siguiente programa: MiSTer Updater script for PC. Descarga updater-pc.zip de aquí: https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer/blob/master/updater-pc/updater-pc.zip, descomprimelo en la raiz de la tarjeta que preparaste en el Primer Paso, y ejecuta update-win.bat.
Tercer Paso: Metes en la sd tus backups (roms) favoritas organizadas a tu gusto. Por ejemplo: creas una carpeta en la raiz de la sd que la llamas NES y dentro metes las backups (roms) de la consola NES comprimidas en zip o descomprimidas
Ya solo queda meter la SD en la MiSTer, encender, elegir tu core favorito dentro de la carpeta correspondiente, y una vez ejecutado el core del core elegir tu rom favorita (Open Rom) y a jugar.
Oye, he ejecutado el programa del segundo paso (MiSTer Updater script for PC) y me ha metido un montón de cores de diferentes sistemas, pero el core de CAPCOM CPS1 no está. ¿Por qué? Eso es porque es un core que está en fase beta y aún no ha salido la versión pública final. Si quieres acceder las versiones beta de cps1 deberás donar al autor (Jose Tejada) 3 dolares para descargarte las betas y además mostrarle tu apoyo para que siga desarrollando cores (por ejemplo cps2 o X68000). Para hacer la donación entra en su Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/topapate
Donaciones para los creadores de cores
¿Como puedo donar al resto de autores (además de José Tejada que hemos visto en el punto anterior) que realizan los cores presentes y futuros para MisTer?
Alexey Melnikov (lider del proyecto MiSter y ha realizado el core de MegaCD entre otros (en un futuro próximo PCEngineCD): https://www.patreon.com/FPGAMiSTer
¿Cuál sería el máximo core que se podría implementar en MiSTer? El tope es Nintendo 64, pero parece que la velocidad de la memoria de MiSTer se queda corta, ya veremos………. De momento están experimentando conectandole la CPU de la N64 R4300 a una FPGA e implementando el resto de chips: https://twitter.com/AshEvans81/status/1246314752399347713?s=20
¿Y Saturn y 32X? Es muy probable. Incluso están experimentando con un addon que lleva dos procesadores SH2 en paralelo que se conectaría a los pines GPIO de expansión de la MiSTer y facilitaría mucho las cosas: https://twitter.com/ashevans81/status/1258051694711226369?s=12
¿Y Dreamcast y PS2? No.
Consejos / Trucos / Tutoriales para sacarle el máximo partido a tu MiSTer
En vez de meter todos los cores en la tarjeta microsd como explicaste arriba en el «Segundo paso»…¿como puedo meter solo unos pocos de mi interés?
La única norma que tienes que cumplir es que la carpeta/s que utilices para meter cores comience por una barra baja, como por ejemplo _Consolas. Los cores tienen extensión .rbf y te los puedes bajar buscando la carpeta releases del fork db9 (recomendado, ya que son los mismos cores del sitio oficial pero con el soporte para mandos nativos db9) o del sitio oficial. Instrucciones:
Buscas en la lista de repositorio de cores, o escribes arriba el que te interese, por ejemplo SNES
Pinchas en el repositorio para entrar en él y te vas a la carpeta «releases»
Pincha sobre la release más actual y luego dale al botón «Download»
¿Puedo actualizar automáticamente todos los cores sin necesidad de sacar la tarjeta microsd de la MiSTer?
Si claro, basta con que guardes en tu tarjeta sd el siguiente script: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer/master/update_all.sh Luego enciende tu MiSTer, conéctala con el cable RJ45 (ya os explicaré como hacerlo por wifi), pulsa la tecla a la que hayas asignado «menú» en tu mando (o el tercer botón físico de MiSTer o F12 en tu teclado), baja hasta la opción «Scripts» y busca el script que acabas de guardar en la microsd y pulsa sobre él para ejecutarlo. Automáticamente se te actualizarán todos los cores, se te descargarán los nuevos cores, y también se actualizan los archivos *.mra (ahora explico que es eso). Si te da algún error puedes preguntar en el grupo de soporte de MiSTer en español: https://t.me/joinchat/DwDFfFF3d_4vK-glu8BKiA
¿Dónde guardo las roms de los arcades (mame)?
Por defecto, la MiSTer, busca las roms de los arcades en una carpeta que se llame MAME y la que se encuentre más proxima al directorio raiz. Para que la cosa no se lie, os recomiendo que tengais UNA ÚNICA carpeta llamada MAME y a ser posible en la raíz de vuestra sd (o dentro de la carpeta _Arcade) y que ahí guardeis toooodas las roms arcade que necesiteis de la última versión de mame (esas son las roms correctas). Además, lo normal es que tengais dentro de la carpeta _Arcade la carpeta cores.
Para ejecutar una rom de mame basta con ejecutar un archivo con extensión .mra. Estos archivo *.mra (por ejemplo arkanoid.mra) no son más que ficheros de texto con información sobre estructura de la rom adecuada a ejecutar.
¿Donde puedo toquetear para cambiar cosillas de la configuración de la MiSTer?
En la raiz de la tarjeta sd tienes un archivo llamado mister.ini que te permite cambiar configuraciones de tu MiSTer. Veamos algunas interesantes:
composite_sync=1 //Esto te permitirá activar la salida analógica (crt). Además te permite salida dual, esto es, un monitor por hdmi y, a la vez, una tele de tubo por scart/vga.
direct_video=1 //Esto te permite sacar 15khz por el hdmi. Con un adaptador de hdmi a vga, y un cable «vga to scart» podrás ver la MiSTer en un CRT a través del puerto HDMI y con lag 0.
video_mode=número de 0 a 11 //Podrás elegir la resolución y refresco de tu salida hdmi, e incluso puedes añadir resoluciones a tu gusto.
vsync_adjust=2 //Este modo te permitirá el modo de baja latencia (single buffer) por hdmi. Si tu monitor soporta esta opción, la MiSTer podrá obtener de él su lag más bajo posible (1 frame de lag sería lo más bajo posible, y recuerda poner en modo «game» o similar en tu tv o monitor hdmi)
¿Comó puedo obtener el lag más bajo posible que me permita mi mando usb?
Para ello debes configurar el polling del Linux de la MiSTer a 1000 (1 milisegundo) y, si el mando lo soporta, podrás sacarle el mínimo lag posible. Ejemplos de mandos que obtienen un lag bajísimo con esta opción activada: 1.iBuffalo Classic, 2.8bitdo SFC30 3.8bitdo M30 (Fuente: https://github.com/eniva/MisSTer_Guides/wiki/USB-Controllers-Performance-Ranking)
Al lio, para Overclock USB Controllers Polling Rate a 1 milisegundo basta con que vayas al directorio linux de tu microsd y crees un fichero llamado «u-boot.txt». Dentro de él escribe esta línea de texto y luego guardalo: v=loglevel=4 usbhid.jspoll=1 xpad.cpoll=1 Mete la microsd en la MiSTer, enciéndela y listo. Si tienes curiosidad para qué es cada cosa de esa línea entra aquí y lee: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Lag-Explained
Busca el archivo linux/_wpa_supplicant.conf en tu microsd y ábrelo para editarlo.
Reemplaza put_your_SSID_here con el nombre de tu red WIFI y sustituye put_your_password_here con la contraseña de tu WIFI.
Renombra _wpa_supplicant.conf a wpa_supplicant.conf
Mete la microsd en la MiSTer y enciéndela. Pulsa la tecla a la que hayas asignado «menú» en tu mando (o el tercer botón físico de MiSTer o F12 en tu teclado) y espera un poquito a ver si aparece el icono del wifi y abajo la dirección IP asignada.
¿Puedo meterle archivos a la MiSTer sin necesidad de extraer la tarjeta?
Si, por ejemplo, a través del protocolo FTP o el protocolo Samba.
Por FTP: Para ello enciende la MiSTer, pulsa la tecla a la que hayas asignado «menú» en tu mando (o el tercer botón físico de MiSTer o F12 en tu teclado) y mira a ver cual es la dirección IP de tu MiSTer conectada por Wifi o cable. Vete a tu ordenador y abre un programa de conexión a FTP (como por ejemplo filezilla) y realiza una nueva conexión:
Servidor: Aquí pon la ip de tu MiSTer.
Usuario:root
Contraseña:1
Puerto: 21
Pulsa en conectar y te saldrá el arbol de directorios del Linux de la MiSTer. Para acceder a la tarjeta microSd navega vete a la carpeta media y dentro de esta a la carpeta fat.
Por Samba: Vete a la carpeta linux de tu microsd y borra la barra baja inicial en el nombre de archivo _samba.sh. Mete la microSd en tu MiSTer, enciendela, y pulsa la tecla a la que hayas asignado «menú» en tu mando (o el tercer botón físico de MiSTer o F12 en tu teclado) y asegurate de tener una dirección IP en tu MiSTer conectada por Wifi o cable. Vete a tu ordenador y abre el explorador de archivos y en la barra de exploración escribe \\mister. A continuación nos pedirá los credenciales:
Usuario:root
Contraseña:1
Aceptamos y ya estaremos navegando por la microSd de nuestra MiSTer.
Continuará….. —oskarzer0 03:08 19 mayo 2020 (CEST)
Los incidentes de seguridad informática protagonizados por actores maliciosos han dejado de ser típico argumento de algunas películas de Hollywood para convertirse en una realidad para la que toda empresa debería estar preparada. Robo de credenciales y datos internos, explotación de cuentas de pagos, diseminación de malware entre socios y clientes, ransomware… Basta poner las noticias para comprobarlo.
Ante esta situación, cada vez más firmas han optado por contratar expertos en seguridad informática. Una profesión que no siempre se aprende en la universidad y que puede convertirse en una carrera tan estimulante como segura, sobre todo si se cuenta con conocimientos como los que se impartirán en el bootcamp de ciberseguridad de Ironhack de Madrid.
Pero primero, conozcamos la situación.
Dominios maliciosos, ransomware… los ataques ya no solo afectan a las grandes empresas
La radiografía de la seguridad informática muestra una imagen preocupante. Con una frecuencia cada vez más elevada, empresas medianas e incluso pequeñas son objeto de todo tipo de ataques. A veces, se trata de robar información personal. Otras, de engañar a usuarios legítimos para explotar sus propias vulnerabilidades.
Son aspectos de los que no puede ocuparse un diseñador web o la persona a cargo de las bases de datos.
Ponemos cifras a esta situación. Si hablamos de dominios maliciosos, Palo Alto Networks afirma que durante la pandemia su registro aumentó un 569%. Estos sitios utilizan nombres muy parecidos al de empresas legítimas para inocular todo tipo de malware a sus visitantes, convirtiendo dichos equipos en parte de botnetso inyectando ransomware de forma masiva.
El ransomware es, precisamente, uno de los mayores quebraderos de cabeza. Aunque casos como los de Garmin llenan las portadas, la mayor parte de las víctimas de este tipo de ataques suelen ser administraciones públicas y pymes.
La lógica es clara: una corporación puntera seguramente tiene sistemas redundantes y copias de seguridad, mientras que muchas organizaciones de carácter público y usuarios con menos recursos utilizan ordenadores, servidores y sistemas operativos inseguros.Los ataques protagonizados por empleados díscolos y ransomware crecieron con fuerza 2018 según Accenture.
Así las cosas, es mucho más rentable atacar a cien pymes o un departamento de sanidad y, luego, cobrar un rescate para devolverles el accesos a sus equipos, que lanzar un ataque posiblemente infructuoso contra una empresa del índice Fortune 500. Esto se ha dejado notar en el ritmo de los ataques. La firma de seguridad Check Point afirma que el ritmo diario de ataques por ransomware se incrementó un 50% durante el tercer trimestre de 2020, con el software Ryuk cebándose particularmente en las organizaciones centradas en la salud.
El problema es que una persona media tarda 5,4 meses en percatarse de que ha sido objeto de un hackeo, según datos de la Oficina Europea de Estadística (Eurostat). Y aunque un administrador de sistemas debería ser más raudo, no todos tienen la formación necesaria. De hecho, IBM cifra en 280 días el tiempo necesario para identificar y contener un fallo de seguridad.
El resultado es desalentador: CimTrak asegura que el 60% de las pequeñas empresas que sufren un hackeo terminan bajando la persiana a los seis meses. La pérdida de confianza y clientes, los costes legales… Un incidente grave puede suponer la muerte de una compañía.
Demanda de profesionales
Todos estos datos ponen de relevancia algo que debería ser evidente: si te dedicas a la seguridad informática, no te va a faltar trabajo.
También podemos dar algunas cifras reveladoras al respecto.
Según la firma de análisis de mercado Burning Glass, que toma como base el mercado estadounidense, las ofertas de empleo que buscan expertos en ciberseguridad han crecido un 94% durante los últimos seis años, cuando la demanda de expertos en TI en general aumentó un 30%. En total, el 13% de las ofertas en la industria son para profesionales de la seguridad.
La ausencia de profesionales cualificados es evidente. Y a menor oferta, mayores salarios. De media, un 16% más que otros puestos en la industria informática. Por si no fuera suficiente, el profesional en ciberseguridad también tiene muchas más oportunidades para escoger una empresa donde se sentirá mejor acogido y con mejores posibilidades para crecer.
Es por eso que fórmulas de formación acelerada como los bootcamps de Ironhack se han convertido en una herramienta indispensable. Incluso si no se es previamente un experto, la adopción de conocimientos y la experiencia ganada nos pondrán a la cabeza de los procesos de selección.
Si los combinamos con predisposición al aprendizaje y ganas por encauzar un futuro próspero, el éxito estará asegurado. No es necesario disponer de titulación formal: de hecho, hay bastantes graduados de Ironhack que no cuentan con una titulación al uso (como toreros o pescadores) y han accedido a puestos en profesiones tecnológicas gracias a sus bootcamps. Especialmente ahora que las ayudas europeas para la recuperación económica se centrarán en la digitalización, abriendo nuevas vacantes en mil y una industrias.
Ironhack: donde se forman los profesionales
Ironhack, escuela digital líder a nivel internacional, ofrececursos intensivos de ciberseguridad en Madrid y en formato remoto. Cualquier persona podrá convertirse en profesional en ciberseguridad sin necesidad de tener conocimientos previos, mejorando así las capacidades de la empresa para la que ya trabaje o abriéndole nuevos horizontes laborales. Ya están abiertas las inscripciones, hasta la semana que viene, para la edición de noviembre.
Las clases se ofrecerán a tiempo completo durante tres meses o tiempo parcial durante seis (esta última modalidad se lanzará próximamente), de forma que trabajadores y estudiantes, independientemente de su actual situación, puedan asistir sin problemas.
No, no necesitas saber programar para apuntarte
Aunque la idea de formarse como experto en ciberseguridad puede sonar intimidante, lo cierto es que no es necesario saber programar. Tener unos conocimientos generales es todo lo que necesitas para adquirir las habilidades que necesitan la mayoría de las empresas, especialmente ahora que en la industria TI más y más compañías prefieren valorar el talento como complemento o incluso antes que una titulación formal.
Para participar en el bootcamp de ciberseguridad de Madrid el asistente tan solo debe realizar una entrevista personal para que el equipo de formación pueda conocer al alumno y, posteriormente, una entrevista técnica para valorar la capacidad de aprendizaje del alumno. Una vez aceptados, los alumnos tienen que hacer un curso introductorio (pre-work) de 20 horas para ir asentando los conocimientos básicos.
No es un curso cualquiera: aprendizaje exprés en formato bootcamp
Adquirir los conocimientos necesarios para afianzar la seguridad de una empresa no es algo simple, pero Ironhack quiere que todos sus alumnos se formen lo antes posible. Para ello ha optado por un formato bootcamp o campo de entrenamiento, con lecciones muy rápidas e intensivas que permiten asimilar conceptos en tiempo récord.
Mientras que otros cursos requieren más de un año de formación, con Ironhack saldrás convertido en un profesional en ciberseguridad en tan solo 12 semanas.
Salir con un pie en tu próximo trabajo
Formación rápida, de calidad y con resultados. Esas son las máximas del bootcamp de cyberseguridad de Ironhack. Según revelan las cifras de Cybint, que participa en los cursos como socio técnico, la tasa de desempleo en este segmento es del 0%. Como decíamos, es un mercado que no solo está en plena efervescencia, sino que además apenas tiene oferta para cubrir la demanda.
Asimismo, los bootcamps de Ironhack se complementan con iniciativas como la CareerHack, donde se puede atender a sesiones de apoyo profesional donde podrás hacer networking con firmas colaboradoras, conocer posibles compañeros de trabajo y dar a conocer tu proyecto. Así que no se trata de aprender una nueva profesión y lanzarte a la aventura: con Ironhack también tienes la oportunidad de poner un pie en tu próxima empresa.
1Efectivamente hay escasez de profesionales en el sector, pero de profesionales, no de gente con un curso de tres meses que empieza anunciando «experiencia en programación no requerida» RESPONDER
markel24141* * *3Esto de la ciberseguridad ya es como la informática hace unos años. Noticias diarias sobre la falta de profesionales y las grandisimas oportunidades, para que luego los chavales hagan una ingeniería y acaben en una cárnica junto a gente que tiene un cursillo de java cobrando mil euros al mes o menos.Ah y esto de un cursillo de 3 meses en ciberseguridad es lo mismo que los cursillos de java, muy guay sí, para conseguir cobrar el salario mínimo. Es imposible crear profesionales en ciberseguridad con cursillos al igual que alguien con un curso de java no es ingeniero informático. RESPONDER
EgoZentrum* *4Me estoy formando en el campus de 42 Madrid en ciencias de la computación para especializarme en ciberseguridad. Mi formación va a durar unos cuatro años. ¿Cómo es posible que en tres meses pretendan ofrecer competencias profesionales en un campo tan delicado? Además, cuesta un pastizal. RESPONDER
Respondiendo a EgoZentrumjosemicoronil* * *6Desde «la barra del bar», casi seguro que tú vas a poder trabajar en un departamento de seguridad dentro de una empresa dedicada a la tecnología. El que haga el curso será un apoyo a los administradores de sistemas de un ayuntamiento o de una empresa ajena a la tecnología.Cuando en ningún momento dicen claramente qué tipo de trabajo van a poder tener el tipo de personas que realicen el curso, es que posiblemente no quieren que lo sepan.Un curso no va a estar nunca por encima de una FP o un grado universitario. Otra cosa bien distinta es que una persona por sí misma destaque en un campo tenga o no dichos estudios. RESPONDER
pumuki17599243*5Recordemos que IronHack no es una entidad homologada para dar titulaciones, por tanto, el papel que te diesen, no tiene validez juridica para tu contratación.Entre 7000 a 8500€, por esa cantidad ya me pueden dar el trabajo tras acabar. RESPONDER
Respondiendo a pumuki17599243josemicoronil* * *7+1 Veo importante que se den a conocer estas cosas, no que luego la gente pierda su tiempo y dinero sin obtener nada a cambio. RESPONDER
(Os dejo esta conversion para msx realizada por FX y todas sus explicaciones)Hoy me encanta presentaros algo diferente a lo habitual. Algo más que un simple parche.Se trata de una conversión del juego Legend, que es una aventura conversacional creada con el editor de aventuras GAC.
He realizado una conversión «universal», con lo que podría realizarse para cualquier aventura realizada con este editor.
El problema radica en los derechos de autor de cada una de estas aventuras. Las más conocidas, estaban realizadas por Dinamic antes de crear AD Aventuras. Espero que desde aquí, les pueda llegar la noticia, y den permiso para poder dar a conocer esas aventuras en el sistema MSX.
Otros juegos que usaron este editor, son por ejemplo: Mantis (1 y 2), Ke rulen los petas, La guerra de las vajillas, Megacorp, Carvalho, La Corona, Aureon, Objetivo Madrid 1 (Hay un 2?), El Quijote (la versión en MSX creo que es un poco distinta y realizada en Basic), y Zipi y Zape (Exactamente lo mismo que Quijote, y además tenía un fallo en MSX).A parte de alguna aventura más del Concurso Microhobby, como Adventure, Hampa 1930 o el Oráculo.
El comienzo de esta realización empezó por un blog que leí hace tiempo comentando que el juego Mantis 1 en MSX, estaba realizado gracias a una especie de emulación de la BIOS del spectrum, parcheando ciertos aspectos especiales del sistema, como la lectura del teclado, paso de imágenes a pantalla, etc…Comencé por mirar con detalle como se realizaba esto.
La idea era muy buena, y decidí empezar por ahí. La idea también tenía sus fallos. Comenzando por el «lio» que era dicha BIOS, donde había muchas cosas mezcladas, otras sin uso, otras que si eran llamadas por el MSX, podían significar un cuelgue, y como en muchas otras conversiones, que no eran para nada «satisfactorios con la norma MSX»… Con todo esto, no funcionaba con ordenadores que no fueran MSX1.
Procedí a hacer limpieza de rutinas, cambios de OUT que no deberían estar, y mejorar alguna rutina, como la de los pasos a pantalla. También había que hacerlo un poco más «modular» para que pudiera servir para distintos juegos. Tocó saber donde comenzaba el parser, donde el juego, las direcciones que marcan por ejemplo la ubicación de las letras (cada juego puede tener las suyas propias, etc…)He de decir que mi versión todavía usa una BIOS bastante caótica, y que tendría mucha «limpieza», pero ya no puede generar cuelgue alguno, a parte de alguna mejora, como he dicho.
También tiene alguna sorpresa oculta, como es habitual en mis «producciones» para que os podáis entretener descubriendo…. Ya que en los ROM no hay Pokes, hay que añadir lo que se puede…Después de todo esto, y como dice Araubi en su video, contacté con él para poder «depurar» y ver si se podía jugar a todas las aventuras sin fallos (sobre todo esta que son 5 cargas y la presentación). Sabíamos que había fallos garrafales, como el poner «Progama» o cosas así, pero también hay puntos de la aventura que están mal, y o no hay que hacer lo que debería hacer y entonces se convierte en algo nada intuitivo, o directamente hay sitios donde no se puede hacer nada para seguir.
Todo esto está solucionado en la versión FIXED, aunque he sacado también la conversión directa para que lo podáis comprobar vosotros mismos.
Espero que podáis disfrutar y que puedan ir saliendo más aventuras.
Estos son los modelos y caracteristicas de los modelos de X68000 que he encontrado para que queden en un sitio accesible a todos:
Hay 20 modelos, desde 1987 a 1993 y un prototipo que no salio a la venta y fue cancelado (Power X)
X68000 CZ-600C 10MHz – 1MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 20MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 ACE CZ-601C 10MHz – 1MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 20MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 ACE-HD CZ-611C 10MHz – 1MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 20MB HD SASI X68000 EXPERT CZ-602C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 40MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 EXPERT HD CZ-612C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 40MB HD SASI X68000 PRO CZ-652C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 4 slot – 40MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 PRO-HD CZ-662C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 4 slot – 40MB HD SASI X68000 EXPERT 2 CZ-603C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 40MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 EXPERT 2-HD CZ-613C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 40MB HD SASI X68000 PRO 2 CZ-653C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 4 slot – 40MB HD SASI No incluido X68000 PRO 2-HD CZ-663C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 4 slot – 40MB HD SASI X68000 SUPER CZ-604C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI No incluido X68000 SUPER-HD CZ-623C 10MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI X68000 XVI CZ-634C 16MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI No incluido X68000 XVI-HD CZ-644C 16MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI X68000 Compact XVI CZ-674C 16MHz – 2MB RAM – 2x FDD 3,5″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI No incluido X68030 CZ-500C 24MHz – 4MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI No incluido X68030-HD CZ-510C 24MHz – 4MB RAM – 2x FDD 5,25″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI X68030 Compact CZ-300C 24MHz – 4MB RAM – 2x FDD 3,5″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI No incluido X68030 Compact HD CZ-310C 24MHz – 4MB RAM – 2x FDD 3,5″ – 2 slot – 80MB HD SCSI
X68000 Power X con procesador PowerPC 601 de IBM 66 MHz, RAM 8 MB, disco duro de 240 MB y SX-Window
Los modelos acabados en Pro eran en formato de sobremesa horizontal y el resto eran en torre.. los colores eran en gris o en negro dependiendo del modelo (hay una tabla en los sistemas operativos en la que vienen los colores yo lo interpreto asi (BK:Negro GY:Gris TN:Negro Titan H:Negro B:Negro ¿? (no se porque lo han puesto así))
Caracteristicas:
• 16bit MC68000 a 10MHz Hitachi con licencia Motorola, Modelos de 16 MHz son Motorola, 68030 son Motorola también… y un modelo cancelado con procesador IBM
• 1Mbytes / 2Mbytes memoria RAM expandibile a 12Mbytes (modelos hasta el 030), 16 MB los modelos ultimos mas potentes.
1987: 1 MB 1989: 2 MB 1992: 4 MB 1994: 8 MB
• Teclado y raton proprietario • IPL BIOS ROM 128Kb • KANA (Generador Caracteres) ROM 768Kb • 2 puertos joystick (compatibles con la norma MSX) • Audio IN / OUT • Stereo scope • TV Control • NTSC Video Image IN • 2 o 4 slots de espansion • Disquetera Externa FDD • interface HD SASI, compatible SCSI con contolador • Puerto RS232C 25pines 19200bps • 512Kb VRAM modo texto, 512Kb VRAM modo grafico, 32Kb VRAM sprites, 16Kb SRAM, 128 Sprites Hardware de 16×16 pixel
• Gestion de transparecia y entrada de video forzado • FM Yamaha 2151, 2 canales / 8 otcavas stereop, (MIDI I/F con tarjeta) • ADPCM (Adaptive Differencial PCM) OKI MSM6258V, 4 bit mono chip • 2 FDD 5,25″ HD 1.2Mb, formato proprietario no compatibile con MS-DOS • SASI HD 20/40MB (a partir del modelo SUPER CZ-604C es SCSI)
Hard disk drive: 10 MB (1987), 20 MB (1988), 40 MB (1989), 81 MB (1990), 324-500 MB (1994)
• DMAC 63450 • MFP 68901 con mode 7, (video usado en Super Nintendo con rotazion y zoom) • Alimentacion AC100V 50/60Hz
El modelo X68030, apareció en la década de 1990, propone una tecnología de 32 bits, 24MHz CPU, 4MB de RAM básica, PCM 8bit 4 canales internos, FDD 3,5 «, HD SCSI y CDROM SCSI: hay otros kits de modificación basados en X68020, 40 y 60 o modelos a 16 MHz pero a 16 bits.
Chips especificos:
Chips, que fueron especialmente diseñados para los X68000:
Controlador de memoria:
ET con los X68000 OHM con los ACE OHM2 con los Expert, Expert II, Super y XVI McCoy con los Pro y Pro II
Controlador del sistema:
BUDDHA con los X68000 MESSIAH con los Ace, Expert, Expert 2, y Super DOSA con los XVI SCOTCH con los Pro y Pro II
Controlador de sprites:
Cynthia Junior, con los X68000 Cynthia con los Ace, Expert, Expert 2, Super, Pro y Pro II
Controlador:
VINAS 1+2 con los X68000 VICON con el resto de los modelos
Controlador de Video:
VSOP con los X68000 VIPS con el resto de los modelos
Selector de datos de video:
RESERVE con los X68000 CATHY con el resto de los modelos
Controlador de entrada/salida:
SILICIAN con los X68000 IOSC con los ACE IOSC-2 con los Expert y Expert 2 PEDEC con los Super y XVI IOSC-2 con los Pro y Pro II
X68000 Custom Chips.png (17.22 KiB) Visto 950 veces
Hubo aceleradoras que hacian que se puediera poner procesadores mas potentes y también habia tarjetas PC al modo de lo que ocurria en los Amiga 2000 o Apple.
Memory CZ-6BE1 1MB RAM expansion board (for X68K) ¥ 35,000 CZ-6BE1A (A) 1MB RAM expansion board (for X68KACE/PRO) ¥ 38,000 CZ-6BE1B 1MB RAM expansion board (for X68KACE/PRO) ¥ 28,000 CZ-6BE2 2MB RAM expansion board (for I/O expansion slot) ¥ 79,800 CZ-6BE2A 2MB RAM expansion board (for X68KXVI) ¥ 59,800 CZ-6BE2B Additional 2MB RAM (for CZ-6BE2A/D) ¥ 54,800 CZ-6BE2D 2MB RAM expansion board (for X68KCompact) ¥ 54,800 CZ-6BE4 4MB RAM expansion board (for I/O expansion slot) ¥ 138,000 CZ-6BE4C 4MB RAM expansion board (for I/O expansion slot) ¥ 98,000 CZ-6BE4D 4MB RAM expansion board (for X68KCompact) ¥ -, — CZ-5BE4 * 4MB memory expansion board (for X68030) ¥ 54,800 CZ-5ME4 * 4MB additional memory modules (for CZ-5BE4) ¥ 49,800 FPU CZ-6BP1 Numerical processor board ¥ 79,800 CZ-6BP2 Numerical processor (MC68881-16MHz) ¥ 45,800 CZ-5MP1 * Math coprocessor (MC68882-25MHz) ¥ 54,800 Expansion boards CZ-6BU1 Universal I/O board ¥ 39,800 CZ-6BG1 GP-IB board ¥ 59,800 CZ-6BF1 Serial port, RS-232C board (2 ports) ¥ 49,800 CZ-6BC1 FAX board ¥ 79,800 CZ-6BM1/A MIDI board ¥ 26,800 CZ-6BN1 Parallel scanner Board ¥ 29,800 CZ-6BS1 SCSI board ¥ 29,800 CZ-6BV1 Video board ¥ 21,000 CZ-6BL1 LAN card (for Ethernet) ¥ 268,000 CZ-6BL2 LAN board (for Ethernet/Cheapernet) ¥ 298,000 Expansion units CZ-6VT1 (BK) Color Imaging Unit ¥ 69,800 CZ-6TU (GY/BK) RGB system tuner ¥ 33,100 CZ-6EB1 (BK) I/O expansion box ¥ 88,000 CZ-6SD1 System rack ¥ 44,800 CZ-6PV1 Color video printer ¥ 198,000 CZ-6VS1 Video input unit ¥ 178,000 HDD CZ-620H Hard disk unit (20MB) ¥ 178,000 CZ-64H Built-in hard disk drive (40MB) ¥ 120,000 CZ-68H Built-in hard disk drive (81MB) ¥ 120,000 CZ-68HA For Built-in 2.5inch hard disk drive ¥ —, — CZ-6MO1 Magneto-optical disk unit (594MB) ¥ 450,000 CZ-6FD5 Expansion 5inch floppy disk unit ¥ 99,800 CZ-5H08 * 80MB 2.5inch hard disk drive ¥ 98,000 CZ-5H16 * 160MB 2.5inch hard disk drive ¥ 135,000 Cables CZ-6CR1 RGB cable ¥ 4,500 CZ-6CT1 TV control cable ¥ 5,500 CZ-6CS1 SCSI converter cable ¥ 12,000
Sistemas Operativos:
El primer modelo de Sharp X68000 fue lanzado en el año 1987 con un sistema operativo de interfaz de comandos en texto similar a MS-DOS se le llamo Human68k (Sharp-Hudson Soft) Los primeros modelos tenían un interface grafico llamado VS (Visual Shell) … del año 1990 al 93 el Human68k vino con el GUI SX-Window. fue desarrollado por Hudson Soft y tenia cierta similitud visual al del Next Computer (NextStep)
• Human68k: similar a MSX-DOS 2.41 (por CPU) y utiliza controladores de administración de hardware como MS-DOS;
Sistemas operativos y Gui X68000.png (26.76 KiB) Visto 926 veces
Modos de Video:
512 x 512 31kHz 512 x 512 15kHz 256 x 256 31kHz 256 x 256 15kHz 512 x 512 31kHz 512 x 512 15kHz 256 x 256 31kHz 256 x 256 15kHz 512 x 512 31kHz 512 x 512 15kHz 256 x 256 31kHz 256 x 256 15kHz 512 x 512 31kHz 512 x 512 15kHz 256 x 256 31kHz 256 x 256 15kHz 768 x 512 31kHz 1024 x 424 24kHz 1024 x 848 24kHz
Las frecuencias verticales varían aproximadamente de 56Hz a 60Hz según la resolución de video seleccionado. Usando el lenguaje de máquina, también se pueden generar otras formas según sea necesario con gráficos como 768×512 a 256 colores y 31KHz / 60Hz.
Paleta Color:
1987: 16-bit (65,536 colores) 1994: 24-bit (16,78 millones de colores) con TS-6BGA graphics accelerator
Sprites: 128 hardware sprites en pantalla 16×16 pixels cada uno
Upgradable: hasta 1024 sprites
Planos: 4 (1024×1024) a 16 (512×512) AV outputs: VGA (Monitor Output) Component (RGB) Graphics hardware: Hardware scrolling, priority control, super-impose
Tarjetas aceleradoras graficas:
1994: Tsukumo Electric TS-6BGA graphics accelerator (Cirrus Logic GD-5434 GPU) Blitter support, 2 MB VRAM, 16.78 million colors, 1280×1024 resolution
Los modos de texto, por otro lado, son sustancialmente 1024 x 1024 y 512 x 512 y se pueden superponer con modos gráficos con transparencia de video.
Se necesita un monitor con sincronización múltiple (Multi-Sync) a una frecuencia horizontal mínima de 15 kHz, Usando un monitor de PC SVGA normal solo las resoluciones a 31 kHz serán visibles, afortunadamente, el 95% de los programas o juegos deberian ser visibles…
Los monitores originales Sharp reproducen hasta 65535 colores en 15, 24 y 31 khz.
Cronologia:
Marzo de 1987 X68000 CZ-600C Marzo de 1988 X68000 ACE CZ-601C, 68000 ACE-HD CZ-611C Marzo de 1989 X68000 EXPERT CZ-602C, X68000 EXPERT-HD CZ-612C, X68000 PRO CZ-652C, X68000 PRO-HD CZ-662C Marzo de 1990 X68000 EXPERT II CZ-603C, X68000 EXPERT II-HD CZ-613C Abril de 1990 X68000 PRO II CZ-653C, X68000 PRO II-HD CZ-663C Junio de 1990 X68000 SUPER-HD CZ-623C Enero de 1991 X68000 SUPER CZ-604C Mayo de 1991 X68000 XVI CZ-634C, X68000 XVI-HD CZ-644C Feb de 1992 X68000 Compact CZ-674C Marzo de 1993 X68030 CZ-500, X68030-HD CZ-510 Mayo de 1993 X68030 Compact CZ-300, X68030 Compact-HD CZ-310 1994 ¿? Power X Cancelado (Nombre provisional) CZ-xxxx
TSXDuino MEGA es un PCB en formato cartucho MSX que su función es la de reproducir imágenes de cinta, de la misma manera como hacían antiguamente los reproductores de cassettes. Una de las ventajas de este dispositivo respecto a la antiguas unidades de cassette, es que al reproducir un archivo digital, no existe el inconveniente del deterioro de la cinta, que en muchas ocasiones eran motivo de no cargar correctamente su contenido. Dicho esto, al tener siempre una buena calidad de la imagen de la cinta, hace posible que su velocidad de reproducción pueda llegar hasta los 3850 bps, cuando los reproductores de cinta, por norma general rondaban sobre los 1200 bps.
Este proyecto es una variante de otros proyectos anteriores como Arduitape/TZXDuino/Casduino/MegaDuino, pero en este caso adaptado a un cartucho MSX. Existe una version inicial de TSXDuino de @Edu_arana, cuya diferencia respecto al TSXDuino MEGA, es su microcontrolador. Hasta el momento todos estos proyectos anteriormente mencionador montaban un microcontrolador arduino nano con la limitación de su memoria flash a 32k (98% de su capacidad aprox.) respecto a los 256k del MEGA2560 (16% de su capacidad aprox). Disponer de más memoria amplia el proyecto de la firm MaxDuino de @RCmolina adaptado por @Merlinkv al nuevo microcontrolador MEGA2560 para futuras funciones o ampliaciones.
A continuación os dejo el link de github donde están todos los archivos necesarios para montar la placa. https://github.com/capsule5000
1- MEGA2560PRO MINI, que es el microcontrolador encargado de las funciones del TSXDuino MEGA y lleva instalado el software de funcionamiento. Mega2560
2- Integrado SMD 74HC4050D. Su función principal es la de convertir las señales de 5V a la que trabaja el microcontrolador MEGA2560 a 3.3v que es el voltaje de funcionamiento de la tarjeta microSD.74HC4050D SMD
3- Microswitch 5.8×5.8mm (MUTE). Se encarga de activar o desactivar un pequeño speaker, y poder escuchar la imagen de cinta de la misma manera que hacían los antiguos reproductores magnéticos.Microswitch 5.8×5.8mm MUTE
4- Socket AUDIO OUT. Es el conector encargado de transmitir la salida del audio del TSXDuino MEGA al MSX. Se utiliza el mismo cable que usa para los antiguos reproductores de cinta.Socket audio out PJ307
5- Microwitch 6×6 SMD. Estos microswitch son los encargados de controlar todas la funciones del TSXDuino. Entre sus funciones son: PLAY/STOP/AVANCE o UP/ RETROCESO o DOWN/ MENU/BORRAR o OPCIONAL. El último microwitch, es un botón opcional para nuevas funciones. En la versión Maxduino 1.30M @Merlinkv le dió la función de borrar archivos de la tarjeta SD. En la versión Maxduino 1.54M no tiene una función especifica.Micro switch SMD 6×6….. mas la altura deseada.
6- Microswitch ON/OFF del amplificador. Este switch es el encargado de activar o desactivar el amplificador de la placa TSXDuino MEGA. Switch SMD amplifier
7- Pantalla OLED 0.96. Pantalla OLED que muestra en pantalla todos los elementos de reproducción y configuración de la placa. TSXDuino MEGA esta adaptado para la pantalla OLED0.96 y la OLED 1.3. La diferencia entre ellas es que las fuentes en la OLED1.3 son mas grandes, pero visualmente destaca más la OLED0.96 por sus fuentes bicolor. LCD OLED 128×64 I2C recomiento el bicolor amarillo/azul ya que es mas vistoso
8- Potenciometros 1MOhm. Hay dos potenciometro que entre sus funciones son la de controlar la salida de AUDIO del TSXDuino MEGA al MSX y otro para ajustar el volumen del speaker interno en la placa.Potenciometro 1M Ohm
9- Socket REM. Su función es exactamente igual como los antiguos reproductores y consiste en hacer pausas automáticas de la imagen de cinta, en momentos concretos durante su reproducción.Socket REM PJ204
11- Socket microSD. Es el zócalo donde se ubica la tarjeta SD. Se recomiendas tarjetas que no sean de clase10, que sean de menor velocidad.Socket SD
12- Speaker 7mm. Este es el speaker interno de la placa TSXDuino MEGA que se encarga de poder escuchar el AUDIO de la imagen. El ajuste de su volumen, como la desactivación del mismo mediante el microswitch (MUTE), no afecta para nada la salida de AUDIO OUT, que va al MSX. Speaker 7mm
-13 Modulo PAM (OPCIONAL). Recomiendo comprar esta placa para abaratar costes porque incluye todos los elementos necesarios para montar el amplificador de la placa. La placa del TSXDuino MEGA es clon de este modulo. Aunque se pueden aprovechar sus potenciómetros de 10KOhms, se recomiendan los de 1MOhm, ya que el ajuste de audio es más preciso. En la siguiente imagen se puede observar el amplificador que monta el TSXDuino y su similitud en la disposición de los componentes con el módulo.Modulo amplificador PAM8406 (Opcional)
A continuación os adjunto el PARTS LIST, y el resto de componentes que faltan por mencionar. En la página GITHUB del proyecto, en el apartado del “PARTS LIST” se incluyen unos links de algunos componentes para facilitar su búsqueda.PARTS LIST TSXDuino_MEGA =======================
– NOTA: Con el módulo PAM8406, puedes reutilizar IC2, C1, C2, C3, R4, R5 para reducir costes, https://a.aliexpress.com/_UrKj7
PASO 2 Montaje de la placa.
Una vez tengamos la placa, una de las primera cosas a realizar es la alimentación de la pantalla OLED. Esta pantalla trabaja mediante el protocolo I2C y consta de 4 PINS de los cuales son: VCC, GND, SCL/SCK y SDA. Todas las pantalla los PINES SCL y SDA estan dispuestos en la misma ubicación, pero VCC y GND pueden variar tal como se observa en las siguientes imágenes.
Como podéis observar en las imágenes anteriores VCC y GND están ubicados en el PIN1 y PIN2 de la pantalla OLED y se puede diferenciar entre ellas porque varían su posición. Para solucionar este inconveniente, la placa TSXDuino MEGA tiene unos pads de configuración donde se configura la posicion de VCC y GND. Para ello el PIN1 le corresponde la etiqueta V1 y PIN2 le corresponde la etiqueda V2.
En función de la pantalla OLED que compremos tendremos que soldar los pads V1 y V2 a valor de VCC y GND que le corresponda. Por tanto si compramos una pantalla que V1es VCC y V2 es GND quedará de la siguiente manera:
Si por el contrario V1 fuera GND y V2 VCCquedaría de la manera contraria.
Una vez configurados los pads de alimentación de la pantalla OLED, para utilizar placa en un slot del MSX hay que vigilar el grosor de la misma al soldar el MEGA2560. En este caso se soldará enrasado a la placa principal. Para ello se debe seguir estos pasos.
1- Soldar los pines de la pantalla OLED por la parte superior, con un poco de pericia. Recortar si fuera necesario parte de estos pines si salieran por la parte inferior de la placa y a continuación añadir un poco de cinta adhesiva por la parte inferior donde están ubicados los pads de la pantalla OLED, para evitar cortos.
2- Una vez realizado este proceso ya se puede soldar el MEGA2560 enrasado con la placa principal.
3- Para el resto de los componentes, se pueden soldar sin ningún problema siguiendo las referencias serigrafiadas en la placa..
PASO 3 Instalación y configuración IDE/ librerías ARDUINO y driver USB del microcontrolador MEGA2560.
–Driver USB
Una vez llegados a este punto, es la hora de dotarnos de las herramientas necesarias para poder cargar la firm MaxDuino 1.54M al microcontrolador MEGA2560. Para ello, el primer paso es descargarnos el driver USB del microcontrolador, concretamente el CH340G. Desde cualquier navegador, con tan solo escribir driver CH340G, saldrán varios links para obtener este driver. La descarga del driver (CH341SER) es de apenas 230Kb. Como cualquier programa de windows y por defecto, siguiente a todo hasta instalarlo.
–IDE ARDUINO
El siguiente paso es la instalación del IDE arduino, que es la aplicación encargada de cargar la firm MegaDuino 1.54M al microcontrolador MEGA2560M.
Descargar el programa de https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software su última versión. En este caso descargamos la version 1.8.12. Ejecutar el programa de instalacion como administrador, ya que instala unos drivers necesarios para arduinos y compatibles. Una vez instalado el programa os saldrá una pantalla como esta.
–Librerias ARDUINO
El paso siguiente es instalar unas librerías que son necesarias para la firm MaxDuino. La primera librería se encuentra en la pagina web de @Merlinkv https://github.com/merlinkv y concretamente MaxDuino_Libraries_for_1.54M.
NOTA: Todas estas librerías se encuentran comprimidas y deben dejarse tal cual, no descomprimir.
-Instalación librerías ARDUINO
Desde la pantalla principal del IDE arduinoseleccionar: programa/incluir libreria/añadir biblioteca ZIP.
Una vez seleccionado “añadir biblioteca ZIP“, navegar por las carpetas hasta llegar donde tengáis descargadas las 4 librerías, e ir seleccionando una a una hasta que se instalen todas. Cada vez que se instala una librería correctamente, sale reflejado en la parte inferior del programa IDE arduino.
-Conexion del MEGA2560 al IDE ARDUINO.
Realizado todos los pasos anteriores, ya tendremos preparada la conexión del MEGA2560 con el IDE Arduino. Basta con enchufar el MEGA2560 al PC mediante un cable microUSB-USB y automáticamente detectará el driver USB anteriormente instalado. El driver USB añade un puerto de conexión (COM) para la trasmision de datos. Estar atento en este paso porque cuando cuando se detecte el driver USB de la placa MEGA2560, windows mostrará en la barra inferior el puerto de comunicaciones que ha instalado y que más adelante necesitaremos saber.
A continuación en la ventana del IDE arduinoconfiguraremos la placa MEGA2560 y su puerto de conexión. Para ello hacemos los siguiente:
En la barra superior del programa ir a: Herramientas/Placa/Arduino Mega o Mega2560.
Una vez tengamos seleccionada la placa:MEGA2560 y la siguiente opcion procesador: ATmega2560(Mega 2560) tenemos que seleccionar el puerto de comunicaciones (COM)que debe coincidir, con el anteriormente detectado por windows. Ir a: Herramientas/Puerto/….elegir puertoEn mi caso es COM4, que no tiene porque coincidir con el puerto donde lo instale vuestro windows, hay que estar atento donde lo instala.
-Carga del firm MAXDUINO 1.54M al TSXDuino MEGA.
A continuación cargaremos el firm MaxDuino 1.54M al IDE Arduino, habiendo descomprimido previamente la firm MaxDuino 1.54M.
-Ir a: Archivo/Abrir, y navegar por las carpetas hasta localizar la carperta MaxDuino 1.54M y seleccionar MaxDuino_1.54M.ino.
Una vez cargado la firm de MaxDuino_1.54M.inonos deberá aparecer el código de la firm, y unas pestañas con más contenido.
-El siguiente paso es complilar el código para ello pulsar el primer icono(1) y el IDE arduino compila el código en un archivo binario.
-Si todo es correcto en la parte inferior del IDE arduino obtendréis un resultado como: COMPILADO.
-Y por último ya podemos cargar la firm al MEGA2560 pulsado el icono(2) obteniendo como resultado: SUBIDO.
-Con todo esto ya tendríamos la placa TSXDuino MEGA totalmente preparada y funcional.
PASO 4 Puesta en funcionamiento y conexiones al MSX.
TSXDuino MEGA dispone de dos manera para conectar su alimentación.
1- Mediante el conector del SLOT de cartucho del MSX.
2- Mediante el conector micro USB del MEGA2560. Este modo de funcionamiento permite al TSXDuino MEGA funcionar de manera autónoma, con la finalidad de ser utilizado por otros sistemas de 8 bits, que disponen de reproductor magnético como el MSX. Entre otros el Spectrum ZX/Amstrad CPC….
NOTA: Bajo ningun concepto, NO ALIMENTAR AL TSXDuino MEGA conectado al SLOT del MSX y al conector micro usb “AL MISMO TIEMPO“. Podría originar desperfectos tanto al MSX como en el TSXDuino.
NOTA: En este proyecto hay que tener en cuenta que para funcione bien, la tarjeta SD recomiendan que no sea clase10, que sea de las antiguas y formateada en FAT32. En mi caso tengo una de 512 Mb de aliexpress y funciona perfectamente. Otra cosa a tener en cuenta es que el protocolo I2C de la pantalla Oled, puede tener una dirección que puede coincidir con la firm Maxduino_1.54M de @merlinkv (0x3C)o ser diferente. Si la pantalla no enciende es que la dirección I2C es diferente. Hay un montaje sencillo y un sketch que se llama I2CSCANNER, para saber que dirección tiene el I2C de la pantalla.
Si hay que cambiar el valor de la dirección de la pantalla I2C, lo encontraremos ubicado en una de las pestañas del IDE arduino concretamente en la pestaña DISPLAY.En lo comentarios hace referencia a las direcciones 0x3C o 0x3D como comunes a las pantallas OLED
Otro tema a tener en cuenta por el cual se dota a este dispositivo del switch para poder activar y desactivar el amplificador, simplemente obedece a que hay ordenadores que por su uso y antigüedad hay ciertos condensadores que han perdido sus cualidades y eso provoca que la recepción del AUDIO sea débil, o dicho de otra manera, se quedan un poco “SORDOS” y necesitan de esa amplificación extra para poder cargar correctamente el archivo. Es por este motivo, que si no es necesaria esa amplificación extra, una saturación por exceso de amplificación también puede generar errores de carga. Por eso se recomienda hacer una prueba sin amplificar el audio, y buscar mediante el potenciómetro de AUDIO un ajuste óptimo para la carga de archivos. Solo en este caso, si el resultado de la carga de archivos falla o funciona aleatoriamente, hacer uso del amplificador e igualmente ajustar un nivel de audio óptimo para la carga de archivos.
Os paso un link para que veáis el funcionamiento y resultado final del TSXDuino MEGA.
El propósito de este proyecto además de que cada uno se pueda fabricarse un TSXDuino MEGA, es la de añadir nuevas funciones gracias a la capacidad que tiene el MEGA2560 respecto al arduino NANO. El siguiente reto que tengo en mente, es la de añadir la función de grabación mediante un modulo MP3 VS1053B, que hasta la fecha y de manera un poco rudimentaria, he podido grabar y reproducir un pequeño programa hecho en BASIC con éxito. El siguiente paso es la de fusionar la placa VS1053 o similar al TSXDuino MEGA y a su vez añadir esta nueva función a la firm de MAXDUINO y que @RCmolina de su visto bueno. La idea sería sintetizar la mismas funciones del cassette en un proyecto como este, o como el que esta realizando @melinkv con su MegaDuino.
La conexion del TSXDuino MEGA al MSX, es la misma que se utiliza en el reproductor de cassettes, con la direfencia que quedará sin conectar la clavija del REC/MIC.
Funcionamiento de MaxDuino 1.54M y sus características.
A continuación explicaremos la funciones básicas de funcionamiento y la información que nos muestra la pantalla, según las opciones escogidas en el menú de opciones. La navegación por los diferentes menús de la firm MaxDuino se realiza de la siguiente manera:
1- ARRIBA 3- REPRODUCIR/PAUSA/ENTRAR 5- MENU OPCIONES
Nada más encender TSXDuino MEGA os saldrá un logo de presentación, seguidamente un testeo de la tarjeta SD y la pantalla principal. Tener en cuenta, que para el buen funcionamiento de la SD se recomienda que no sea clase10 y que este formateada en FAT32.
En la pantalla principal encontramos las siguientes funciones.Menú principal de MaxDuino_1.54M
1- Arbol de directorios/Archivos. La firm MaxDuino reconoce directorios y puede clasificar los archivos dentro de carpetas. En el ejemplo que os muestro tengo carpetas de la A a la Z, y en este caso tengo seleccionada la carpeta “A”. Para entrar en una carpeta hay que pulsar PLAY, para salir STOP. Para avanzar o retroceder dentro de los archivos UP/DOWN.
2- ID:/BLK: De estas etiquetas informativas solo destacaremos la BLK: Solo funciona con los archivos con extensión TSX, ya que son imágenes idénticas a la cintas magnéticas.
Cuando reproducimos un archivo, la etiqueta BLK:nos informa de los bloques que se han cargado en el MSX. Estos bloques son los “SILENCIOS” que hay entre bloque y bloque. Esto es muy útil sobretodo en juegos multicarga, cuando por ejemplo las fases/pantallas, las va cargado de manera independiente a la base del juego. Si ponemos de ejemplo el juego del GAUNTLET, que carga las fases/pantallas por partes, vamos a suponer que el juego base acaba en el bloque 4. A partir del bloque 4, según vamos avanzando a la siguiente fase/pantalla, carga el bloque 5. Si pasamos a la siguiente fase/pantalla, carga el bloque 6 y así sucesivamente. Pero que pasa si nos matan y tenemos que “rebobinar para cargar la primera fase/pantalla” ? Pues gracias a la información del BLK:, como sabemos que los bloques de carga de la primera fase/pantalla empieza a partir del bloque 5, tenemos que retroceder del bloque que nos encontramos, al bloque 5. Esto es posible ya que cada vez que carga un bloque, si está activada la opción CONTROL/ON, se para automáticamentemediante un “PAUSE” en el último bloque cargado. Es este punto “PAUSE” cuando mediante las teclas UP/DOWN podemos subir o bajar bloques que hayan cargado el MSX en memoria.
3- Baud. Indica la velocidad de reproducción en Bps, y en este caso tenemos seleccionada la opción “3600Bps”. Para modificar esta opción, debemos entrar en el menú de opciones pulsado la tecla ROOT y será la primera opción que nos muestra. Esta opción nos permite modificar la velocidad de reproducción de los archivos entre 1200, 2400, 3600 y 3850Bps. Como experiencia personal, en un 95% de los casos a una velocidad de 3600Bps carga los archivos correctamente. Aquellos que se resistan, en función de la calidad de la imagen a 2400Bps tendría que cargar todos sin ningún tipo de problema.
4- Motor. Pulsando la tecla ROOT para entrar en el menú de opciones, bajar con la tecla DOWN/ABAJO hasta la segunda opción y pulsar PLAY/ENTRAR, para seleccionar la opción “MOTOR”. Esta opción activa y desactiva mediante ON/OFF, el REM del TSXDuino MEGA. Activamos y desactivamos las pausas automáticas. Se recomienda tenerlo activado y sobretodo en juegos multicarga ya que el archivo puede parar la carga al 45%, ya sea porque el resto de la imagen pueden ser partes de cargas adicionales. También nos encontramos pausas automáticas, cuando en un momento de la carga, la imagen del archivo se para para representar un gráfico en la pantalla de la TV y a continuación volver con la reproducción.
5- TSXCzx. Esta función es la tercera opción dentro del menú de opciones, y como particularidad activa o desactivar mediante ON/OFF la carga turbo para los archivos con extensión .CAS y .TSX de MSX. Esta opción tiene funciones adicionales para los sistemas Spectrum / amstrad CPC.
6- SkipA2. Esta función es la cuarta opción del menú de opciones y se recomienda que este en OFF. Esta función es exclusiva para los sistemas de spectrum 48K. Recordemos que la firm Maxduino 1.54M engloba diferentes sistemas de 8bits incluido el MSX.
Para aquellos que quiera profundizar más en la firm MaxDuino 1.54M, os adjunto un manual en PDF explicando un poco los inicios de estos dispositivos Arduitape/TZXDuino/Casduino/MegaDuino…. para ordenadores de 8 bits como la configuración de algunos parámetros dentro de la firm desde el IDE arduino. MAXDUINO Guía de usoDescarga
Quiero agradecer, el gran trabajo de @RCmolina por la creación de MaxDuino, y la gran cantidad de detalles que hace que la reproducción de imágenes para los ordenadores de 8BITS funcione increíblemente bien, y a @Merlinkv como responsable en adaptar la firm MaxDuino del arduino NANO al MEGA2560, ampliando futuras funciones y ampliaciones al proyecto. Y por supuesto debo mencionar también a Andrew Beer, el creador original de CASDuino y TZXDuino. Gracias a todos.
A continuación describiré todos los pasos necesarios para la fabricación de un ordenador OMEGA, que incluye placa base y placa del teclado, siguiendo un orden que permite la resolución de problemas.
Primero revisaremos las PCB con lupa las placas en busca de arañazos o de cualquier defecto. Localizar y reparar problemas con la placa desnuda es siempre mejor que con todos los componentes ya instalados. Un arañazo profundo que hubiese cortado una pista o una salpicadura conectando 2 pistas, se corregirán cortando con un “cutter” o añadiendo un poco de estaño.
Limpiaremos las placas con alcohol, antes de iniciar el proceso, para eliminar cualquier resto de adhesivo o suciedad que pueda estorbar a la soldadura.
Después de esto soldaremos los componentes comenzando primero por aquellos de perfil más bajo, de esta forma evitaremos tener que sujetar las piezas.
Primero tomaremos la placa del teclado y la colocaremos en una superficie libre de estática con el lado de la “serigrafía” hacia arriba (el lado con las letras y siluetas de los componentes) y entonces colocaremos el primer componente.
“¿Que sueldo primero?” …
Empezaremos por los diodos ya que son los componentes de nivel más bajo en lo que a separación de la placa se refiere, en el PCB del teclado hay 3 y están bien juntos.
Todos los diodos tienen una raya negra en un lado que nos indica su polaridad. Así mismo, la placa del Omega tiene un pictograma que simboliza el diodo y muestra esa misma raya. Esto nos ayuda a comprender su orientación. Así pues, haremos coincidir la raya del diodo con la del dibujo en la placa (pictograma) para soldarlo en la orientación adecuada.
Insertaremos los tres diodos y daremos la vuelta a la placa ayudándonos de cualquier superficie plana. Al poner la placa de teclado boca abajo las patas de los diodos sobresaldrán hacia arriba a través la placa. Ahora tocará soldar estos componentes a la placa.
Os recuerdo todos estos conceptos están bien desarrollados en la guía para aprender a soldar. Podréis repasarla si teneis dudas antes de continuar.
Después de soldar cualquier componente hay que cortar sus patillas utilizando unos alicates de corte en diagonal. Cortaremos estas cerca de donde está la soldadura. Aviso, guardaremos estos sobrantes de pata, porque servirán después para soldar algunos puentes en la placa base.
¡Enhorabuena!, acabamos de soldar el primer componente de un MSX. ¿Qué sigue ahora?
El siguiente componente por altura son las resistencias, de nuevo 3. Estas no tienen polaridad aunque las soldaremos con misma orientación por una cuestión visual que además, nos permitirá identificar fácilmente su valor. En el listado de materiales en formato excel hay que tener en cuenta que las referencias pueden repetirse ya que hay dos placas, por tanto estas resistencias son R1, R2 y R3 de la placa teclado y su valor es 470 ohm.
Repetiremos el mismo proceso: las insertaremos, giraremos la placa, soldaremos, y cortaremos el sobrante de patilla en cada caso. Limpiaremos con alcohol isopropílico y un pincel y comprobaremos que queda así:
Ahora dejaremos temporalmente la placa del teclado y comenzaremos con la placa base (main board).
Empezaré por explicar lo vamos a soldar. Se trata de unos puentes para fijar la configuración del chip de video (VDP). Esto es importante porque con la configuración equivocada el chip de video se freirá quedando inservible. Para evitar un riesgo de ese tipo fijaremos estos puentes cuanto antes. La mayoría instalareis un V9958 (que es el chip de video del MSX2+). En la placa hay unos jumper(JP3 y JP4) que permiten seleccionar entre la configuración para V9958 y el V9938. Si pretendéis a montar el Omega con el chip V9958 deberéis dejar el transistor Q2 sin instalar (el que está tachado en la foto) y la conexión de JP3 y JP4 deberá de ser en ambos casos como se muestra:
¿Y como haremos esto? Muy sencillo, tomaremos 2 de las patillas que hemos cortado de los componentes ya soldados y las doblaremos tal que así:
Ahora insertaremos los puentes de cable en las posiciones mencionadas anteriormente (también se puede ver en la imagen) y los soldaremos. Podréis soldarlos por la parte superior, será lo más cómodo. Este será el resultado:
Para que no haya ninguna duda:
Para montar el Omega con un V9958(MSX2+), el transistor Q2 no se instalará y JP3-JP4 deberán tener un cable entre los pines 2-3 (los 2 redondos)
Para montarlo con un V9938 (MSX2), Q2 si se instalará y JP3-JP4 se soldarán ambos en la posición 1-2.
Hay una tabla con todos los jumpers más adelante.
Seguiremos con el componente más bajo que de nuevo es un diodo, ahora el que hay en la placa base. Como la polaridad importa prestaremos atención y soldaremos como se muestra en la imagen.
En la imagen se muestra el diodo y también su orientación.
A continuación soldaremos las resistencias, todas salvo R9. Las resistencias están marcadas como R1-R48. Estos componentes tienen unas barras de color en su superficie para indicar el valor, es importante no equivocarse y colocar una resistencia del valor correcto en cada ubicación. Mi método es ordenarlas en la mesa por valor, manteniendo la bolsita de Mouser, y leyendo la placa por orden buscar la primera “R”, mirar el valor en la placa para luego buscarla en la mesa. Insertarla y seguir hasta completar una fila. Como la referencia esta también en cada bolsita aprovecho para comprobar que no hay error una por una. Se pueden insertar todas las resistencias de una vez y soldarlas o hacer pequeños grupos e ir soldando.Pulsad sobre la fotografía para obtener una vista previa.
El siguiente componente que instalaremos son las bobinas, su referencia va de L1 a L3. Las bobinas elegidas en este proyecto se podrían confundir con las resistencias, apenas se distinguen por el color. Poned atención para no equivocaros.
A continuación soldaremos los osciladores de cristal de cuarzo, empezando por X2 (32.7 Khz) que irá tumbado. Además de soldar sus patillas, lo aseguraremos a la placa aprovechando otra patilla cortada, y soldaremos esta a modo de cinturón. También soldaremos el cinturón con la carcasa, para que quede tal como se muestra en esta imagen.
Soldaremos después los otros dos cristales. No es importante la orientación ya que ningún cristal tiene polaridad.
Le toca el turno a los condensadores cerámicos, empezaremos por los siguientes: C3 de la placa del teclado, y de la placa base, de C68 a C70, C79 a C87 y C92 a C94.
Observaréis que C68, C69 y C70 tienen una huella muy peculiar. La huella tiene 3 agujeros pero el condensador sólo 2 patillas, y aunque la huella indica un signo “+” el condensador elegido en Mouser no es polarizado. Esto se ha hecho así para poder elegir cualquier tipo de condensador. De hecho, tener o no polaridad depende del tipo especifico de condensador, los condensadores cerámicos no tienen polaridad. Como 2 de esos 3 topos ya están conectados, insertaremos las patillas de nuestro condensador entre 2 agujeros no conectados (por ejemplo los agujeros externos). ejemplo de 3 tipos de condensador que podrian utilizados.
Una vez llegados a este punto, también soldaremos los condensadores variables (TrimCap) C88, C89 y C90. Se pueden soldar condensadores sencillos de 30pF, e incluso he visto un Omega funcionando sin ellos. El mio los tiene pero jamás los he ajustado. Este es el resultado.
Pulsad sobre la fotografía para obtener una vista previa.
Seguimos con el resto de condensadores de huella rectangular, todos excepto C91. Todos los condensadores que quedan (de huella rectangular) son de 0.1uF, y van de C1 a C58 en la placa base. Recordad que también hay 2 en la placa de teclado así que suman 60. A estas alturas ya le estaréis cogiendo el gustillo pero estas son 120 soldaduras del tirón. Y este será el resultado.Pulsad sobre la fotografía para obtener una vista previa.
A continuación llega el turno de los zócalos. Empezaremos primero por los más problemáticos.
El zócalo de U47 es de un ancho muy especial, tanto que no conseguí un zócalo que comprar. Por ello soldaremos 2 tiras de pines hembra a modo de zócalo. Nos ayudaremos de una tercera tira de pines superpuesta para empujar cada una de las dos primeras contra la PCB en vertical. Fíjate en las fotos.
Llegados a este punto tocará decidir la configuración para NTSC o PAL. Puede ser un tema muy complicado o muy sencillo.
Hay una resistencia y un condensador diferentes para cada configuración (R9 y C91):
Si vais a conectar el Omega a un televisor compatible con NTSC a través de video compuesto deberemos soldar una resistencia de 20K 1% en R9 y un condensador de 27pF en C91 tal como muestra la serigrafía.
Si vais a conectarlo a un televisor compatible con PAL a través de video compuesto deberemos soldar una resistencia de 16K 1% en R9 y un condensador de 18pF en C91.
Si no tenéis nada claro que pantalla vais a utilizar, o queréis utilizar ambas, podemos soldar unos zócalos como los de la imagen siguiente y luego podremos cambiar de componente las veces que sea necesario.
Pero lo más fácil: Si vais a utilizar una pantalla de video compatible con RGB, da igual que componentes soldéis que funcionará tanto en NTSC como en PAL. Esto incluye cualquier pantalla moderna con entrada de EUROCONECTOR (aka SCART).
Esta opción será la más recomendable y cómoda en todos los sentidos, ya que además es la opción que proporciona la mejor calidad de video (con diferencia).
Tened en cuenta que la velocidad y compatibilidaddel sistema variará entre NTSC y PAL tal como explicaremos más adelante.
Bien, una vez superado este punto, cuando hayamos soldado una resistencia y un condensador o los zócalos mencionados; continuaremos soldando el resto de zócalos. Todos los zócalos. Colocad todos los zócalos sobre la placa respetando la orientación de la muesca que se muestra en la serigrafía de la PCB (generalmente apuntando hacia abajo o hacia la izquierda). Como el PCB está sobre la mesa los pines no penetrarán, pero de nuevo podéis utilizar alguna superficie plana para darle la vuelta a la tortilla y soldar todos los pines.
También hay que soldar los zócalos de la placa de teclado, en total 962 puntos de soldadura seguidos, recordad de que no debéis respirar el humo. Así quedará la placa tras este paso:
A mi me gusta ir limpiando las soldaduras conforme las voy haciendo por varios motivos, así que os recomendaría ir pasando el alcohol isopropílico y el pincel, y también echar un vistazo a las soldaduras limpias para comprobar que todo es correcto.
Seguiremos soldando componentes por altura. Ahora las matrices.
Las matrices (o arrays) de resistencias, son esos componentes que parecen un peine. Estas tienen una patilla común y todas las demás iguales. Por tanto tienen polaridad. Un extremo tiene un punto que indica que esa es la patilla diferente y de entre los topos, un extremo tiene el topo cuadrado donde insertar esa patilla.
Nota: Algunas (como RR8 y RR6) pueden tener el mismo valor pero no la misma cantidad de patillas. Verificad 2 veces que la orientación es la correcta, pues los componentes de muchas patillas no son los más fáciles de desoldar. Recordad que hay matrices en la placa base y también en la placa de teclado.
Ahora soldaremos el transistor el fusible F1 y el transistor Q1. No soldaremos Q2 a no ser que estemos utilizando un chip de video V9938 (poco probable). También soldaremos el zócalo de la batería CR2032, y luego todos los condensadores electrolíticos. (todos los que sean más bajos que los pines). Aquí todo salvo el fusible tiene polaridad. Aquí se muestra el resultado.
Ya podemos soldar el conector de pines de la placa del teclado, y para ello lo ideal sería que el cable plano estuviera insertado en el conector. De este modo, el conector quedará separado de la PCB, lo suficiente para que el conector pueda entrar y salir como debe.
Ahora recordad que la primera soldadura de la placa madre fue para soldar un cable como jumper. Es el momento de soldar el resto de jumpers, si queréis utilizad un cable para fijar la configuración, aunque lo mejor es soldar tiras de pin. Para ello soldaremos los siguientes conectores de pin macho: JP1, JP2, JP5, JP6 y luego soldaremos J11. Aquí podemos soldar dos tiras de 8 pines, o bien, un conector de 16 pines “shrouded” (amurallado) para evitar una inserción del cable en sentido contrario.dos opciones en el conector J11
Llegados a este punto soldaremos el conector para la toma de alimentación J1. Aunque podríamos soldarlo sin más y tirar del cable cada vez que quisiéramos apagar nuestro MSX, personalmente decidí que era mucho mejor añadir un interruptor modificando el conector de alimentación. De este modo, el interruptor cortara la alimentación de todo el sistema interrumpiendo la señal de 5v. Una solución excelente para evitar dañar el conector, y más cómodo si vais a ponerle caja.
Si estáis de acuerdo en aplicar mi solución, hay que doblar la patilla central del conector, la que conecta con el centro del cable, para desviarla de su entrada a la placa. Luego soldar un cable de corriente (preferentemente flexible) al conector modificado y otro al agujero de la PCB donde hubiera ido insertado. Ambos cables deberán ir soldados o conectados al interruptor en el otro extremo. Como siempre una imagen vale más que mil palabras:
También soldaremos el conector de la fuente en J10 (o una tira de pines macho) y un conector doble hembra en J12. Este es el conector de la expansión de RAM. He aquí una foto de ambos conectores.
A continuación soldaremos la mini-fuente de +12 y -12. Se compone de un conector de pines femenino, que vamos a hacer encajar en J10, una mini placa adaptadora diseñada por nosotros, una tira de 6 pines macho y la miniplaca DC-DC incorporada en el kit de componentes críticos MSXmakers. Una vez todo soldado debe quedar así:
Ya solo queda soldar el relé y los conectores de dispositivos por alturas. Así que soldaremos el relé de cassette RY1. Si hemos elegido un segundo slot de cartucho horizontal (para conexión trasera), lo soldaremos ahora. Así:
Luego los conectores de Joystick, J7 y J8, el conector de S-Video J4, los dos conectores RCA J2 y J3, el o los slots de cartucho verticales, … el conector de puerto impresora J9, y finalmente… los dos conectores tipo DIN-8: J5 y J6.
Bueno, ya tenemos terminada la placa base a falta de los integrados, aquí otra visión general de la placa. si quieres ampliar pulsa sobre ella.
¡Bien, ya tenemos todos los componentes soldados en la placa base! Vallamos ahora a terminar el teclado. ¿Que nos queda? Pues quedan justamente todos los interruptores, elementos de nivelación y los LED.
Bueno, primero hay unos componentes llamados “leveling kit”, está compuesto varias piezas pequeñas y unas barras que hay que montar, se trata de unos accesorios que van a ambos lados del interruptor en aquellas teclas mas largas de 2cm. En el caso de la barra espaciadora, es posible que la longitud de la barra esté equivocada y tengamos que corregirla.
Si aun tenemos que pedir los componentes podemos tomar una opción más cómoda y pedir este (puedes pulsar la imagen):
pulsa para obtener el producto en ali express
Pero corregir la barra es muy fácil y lo cierto es que la opción de Mouser, sigue siendo la más económica.
Para todos aquellos que ya hayáis comprado el kit de Mouser, he aquí como corregir la barra.
Primero montaremos las piezas de plástico sobre la placa y apoyaremos la barra para tomar medida del sobrante. Al colocarlo observareis que tiene como un milímetro de juego, así que lo dejaremos centrado.
En el otro extremo, donde hay que hacer la doblez, marcaremos con rotulador el centro de la barra respecto al soporte de plástico, tan centrado como podamos.
Como en el video se muestra, el hierro asido por los alicates se apoya en el final de una superficie dura y se fuerza el giro con los alicates, hasta obtener un giro de unos 90 grados.
Una vez montados todos los “leveling kit” empezaremos a soldar los interruptores “cherry MX”. Hemos de tener en cuenta que el interruptor de la barra espaciadora que hemos seleccionado es de tipo gris “High force linear switch”, es la mejor opción para una tecla de ese tamaño, (aunque por supuesto funcionaría también con un interruptor normal). Soldaremos esta tecla antes de nada.
Para soldar los interruptores, recomiendo colocar los “keycap” encima de los pulsadores y soldar solo un pin de cada interruptor, con poco estaño. Haremos esto en los pulsadores de toda una fila. Luego, revisaremos que tal alineados están y corregiremos la alineación uno a uno, tocando con el soldador el pin, a la vez que aguantamos/giramos el pulsador a corregir.
Una vez toda la fila está correcta seguiremos con la fila siguiente. Cuando todo el teclado esté en su sitio, soldaremos el segundo pin de todas las teclas, y por último repasaremos el primer pin de todas las teclas, porque habrá quedado mal soldado tras tantos retoques.
Al final tendremos una imagen como esta:
Es importante decir que este es un teclado de tipo internacional con la tecla [Return] horizontal. El teclado español tiene una distribución muy distinta de las teclas que no coincidiría con esta PCB.
Bien, llegados a este punto es el momento de limpiar a conciencia las placas al menos por el lado de las soldaduras (por ambos lados aun mejor) con alcohol isopropílico, y mientras lo hacemos podremos examinar las soldaduras para verificar que están brillantes y uniformes. Las revisaremos con lupa y repasaremos cualquier soldadura que esté deforme o mate para evitar una “soldadura fría”.
Cuando ya estén acabadas ambas placas (y antes de instalar ningún C.I. en sus zócalos) comenzaremos con las pruebas sobre el circuito.
Momento de sacar el polímetro.
Ahora conectaremos ambas placas con el cable plano, asegurándonos de que el cable rojo coincide con el pin 1 en cada conector, sin conectar a la corriente aun (ni tampoco los integrados), mediremos si hay continuidad entre 5V y GND. Lo podemos hacer por ejemplo en J10. La resistencia sin integrados debería ser mayor de 300 omhs.
Si pita (marca continuidad) significa que tienes un corto, tienes que repasar hasta localizar el problema, puedes desconectar ambas placas y probarlas por separado, y no seguir adelante hasta localizar/solucionar el problema.
¡ESPERA, TE HAS DEJADO LOS LED!
Bueno, hay un motivo. La mejor forma de comprobar el circuito es dejando los LED para el final.
El LED D1 del teclado indicá si el ordenador tiene corriente, así que, con las 2 placas conectadas entre sí, conectaremos la fuente de alimentación al circuito y una vez así introduciremos el LED en D1. Por supuesto solo funciona en un sentido, así que introduciremos el LED y lo empujaremos con el dedo para que sus patas toquen los topos. Si no se enciende probaremos en sentido inverso.
Si el LED no se enciende de ninguna manera, probad con otro y revisad que hayáis seguido correctamente los pasos anteriores.
Una vez sabemos que esto funciona, desconectaremos la corriente, soldaremos el LED en esa posición y soldaremos también los otros dos LED del teclado, los que van sobre los interruptores CAPS y CODE. En este caso, simplemente introducid la patilla larga del LED en el topo cuadrado, introduciendo el led donde se muestra.
Ahora comprobaremos todos los voltajes, debemos insertar la mini fuente DC-DC montada en su sitio (J10), volveremos a conectar la corriente al circuito y mediremos el voltaje en cada zócalo con el polímetro. Podéis seguir el esquema de ayuda:
El voltaje debe ser el indicado en cada caso, aunque tiene un pequeño margen (5v +-0,5 y 12,5 +-0,5v) si todo va correctamente apagad un momento y conectar la placa de teclado, entonces podréis mirar los voltajes en U1 y U2 del teclado (patillas primera y ultima en cada caso).
MONTEMOS EL OMEGA!
Ahora sólo falta insertar los integrados, algunos como los AF16V8 (GAL) y el 39SF040 (ROM) necesitan de programación. Si tenéis un programador de eproms podéis grabar los GAL con los ficheros .JED descargándolos aquí.
En el caso de la FLASH-ROM (39SF040) tenéis más opciones, muchas opciones. Este chip es una memoria EPROM de 512K, pero el Omega solo puede ver 256K a la vez, así que hay un jumper que permite seleccionar esto. Si el jumper JP1 esta quitado tenemos una ROM y si esta insertado otra.
He generado 3 ficheros para grabar el FLASH-ROM con 3 posibles opciones:
El fichero “standard” tiene MSX2+ para NTSC grabado dos veces, así que funciona como un pequeño cambio en la configuración regional para alcanzar compatibilidad con el máximo de juegos, lo puedes descargar aquí.
El fichero “PAL”, normalmente es la segunda opción (aunque creo que voy a cambiar esto pronto). Contiene una configuración MSX2 compatible con el sistema PAL y una ROM libre llamada C-BIOS también en PAL, lo puedes descargar aquí.
Por último el fichero “Halt-CBIOS” contiene 2 configuraciones, una simplemente arranca el Z80 en modo HALT para probar que funciona el circuito principal, y la segunda contiene C-BIOS en configuración NTSC. Es la más útil cuando algo va mal para seguir mis instrucciones y detectar donde esta el fallo, lo puedes descargar aquí.
En cualquiera de los tres casos podéis simplemente descargar el fichero y grabarlo con un programador. También podéis pedirme que os envíe un chip grabado.
¿Y como se graba la eeprom?
Todo este proceso varia en función del sistema operativo y del grabador. Hay suficiente como para hacer un artículo independiente (más adelante). Aquellos que lo necesitéis preguntadme por el caso concreto.
MONTEMOS EL OMEGA (bis)!!
Vale, por fin, ahora es momento de empezar a insertar chips en sus zócalos, aunque podríamos insertar todos los chips de una vez, elegir una configuración de jumpers y encender a ver que pasa (vamos a llamar a esta la técnica Popolón) lo cierto es que es mucho mejor ir avanzando a través de ciertos pasos que nos ayuden a determinar donde está el fallo si algo no funciona.
Ya hemos soldado con cariño, limpiado la placa con cariño y revisado con lupa que todo esté correcto y comprobado los niveles de tensión (con cariño).
La probabilidad de que todo esto funcione a la primera es alta si se han hecho las cosas bien pero por desgracia, hasta los más experimentados entramos en pánico cuando das a “power” y no hace nada.
Así que si quereis hacerme caso, montaremos por orden:
Primero configuraremos la placa base. La placa base tiene varios conectores de pin que deben o pueden llevar una conexión (jumper).abiertocerradocomentariosJP1ROM1ROM2elige que mitad del romJP2JISANSIselecciona tipo teclado (en teoría)Posición1-22-3comentariosJP3V9938V9958selecciona el chip de videoJP4V9938V9958selecciona el chip de videoJP5NTSCPALselecciona el sistema de videoJP6NTSCPALselecciona el sistema de video
Ahora ya podemos insertar el primer chip. Como normalmente los chips vienen con las patillas más bien abiertas, hay que doblar un poco esas patillas para que entren en un zócalo. Es importante hacer esto con cuidado de no romper una pata, y también mantener la alineación en cada fila.
Para realizar el montaje de esta placa seguiremos una serie de pautas siempre y cuando sea posible. Esta pautas consisten en verificar en ciertos puntos del ensamblado (TEST) y confirmar que lo que hay instalado funciona correctamente. Con esto evitamos que, si una vez montado el dispositivo, no funciona por algun motivo, no sepamos ni por donde empezar. Mediremos la resistencia entre Vcc y GND debe dar un valor superior a 250 ohm, o algo va mal.
Insertaremos U1, U3, U12, U13, U26 y U42. Si tenemos un ROM grabado con el fichero “Halt-CBIOS” lo insertaremos en U6, en otro caso insertaremos una ROM con cualquier fichero grabado. JP1 debe estar abierto (sin jumper). Si alguien no soldó un jumper en JP3 y JP4, debe conectarlos ahora según sea su chip de video. Esta es la imagen.
Comprobaremos de nuevo que la resistencia entre Vcc y GND no ha bajado escandalosamente (a mi me da 112Ω). Primera “smoking test”: conectaremos el Omega a la corriente y observaremos con atención. No sale humo, no hace ruido, palparemos los chips para buscar si alguno quema (y no hablo de un poquito), ante cualquier signo de problema desconectaremos rápido y miraremos que anda mal.
Comprobaremos también que la tensión entre Vcc y GND es aproximadamente 5V. Si todo ha ido bien, mediremos la tensión entre entre la patilla 18 de U1 (Z80) y GND.
Aquí, si la ROM es “Halt-CBIOS” y JP1 esta desconectado, debe dar cero lógico (0v o casi).
En tal caso introduciremos el jumper en JP1, reiniciaremos el OMEGA y volveremos a medir, debería dar uno lógico (5v o casi). Si no tenemos ROM “Halt-CBIOS”, siempre dará 5v.
Esta prueba demuestra que el CPU recibe corriente, señal de reloj, accede a memoria ROM y ejecuta el primer comando. Por supuesto aun no hay señal de video. Si esto no funciona revisarlo todo antes de continuar, puede haber una mala soldadura un chip averiado, insertado al revés…
Ojo, si sólo habéis puesto una ROM cualquiera y sólo habéis medido 5v no habéis demostrado nada pero podéis seguir hasta el siguiente smoking test.
A continuación insertaremos: U30, U39, U46 y U47, una batería en BT1 y en U6 utilizaremos una ROM del sistema grabada con un sistema C-BIOS NTSC, por ejemplo la ROM Halt-CBIOS si insertamos JP1. También vamos a necesitar tener configurados JP5 y JP6 para este sistema de video y conectar un cable de video a vuestra pantalla (video compuesto o RGB). Esta es una imagen de la placa en este punto:
Encenderemos la pantalla, cambiaremos la entrada de video en la TV a la que hemos conectado el cable y… Segunda smoking test:encenderemos el Omega, de nuevo es un smoking test, así que volver a evaluar lo mencionado anteriormente. Esta vez el chip de video quema un poco. Con esto montado, a pesar de no tener instalados los chips de VRAM podemos mostrar en pantalla algún color aleatorio demostrando que funciona (a veces el color es negro pero nunca sin señal).
Ahora añadiremos simplemente los chips de VRAM que son U8-U11. Esta es una imagen de la placa…
…y ejecutaremos la tercera smoking test. Veremos en pantalla:
El chip de video sigue caliente, pero mientras la imagen se vea y no nos funda un dedo no hay nada que temer. A continuación añadiremos los siguientes integrados: U38, U37, U40, U45, U31, U22, U23, U18, U17, U41, U7 y U32, como se muestra en esta imagen:
U6 debe tener una Flash-BIOS con C-BIOS. Funcionaría incluso si esta es PAL, sólo que en tal caso no mostraría colores, con NTSC debería ser full color. Si todo va como debe la cuarta smoking test mostraría lo siguiente:
Bueno, si hemos conseguido este punto es momento de intentarlo con las BIOS originales. Debemos insertar U5, U27 y cambiar U6 para insertar una BIOS con Ms BASIC (como por ejemplo la BIOS standard). Quedaría así:
Esta es la pantalla típica de Ms BASIC que se ve tras la quinta smoking test:Imagen emitida por video compuesto, NTSC.
Aunque aun falta mucha parte del circuito que espera BASIC, esto nos permitirá montar el teclado y también probarlo (hay que insertar U1 y U2 del teclado). Encenderemos y probaremos que el teclado responde, que el led de power se enciende, los LED de CAPS y KANA… esto será la sexta Smoking test.
A continuación insertaremos U43 y (si tenemos) un Flash-ROM para sistema de video PAL, como por ejemplo el que he llamado exactamente así. Hemos de configurar los jumper J5 y J6 (en caso de tener esa BIOS para PAL) y así conseguiremos por fin mostrar una imagen en color, en una pantalla PAL. Esta es la imagen de la placa en el smoking test 7:
Aunque no tenemos instalado el circuito de sonido, si subimos mucho el sonido de la TV podemos escuchar el sonido de las teclas. Ahora añadiremos U48 (el amplificador operacional) y ese mismo sonido se escuchará a volumen normal. Smoking test 8.
Ahora añadiendo unos cuantos más podremos probar el PSG, añadimos U34, U35 U36, U44 y U4. Esta es la placa ahora. Smoking test 9.
Y cuando lleguemos a BASIC escribimos PLAY “CDE” y escucharemos “DO-RE-MI” como prueba de funcionamiento.No puedo hacer que esta imagen suene
Una forma mejor de probar el sonido sería poniendo un juego, pero aun no funcionan los cartuchos ni la entrada de cintas.
Comenzaremos añadiendo lo necesario para rque funcionen los slot de cartucho. Añadiremos U19, U20, U21, U25, U14, U15 y U16. Y así se verá nuestra placa en la smoking test A:
Mejor primero encenderemos sin cartucho y si nada arde volveremos a encender para probarlo. Si todo va como debe veremos algo como esto:
Antes de que nos pongamos a jugar como locos hay que terminar. Vamos a insertar el chip U49, necesario para comprobar el circuito de cassette. Así se muestra la placa smoking test B:
Cargaremos el primer videojuego de cinta y obtendremos una prueba como esta:
¿Que queda por añadir? Si añadimos U28 y U29 ya podremos probar que funcionan también los joysticks . Smoking test C.
Cargaremos otro juego (cinta o cartucho) y probaremos que el puerto funciona como debe.
Por último (por fin) añadiremos U24 y U33 y cruzaremos los dedos para que todo funcione en el último smoking test D.
Conectaremos una impresora y realizaremos una prueba de impresión como la que muestro:
FIN
TENGO UN PROBLEMA QUE HAGO!!!
1) Mantener la calma.
No se cuantas veces me he encontrado ante una situación similar y he empeorado las cosas por ponerme a probar a lo loco. Lo más efectivo es dar un paso atrás y recapacitar. Cualquier cambio que vayáis a hacer tened en cuenta esto ¿tiene sentido que no funcione por ello?
Si el sistema estaba funcionando, revisad cual fue el último cambio y des-hacedlo. Si el sistema es totalmente nuevo y/o lo estáis montando según unas instrucciones, evaluad que tenéis de diferente con respecto de esa guía.
La primera vez que monté el OMEGA no funcionaba en absoluto, no mostraba ninguna señal de video y todo se debía a un componente diferente, no encontraba inductancias axiales y decidí que valían igual otras que tenía a mi alcance, pero era tan complicado de soldar a la placa que no llegaban a tocar el topo.
El problema de esto es que sigues soldando, lo das por bueno y no vuelves a pensar. Luego no siempre tienes en mente ese cambio cuando se produce el error.
b) Revisad lo obvio.
Sé que es muy pesado, pero es mejor ser sistemático en revisar que ningún integrado esta invertido, que todos corresponden con su tipo según la serigrafía, que todos los componentes con polaridad están orientados correctamente, y sus valores corresponden tambien con la serigrafía, etc.
c) extraer y volved a insertar cada chip, no vale solo un poco, del todo. De paso repasaréis que no hay ninguna patilla doblada haciendo mal contacto e inspeccionaréis que no hay ningún agujero de zócalo en mal estado.
d) Medid que funciona lo básico:
Tomad medidas de los siguientes componentes tocando en el topo de la placa (siempre que sea posible) y no en la soldadura ni las patillas.
Todas las inductancias deben medir 0 ohm, midiendo resistencia con el polímetro.
Todas las resistencias soldadas en la placa, deben de dar alguna resistencia, y siempre igual o inferior a su valor nominal.
Ningún condensador puede dar 0 ohm como resistencia a no ser que esté cruzado.
Ningún circuito integrado puede dar 0 ohm entre Vcc y GND (poniendo el positivo en Vcc). Algún valor bajo como 10 ohm sería también inaceptable.
La placa del OMEGA sin circuitos integrados no debiera tener una resistencia menor de 300 ohmios entre Vcc y GND (tampoco entre GND y Vcc aunque OJO! que la polaridad importa).
La placa con todos los chips insertados no debiera tener una resistencia inferior a 100 ohmios, si así fuera, id eliminando chips y volviendo a medir hasta que se produzca un salto cuantitativo para identificar un chip cortocircuitado.
e) comprobad la temperatura en marcha y si tenéis gas freón pulverizad la placa antes de conectarla a ver si veis cual es el primer componente en calentarse. Puede ser una pista importante.
f) Repasad con lupa todas las soldaduras, cualquier soldadura que se mueva no puede estar bien, cualquier soldadura que no brille o tenga forma irregular la marcáis con un rotulador para ser repasada y con mucho flux y la temperatura adecuada al topo, volvéis a repasar estas soldaduras hasta que el soldador se pueda retirar poco a poco pero el estaño se comporte como una gota, no como plastilina. Por supuesto las soldaduras deberán estar perfectamente limpias. Para ello utilizad alcohol isopropílico. Cualquier marca de óxido debe por supuesto también localizada y eliminada.
g) soplad y/o cepillad toda la placa eliminando polvo y residuos de cualquier lugar, una bola de estaño podría haber saltado y entrado en cualquier lugar. Especialmente inspeccionad y limpiad las ranuras de cartuchos. Si tenéis algún compuesto limpiador de terminales sería lo ideal para aplicar en los slot de cartucho, en los terminales de video o cassette si ahí esta el problema, etc.
h) Todos los puntos Vcc y GND suministran corriente correctamente. Extrayendo todos los chips primero y con los chips insertados después, mediremos integrado por integrado entre sus puntos Vcc y GND con la corriente aplicada, que en todos los casos hay un voltaje superior a 4,5v. Según la marca del chip 691 insertado su comportamiento puede variar en función de si tiene o no instalada la pila correctamente (entiendo que también si estuviera gastada).
NO TENGO SEÑAL DE VIDEO!!!
Aquí es importante diferenciar una pantalla negra total de una pantalla que indica “no signal”.
a) Si la pantalla indica que no tiene señal es probable que el problema esté en el VDP, el controlador CXA1645, o simplemente en el cable/conexión/conector hacia la pantalla.
b) Si la pantalla por contra está totalmente negra, dependerá de más o menos chips en función de que programa BIOS estemos utilizando. Si estamos utilizando C-BIOS y aun así la pantalla se muestra negra, es fácil que se deba a un falso contacto en el propio chip de la BIOS, en el Z80 o tal vez los GAL. Repasad el conjunto de chips que muestra la smoking test 2.
Si con la BIOS de Microsoft no funciona pueden ser además la RAM y el circuito RTC. Repasad el conjunto mínimo de integrados mostrados en la smoking test 5.
c) Si la pantalla se muestra en gris (ojo que esto es mas difícil aun de evaluar) significa probablemente que tenemos una situación de pantalla azul y una mala configuración/conexión NTSC/PAL.
d) si muestra los colores mal …
QUE MÁS PUEDO MIRAR?
Repasa la configuración de los jumpers.
Observa la actividad del sistema
Localiza el conjunto mínimo de chips que permitirían arrancar el sistema:
Es hora de programar o pedir un chip con la BIOS HALT+CBIOS si no la tienes, esa prueba es vital para determinar si uno de los chips principales no esta funcionando tal como explica el smoking test 1.
Si apretando, empujando, doblando la placa en marcha cambia algún resultado es casi seguro una soldadura fría o un zócalo con falso contacto.
Usando un polímetro con la función de medida de frecuencia o con un osciloscopio revisa las señales clave de la CPU y del VDP:
La señal CLK en U3 (VDP), pin 8. Debe ser una onda cuadrada a 3.579545 Mhz
La señal CLK en U1 (CPU), Pin 6. Debe ser una onda cuadrada a 3.579545 Mhz
La señal A0 en U1 (CPU), Pin 30. Esta es un buen indicador de la actividad de la CPU. Debería ser un pulso de pocos cientos de Khz
Las señales /RD y /WR en U1 (CPU), Pines 21 y 22 respectivamente. Estas señales son también un buen indicador de la actividad de la CPU. Debería ser un pulso de pocos cientos de Khz
La señal /MEM_RD en U26, Pin 1. Esta señal desciende cada vez que la CPU busca datos de la memoria. Debería ser un pulso de pocos cientos de Khz
Las señales /ROM_CS y /RAM0_CS en U6 (Flash ROM) pin 22 y U7 (SRAM) pin 22, respectivamente. Estas señales descienden cada vez que la CPU accede a la Flash ROM o a la SRAM.
La señal CSYNC en U3 (VDP), Pin 6. Debería ser una señal a 15.734 kHz para NTSC y 15.625 kHz para PAL.
La señal SYNCIN en U47, Pin 10. Debería ser una señal a 15.734 kHz para NTSC y 15.625 kHz para PAL.
La señal SCIN en U47, Pin 6. Debería ser una señal a 3.579545 MHz para NTSC y 4.433618 MHz para PAL.
Las señales ROJO, VERDE y AZUL en U3 (VDP), Pines 23, 22 y 24 respectivamente.
La siguiente es una traducción de un artículo que apareció en el número final de MSX-FAN, una publicación mensual centrada en MSX que se desarrolló desde 1987 hasta 1995, y que duró casi toda la vida útil de la familia de plataformas MSX. Para el número final, la publicación reunió al creador de MSX Kazuhiko Nishi y a representantes de tres de los mayores editores de juegos de MSX (Micro Cabin, Konami y T&E Soft) para reflexionar sobre sus recuerdos de la plataforma. También hay una segunda parte de este artículo en el mismo número donde la revista publicó una serie de tarjetas de encuesta que los desarrolladores respondieron para la revista, que también podría traducir en un momento posterior.
Desde nuestro primer número en marzo de 1987, MSX-FAN ha acumulado un total de 87 números, incluido este, durante casi nueve años. Gracias por apoyarnos durante tanto tiempo. Nuestra publicación podría haber terminado, pero el MSX permanecerá con nosotros para siempre. En conmemoración, decidimos entrevistar a varias figuras clave de la industria MSX para recordar una vez más la plataforma.
La plataforma informática MSX partió de la idea de una sola persona, el presidente de ASCII Corporation, el Sr. Kazuhiko Nishi. “Quería una computadora que cualquiera pudiera usar. Una plataforma que cualquier fabricante también podría utilizar en el mismo asunto «. Y como uno no podía imaginar ahora, incluso con todos los orgullosos gigantes de la industria de la electrónica de consumo japonesa involucrados: Matsushita (Panasonic), Sony, Sanyo, Victor, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Yamaha, Casio, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hitachi, General, Canon: no importa quién lo haya hecho, un MSX era un MSX, lo que le daba a la plataforma una cara universal. Quizás la personalidad del Sr. Nishi es lo que permitió que eso sucediera. Por lo tanto, decidimos entrevistar al Sr. Nishi por primera vez en mucho tiempo.
“El MSX es asombroso por la cultura que creó. Y también está hecho en Japón. Creo que sus usuarios crearán el Japón del mañana. Será bueno si terminan creando un mundo único «. La plataforma MSX se lanzó hace 12 años en 1983 y MSX-FAN siguió su ejemplo cuatro años después en 1987, con una duración de 9 años en publicación. Si un lector estaba en la escuela primaria cuando comenzó la revista, entonces ya estaría en la universidad. “Ya tengo 40 años. Los responsables de los fabricantes en ese momento han cambiado mucho y también hay personas que se unieron a ASCII por su vínculo con el MSX ”.
Lo primero que le preguntamos fue la historia interna del MSX que más quería que la gente supiera. “El MSX original nació del llamado procesador de pantalla de video 9918 de Texas Instruments. A partir de ahí, he construido el lenguaje BÁSICO del procesador Z80 que lo mueve. Esto era muy diferente de lo que estaban haciendo otras empresas de informática. La evolución en ese momento fue expandirse en BASIC. Eso es exactamente lo que hizo NEC con su serie PC-8001, la serie PC-8801, la serie PC-6001, etc. Pero no estaba pensando en ampliar las funciones de BASIC. Estaba pensando en agregar gráficos, sonidos y funciones de controlador a una computadora. En otras palabras, quería más interactividad desde mi computadora «.
“Después del MSX1 quería hacer algo aún mejor, así que en ASCII creamos el procesador de pantalla de video 9938 con Yamaha. Así nació el MSX2 «.
“Después de eso, estaba pensando que debería haber un sistema operativo. Dado que el MSX utiliza un procesador de 8 bits, tenía que ser compatible con CP / M-80. En cuanto al formato del disco, pensé que tenía que ser compatible con MS-DOS. Por lo tanto, tuvimos un ingeniero brillante llamado Suzuki dentro de nuestra empresa para crear el sistema operativo MSX-DOS. Después de que vendimos un millón de unidades, encargamos la construcción de una escultura de dinosaurio para una especie de exhibición en la salida sur de la estación de Shinjuku. La razón por la que pusimos un dinosaurio en el lugar fue porque quería algo que atrajera a los niños a las computadoras y pensé que sería divertido recrear la imagen de un dinosaurio con gráficos tridimensionales «.
«Después, hemos reelaborado el procesador de vídeo 9938 en el 9958, que el MSX2 + terminó usando».
“Al pensar en lo siguiente, lo primero que pensé fue cómo expandiríamos las capacidades de video, CPU y DOS de la plataforma. El GDP (procesador de pantalla gráfica) vino una vez más de Texas Instruments, pero como ya hemos creado nuestro propio VDP, pensamos que también podríamos crear una CPU más rápida. Así que decidimos hacer un procesador RISC rápido. Los resultados fueron bastante sorprendentes y pensé que habíamos creado algo realmente bueno. Le devolvimos la licencia a Zilog, que fabricó el procesador Z80, que es la forma en que gestionamos la compatibilidad total con versiones anteriores ”
“La R del MSX turbo R significa RISC. Lo que aprendí a través del desarrollo del MSX es que las computadoras están convergiendo rápidamente en el desarrollo a través de la misma arquitectura, lo que hace que la producción de software sea mucho más rápida que antes. Si puede mantenerse al día con la velocidad, puede hacer que su software complejo se mueva mucho más suavemente. Es por eso que hemos introducido una GUI (interfaz gráfica de usuario) esta vez. Ese fue el MSX-VIEW «.
Sin embargo, el turbo R finalmente se convirtió en la última generación del MSX producido.
“Quería continuar con el desarrollo del MSX después del último con un CD-ROM adjunto. Realmente quería que empleara capacidades de imágenes en movimiento (video y audio digital) en el hardware. He reunido a mucha gente de Matsushita, Sony, NTT y Victor Japan que estaban familiarizados con el MSX para formar un grupo de investigación. Ese grupo terminó convirtiéndose en el Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG), pero durante su investigación terminamos descubriendo que hacer que la reproducción de películas funcionara en el MSX iba a ser extremadamente difícil ”.
“Después de pensarlo detenidamente, consideré arreglar la arquitectura del MSX turbo R convirtiéndolo en un conjunto de chips. Pero la investigación para esto terminó paralizada debido a la descontinuación del MSX. Pensándolo bien, el modo de dirección de 8 bits para el procesador R800 probablemente era demasiado débil. Probablemente esa sea la razón por la que no había tanto software (hecho para el turbo R) «.
“Pensé en lo que hizo Apple Inc. como ejemplo. Primero hicieron la serie de computadoras Apple, luego la serie Mac y luego desarrollaron su sistema operativo. Con eso en mente, la mayor ventaja del MSX, el hecho de que el software y el hardware están unificados, tal vez podría haber resultado ser su mayor desventaja. La máquina era fácil de entender, pero al no tener el software como un componente separado, terminó arrastrando las especificaciones del hardware por completo. Esta vez quiero hacer algo que no dependa de una CPU específica, sino que dependa del software y establezca las especificaciones de hardware a nivel de software «.
Continuó hablando durante tres horas después de este punto y en el camino comenzó a tener ideas para una nueva especificación MSX en un momento. Habló de querer formar una nueva empresa llamada MSX Corporation que continuaría produciendo y vendiendo computadoras MSX. El mérito del MSX, su encanto como una máquina que todavía se ama después de todo este tiempo, nacido de un ideaman tan individualista como el Sr. Nishi, se sintió con fuerza después de que terminó la entrevista.
Micro cabin: no pueden hablar de eso
«El conocimiento que cultivamos con el MSX se convirtió en la tecnología básica de nuestro equipo de desarrollo». Nakatsu, que era el desarrollador principal de Micro Cabin, mira hacia atrás.
Nakatsu : “La MSX fue la primera vez que nos ocupamos de un VDP, un proceso dedicado específicamente al vídeo. Antes de eso, tratamos con plataformas como la PC-8801 que usaba la CPU para todo y para cualquier cosa. Si hay un VPD al que se le puede indicar que muestre esto o aquello, entonces la CPU se puede usar para diferentes cosas. Esto no ha cambiado con las máquinas de próxima generación que estamos usando ahora. Ahora, si agregaron una función de interrupción al VPD, algo para finalizar la operación «.
Nagai : «Ese es el MSX3, ¿no? Hay usuarios extranjeros que han construido máquinas equipadas con nuevos chips de video. Coinciden con las especificaciones del MSX3 ”
Suenaga : “Ahora estamos enfocados en plataformas de próxima generación, pero todavía usamos herramientas de desarrollo MSX como DD Club y demás. Las máquinas de próxima generación son capaces de mostrar muchos colores, pero como la memoria es todavía bastante limitada, a menudo escribimos en partes de 16 colores. Especialmente para los personajes. Son herramientas a las que estamos bastante acostumbrados «.
Nitta : “Para la composición musical, utilizo una herramienta llamada Yumirin, que existe desde la era MSX. Aunque fue desarrollado por otra empresa de software, lo adoptamos como nuestro «.
Nagai : «Los datos musicales de Nitta son una gran carga para la CPU. Con una tormenta de interrupciones envolventes, se reproduce a casi la mitad de la velocidad «.
Misoda : «En cualquier caso. Los miembros de nuestro equipo de desarrollo tenían bastante experiencia con el MSX. Sirvió como una especie de mentor para Micro Cabin «.
Konami: The Gemcrafters
El Sr. Hideo Kojima de Konami, autor de Snatcher, uno de los mejores juegos de aventuras en MSX, comparte sus apasionados recuerdos de la plataforma.
Kojima: “Cuando me uní a Konami, no había MSX2. Todavía estábamos desarrollando para el MSX original. Tenía bastantes limitaciones, incluida la cantidad de colores que podíamos usar. Sentía bastante envidia de lo que era capaz de hacer la división arcade, pero cuando me mostraron Knightmare corriendo en el MSX original, supe de qué tipo de juegos era realmente capaz la máquina cuando los desarrolladores se esforzaron un poco. Cuando comencé a trabajar en mi primer proyecto, que resultó ser Metal Gear, pensé en hacer un juego de disparos de desplazamiento vertical, pero la cantidad de enemigos en la pantalla estaba limitada a 3 y las balas a 6. En eso Situación Pensé que en lugar de tener demasiados enemigos en la pantalla, tomaría el enfoque opuesto y haría un juego lleno de suspenso y emocionante en el que evitaras ser visto por los pocos enemigos en la pantalla. Por supuesto, esto no se transmitió bien en el plan de juego, pero el prototipo se hizo y la gente entendió lo que quería hacer, me dieron la «oportunidad». De hecho, mi plan anterior fue rechazado por la empresa. Para este plan, estaba tratando de regresar del borde de la muerte «. Esta es la primera vez que escuchamos sobre un plan de juego rechazado por parte del Sr. Kojima.
Kojima: “Empecé a trabajar en Snatcher unos seis meses después. En ese entonces nos dijeron que estábamos tardando demasiado en desarrollarlo. Sin embargo, los usuarios de MSX tienen un fuerte sentido del deber y acabé recibiendo varias cartas diciéndome que se unieron a la industria de los videojuegos por ese título. Como todo el mundo siempre nos mira, no podemos arriesgarnos a aflojar, por lo que estamos creando juegos para la próxima generación de hardware. Policenauts en 3DO utiliza videos completamente animados, pero ese tipo de tecnología me preocupa si el pixel art convencional de las computadoras disminuirá «. “Tengo dos ordenadores MSX en mi casa. Es una máquina que he pasado mis primeros cinco años en la industria de los juegos desarrollando para ella, por lo que mis sentimientos por ella son bastante fuertes. Cuando me dijeron que Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake sería el último juego para MSX que haríamos, me sorprendió, así que terminé ese juego con la pantalla de inicio de MSX. Se pretendía que fuera un mensaje mío. Quería expresar mis pensamientos sobre lo que el MSX me hizo. Creo que el MSX era una máquina sin límites. Los vendedores nunca utilizaron una expresión así, pero las posibilidades eran infinitas si se sabía cómo. Quizás también era una computadora personal totalmente legítima para los usuarios. Quiero que todos los usuarios aprecien verdaderamente el MSX hasta el final. Quiero que permanezcan de su lado y recuerden la diversión de los juegos reales y no solo se dejen llevar por las pretensiones de las máquinas de la próxima generación «.
T&E Soft: Siempre pionera
De los creadores de Hylide, el padre del género RPG de acción, llegó el primer juego para MSX2 jamás creado Laydock, un juego sorprendente que mostraba el poder del hardware. T&E Soft es una empresa curiosa que siempre está desafiando el hardware más nuevo. Durante el evento hubo una rápida charla entre el Sr. Naito de desarrollo y el Sr. Yoshikawa de relaciones públicas, ya que comparten muchas historias divertidas y poderosas. Por cierto, ¿hay algo que puedan decirnos ahora? “Ahora que menciono eso, hay un sistema LAN para propósitos educativos que usa computadoras MSX. Era algo que usaba un RS-232C para intercambiar datos entre profesores y estudiantes. Esta fue una solicitud de la Compañía T, pero terminó siendo entregada a Rusia. Parece que fue hecho por varios fabricantes de hardware a pedido. Pero esta historia terminó cuando ocurrió el escándalo de CoCom «. Parece que algunas personas de Matsushita también fueron a Rusia. “Hablando de Matsushita 、 cuando entregábamos copias de Laydock a Tokio, no teníamos tiempo suficiente para empaquetarlas en sus cajas y no podíamos simplemente fabricarlas mientras estábamos en el camión, así que tuve que ir. Fue bastante sorprendente. También terminé pasando mucho tiempo depurando « Realmente hay muchos recuerdos del MSX. «Ya escribí esto en la encuesta, pero durante la era MSX1 recibía una BIOS-ROM diaria de ASCII». Debe haber sido emocionante recibir algo de ASCII todos los días.
The following is a translation of a short interview with Hideo Kojima that was published in the Konami Support column of the November 19, 1998 issue of PlayStation Magazine by Tokumashoten Intermedia.
Special thanks to Twitter user HeitaiS for providing the scans, which can be found here.
The Strangeness of Naming
How did you came up with Ocelot’s name?
Well, originally he was going to be named Lynx, which is a wildcat [山猫/yamaneko in Japanese, literally a mountain cat]. However, to a Japanese person that name doesn’t quite convey that image. I thought making him a wildcat would be cool, wouldn’t it? So I really wanted him to be a wildcat.
So there’s a story written by author Yoichi Funato about a certain wildcat and it’s an ocelot, so that’s when I thought “alright, this is the one.” [Kojima is likely referring to the novel Yamaneko no Natsu/山猫の夏, otherwise known as The Summer of the Ocelot.]
Are ocelot wildcats?
That’s right! I decided on Revolver Ocelot since it sounded cool and was the easiest to understand in terms of image. Like an ““old man wildcat” who happens to be sly. It’s the same thing with Raven. There are various birds in the Corvus family, so calling him “Crow” would’ve been too obvious. When a foreigner hears the name Decoy Octopus, it sounds as suspicious as a phony ninja. His name comes from the fact that octopuses are masters of disguises and are good at camouflage. That and “Decoy Chameleon” couldn’t be used. (laughs)
Raven’s Interests
Don’t you think Vulcan Raven seems a bit rough to be an elite university graduate from Alaska?
Well he’s a shaman. He’s a sort of magician, or at least was raised to be that way, and possesses such powers. He went to university since he wanted to support the studies of such powers scientifically.
In contrast to Raven, who is a shaman who harmonizes with the power of nature and prospers mutually with it, Solid Snake is not a man created by nature, which is something that is very interesting to Raven himself. Despite his mythical powers, he cannot read Snake, which frustrates him and fills him with the desire to fight against him. Well, at the end he is pleased to mention that before dying.
Is there any reason why the six members [of FOX HOUND] have animal names?
No particular reason at all. Americans tend to like that sort of thing. But usually they tend to pick poisonous animals, like a cobra.
Who are the Snakes?
Does Snake represent a snake that ate the forbidden knowledge, which would be cloning technology?
So it came to this. (laughs) There is such a meaning. Solid Snake’s name does have a significance. A snake is a fluid creature, while “solid” means something that is uncorrupted or a hard object. In other words, a solid snake is a contradiction in adjective. It something that originally didn’t exists like a stiff flexible object or a frozen jelly
So does that Liquid is a pure thing?
You’ll know that when you get to the end, but Liquid is a genuine kind. Apart from that, the fact that Solid and Liquid are siblings is not a mystery. It’s pretty obvious from the beginning. I didn’t make it into a complete mystery, since that would be pretty old-fashioned (laughs). Instead, I want you to play the game while thinking what it means to be recessive or dominant.
Keiji Terui (照井 啓司) was a screenwriter for the TV anime industry who was active during the 1980′s and 1990′s, having worked on over 250 shows, including Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball. During this period he also had a brief stint as a video game writer, initially being approached by Nintendo to write the story for the original Legend of Zelda. Nintendo would hire his talents again to write two adventure games for the Famicom Disk System, the first one being Yūyūki in 1989, a loose retelling of Journey to the West, and the second being Time Twist in 1991, a time travel story in which a young boy has switched bodies with the devil and must travel back in time to recover it, causing shenanigans along the way.
On November 30, 1998, the Japanese fansite Iza Shutsujin uploaded an interview with Keiji Terui that the webmaster conducted via email, where he provided a few commentary on his work with Nintendo, with extensive focus on Time Twist, the last game he did for the company. I took the liberty of translating the commentary, which is pretty short.
Introduction
I’m embarrassed to say this, but I was also in charge of the planning and scenario for Yūyūki and Time Twist. I also handled the stage direction for Time Twist. It’s been around ten years since then. I was working as a script writer for TV anime when I was approached by Nintendo (the world-famous Shigeru Miyamoto himself). Both games took over a year to be developed. I wasn’t a Famicom gamer myself and I didn’t know how to write scripts for a video game, so my scenarios might have a strange taste to them.
Yūyūki had a flashy TV commercial and sold quite well, but Time Twist on the other hand, because of the timing of its release, it was released without fanfare and quickly disappeared.
It is said that “the more inefficient the child is, the cuter it is”, but I’m impressed that Time Twist is still talked about in this age where such amazing large-scale games are being released one after the other.
I have a lot to share about both games. I don’t care if it’s not interesting to others…
Concept
Since Yūyūki was a hit, I was initially told to make a third game in the Famicom Folk Tales series [a series of adventure games released exclusively in Japan that includes Shin Onigashima and the aforementioned Yūyūki]. Initially we were going to continue the theme of adapting folktales from the world and chose Arabian Nights as a candidate. I spent several months planning towards that direction. However, Mr. Miyamoto from Nintendo asked for a more unique and inspiring work, so the producer, Mr. Hishida, and myself continued planning the game for several more months.
In the end, we settled on a time travel story and added plenty of world history and puzzle elements, keeping in mind with the idea of “making the player use their heads”. Also, because I used to like puzzles and logic quizzes myself…
Tatsuya Hishida
The producer, Mr. Hishida, was like a younger version of Ittai-san [a supporting character in Shin Onigashima and Yūyūki]. He was gentle, humorous and liked to play mahjong… But that was common among Nintendo employees. After all, following the after-party celebrating the completion of the game, a dozen of us went to the mahjong parlor. Anyway, while I was in charge of the draft for Yūyūki and wrote the script for the second volume, the script for the first volume was actually written by Mr. Hishida.
Character Designs
The character designer for each chapter of Time Twist were different. That’s because we hired three more people on our staff while in the middle of development in order to increase efficiency.
The Lost Chapter
Time Twist has a lost chapter. It would’ve been set during Prohibition-era Chicago. The protagonist in this part would’ve been Elliot Ness, while Al Capone would naturally be on the Devil’s side. The hero would chase Capone, but he would end up being surrounded by enemies everywhere as every citizen of Chicago ends up siding with Capone. It was a chapter I was quite pleased at, but ultimately had to be cut due to lack of disk storage, much to my regret.
The following is a translation of five blog posts made by Metal Gear Acid character designer Tsubasa Masao for the now-defunct “Postscript of MGA” blog, where he provides commentary on the designs he provided for the game. Most of the images were thankfully preserved by the waybacked version, except for the ones on the fourth blog post, which were taken from the still active gallery page from the official Metal Gear Acid 2 website. I’ve moved Tsubasa’s commentary of Snake’s main weapon of choice in MGA into the first section regarding for better flow and also added a model sheet of Snake from MGA2′s official gallery, since the sub-section looked odd without any images..
Solid Snake
The first thing we talked about Snake was wanting to change the impression that people had of him up until now, which resulted in the long-haired Snake we see in this game. Thinking about it now, perhaps it was better if we had kept usual hairstyle. As for his costume, we decided at the earliest stage to keep his usual sneaking suit from previous games, so it is what it is.
We had a request from Mr. Shinkawa to make the XM8 into Snake’s main weapon in the game. It’s a gun with quite a unique appearance, as you would know if you had seen the original. On the illustration we added a lot of over-the-top extra parts to the gun, but in retrospect I think it would had been better if we had left it as it is.
Teliko Friedman
Teliko was the first character we designed for Metal Gear Acid. Since even the scenario was still in its tentative stages, I couldn’t quite grasp an image for her yet.
For the face I was told to make her look like a “female Rambo or something like an Uma Thurman type.” I wasn’t too crazy about doing a female Rambo and wondered about what I should do, which is how I ended up with the design we’re seeing here. I was conscious of Uma Thurman’s role in Pulp Fiction at the time. She had a sort-of coquettish feeling, don’t you think?
Since I don’t like loose-fitting military clothing, I decided to make her silhouette tightly around her body. Afterward, I thought about the character’s stance and came up with the sneaking suit style.
A new-type of sneaking suit.
Built-in muscle strengtheners in one part that increases speed and strength.
A new-type of bullerproof inner wear made by the U.S. Army. Protective clothing consisting of aramid fiber soaked with polyethylene glycol.
And so on.
Model sheets for Teliko Friedman. There are gimmicks not shown in the game such as stun knuckles and muscle strengtheners.
I wanted her gun holster to flutter on her character model’s hip while she moved, but we abandoned that due to the small screen size of the PSP unit.
As for the coloring, since she was being paired with Solid Snake, we decided to dress her in a brighter color to contrast with Snake’s black sneaking suit.
Teliko was designed to be a very typical heroine, so we thought it would be best if she didn’t have too many idiosyncrasies.
What do you think?
Roger McCoy
He’s the character who supports Snake and Telico in this game. We wanted him to have a very different outward appearance from Colonel Campbell.
We experimented with various patterns such as an elderly version of Roger or a black version of Roger, before we settled on the finalized design.
We didn’t have any particular aim with his concept, but we thought it would be better if he was more intense than previous versions of the Colonel character.
Afterward, I wanted his silhouette to have a peculiar characteristic, so I decided to give him a crippled leg and a cane to walk with. (I don’t know if this is reflected in the game though).
Rough sketch for Roger McCoy. Instead of a suit, he originally wore a military uniform.
Alice Hazel
I was ordered to make a pretty girl with ESP abilities. I was told that she has a personality that clashes with Snake’s, so I drew her in a sassy matter, but then I changed her to be more unemotional, or rather coldhearted.
For her attire I thought just having her wear a school uniform would be too plain, so I gave her a bomber jacket atop her blazer, which she received from Roger. The gun she wields on the second half of the story is hidden inside her jacket.
Since the characters in Acid are involved in a story where they’re either, manipulating someone or being manipulated by someone, I have her holding a doll as a hint that’s she pulling the strings from behind. Originally it was going to be a ventriloquist doll, but that would had been too obvious.
Alice’s initial design. “I thought she should be wearing glasses like Tommy February. I liked how it came out, but I had to redo her design after they decided to go into another direction.”
Alice’s finalized design. You can see the direction of the character took a 180 degrees turn. The characteristic doll remained until the end.
Lt. Leone
It was settled that he would be a “retro soldier”, “have the physique of a bear” and “wields an anti-tank rifle.” Based on those ideas, we decided that his gear should be vintage. But was this really the image of an old-fashioned soldier?
After that we wanted to make his silhouette stand out, so we had him wear a cloak on one side. This cloak takes the form of a Ghillie suit so that it could stand out when he moves rapidly during hand-to-hand combat.
His image was set in stone in the very early stages, so there weren’t any particularly big changes made afterward. By the way, in the international versions they added a voice clip of him chanting “pansies! pansies!, which made him stand out even more.
The left image is an early rough sketch. The right image is a proportion specification designed for reference. “In regards to his body shape, I didn’t want him to just be bigger, I wanted him to stand out as a giant even without the contrast.”
Colored model sheet for Leone. His systematic characteristics and clothing are established to the minuet detail.
From Leone’s model sheet. He was drawn with a fighting image and it seems he was initially expected to have close quarter attacks.
From Leon’s model sheet. The initial character image is almost completed at this stage. His kick attack was rejected due to limitations with the character model and such.
Elsie & Frances
Originally they were supposed to be characters who lived in VR space. But when the scenario changed during the middle of development, they were no longer virtual characters, but ventriloquist dummies who exists in the real world. Out of all the characters, I think they’re the ones who had their image changed the most from the early stages.
Their manipulating strings are established to be wires that could be attached to the walls or ceilings (like a spider’s cobweb), so that the dummies could be controlled from a distance.
We wonder if we made their relevance apparent in the miscellaneous cutscenes.
Finalized design for Elsie and Frances. Shown here is Frances, the elder of the two sisters. Elsie, the younger sister, has a cracked face and a speech impediment.
William L. Fleming (aka Gary Murray)
The boss character of this entry. Since he was established to be an excessive neat freak, he wears a fancy brand name suit under his shabby coat. His shoes are also shiny brand names. His coat is tainted with the oil fluids for Metal Gear KODOQUE.
Since it was said that there was going to be a cutscene where he shoots a gun, he was given a belt under his coat, which is equipped with a gun holster during his Fleming persona.
Originally he was established to be a middle aged man, but since he was going to be a boss character, he ended up looking quite younger than he was intended to be. Because of story reasons, he was a difficult character to make him look unique with his clothing, so we were concerned in making him stand out.
In fact, we had the idea of outfitting him with a powered suit similar to the one worn by Solidus and having him directly confront Snake and Teliko. Mr. Shinkawa gave me various ideas, such as “give him a METAL BLADE!” But because complications with the story, those ideas were abandoned.
Model sheet of William L. Flemming. There are detailed notes such as the differences between his true self and his Gary Murray persona. It seems there were plans to have him directly engage Snake and Teliko.
La Clown
La Clown’s backstory is that of an “assassin who specializes in disguises and hypnotism.” Because of this, the character’s design doesn’t differ much from Telico’s. For the illustrations, La Clown’s proportions were changed in subtle ways.
Line art illustration of La Clown
Enemy Soldiers
The jobbers of Metal Gear Acid. The small fry soldiers. This time they wear desert camouflage, giving them a middle eastern atmosphere. Perhaps they have a dusty unfashionable image.
The model sheets of the enemy soldiers. The first sheet is a soldier from Leone’s unit. The second is a member of the Genetics Army. The designs of the enemy soldiers this time are based on MGS2, since it’s set in a similar period.
Model sheet of the Genetics Soldier. “Because it is an equipment for measuring data, there are stuff like experimental cords and labels attached to it.”
Changes in Concepts
Initially the concepts we got from the scenario were horror and suspense. Specifically there would be ghost characters that would appear in key scenes, the boss characters were going to be cyborgs who served Fleming, and so on…
After days and months have passed (or maybe it wasn’t that long), the horror aspect became more downplayed and the scenario was changed to a more suspenseful one in all aspects. The colors red and black are used a lot by many characters in general, but that was actually a remnant from the early stages when the horror aspect was more emphasized.
Although MGS served as the basis, there were many twists and turns in the art designs. Because of the lack of flexibility in the development schedule, I was concerned about keeping the Metal Gear world in place while somehow giving Acid its own color. After all, the world Metal Gear is quite deep.
Model sheet of Minette Donnell. “Because she’s a malicious girl, she wears deep red.”
Rough character designs from the early stages of development. The first character is Dr. Flemming and the second is Senator Viggo. “Originally Viggo Hach was just an old man who suddenly became rich.”
More initial designs. The first is a member of the FPH. The second is the Genetics Soldier Boss. “The Genetics Boss would’ve been an underling of Flemming who would’ve supervised the other Genetics Soldier. He would’ve covered his whole body with armor-like muscle strengtheners.”
More rough designs of boss characters. They too were also underlings of Dr. Flemming. The first design looks like a bee woman with poisonous attacks, while the second looks like a giant man with sludge attacks.
At first I thought it was just a detective game from the packaging art
Kojima: How was the game?
Oshii: The truth is that I’ve just finished it last night. I thought I would be in trouble if I didn’t finish the game before meeting you.
Kojima: Were there any parts that gave you trouble?
Oshii: I failed the bomb disposing sequence around 15 times. Cutting the wires gave me trouble. I also didn’t know that you could auto-aim either until the final shooting sequence. Since it was impossible to win due to so many enemies, I was wondering if there was a way to make it easier. (laughs) I also had a bit of stress when I was unable to shoot the final bad guy.
Kojima: Yeah, Ed ends up killing him for you. A part of me wanted to make Policenauts into a sort of buddy cop game, since I was part of the generation that was raised on shows like Starsky & Hutch. As a result, I was always aware of American culture whenever I turned on the TV. Therefore, I wanted to make something like that. Is there any particular game that do you like?
Oshii: I used to like adventure games and played them a lot, so I already knew about Snatcher. Policenauts, which I was able to play for this occasion, has a very clear world building. It felt a bit nostalgic, like the PC games that I used to play.
Kojima: What about buddy cop movies?
Oshii: When you speak of buddy cop movies to someone of my age, really old stuff comes up. It ends up becoming the world of something like The French Connection.
Kojima: That’s another movie that I like. However, I believe Lethal Weapon is the movie most appropriate for the younger generation to understand what buddy cop movies are. Because that’s what it really is (laughs).
Oshii: Having an astronaut as a protagonist is unusual. Maybe not so much around the time when space exploration started, which around back when I was in grade school, but nowadays astronauts aren’t really that looked up to anymore.
Kojima: Astronauts were really admired in my generation. Even the astronauts that appeared in movies like Planet of the Apes knew things that weren’t usually known. It created the impression that you had to be smart to become an astronaut.
Oshii: The buddy cop genre seems to be really suitable for an adventure game, but it wouldn’t had occurred to me to have the story set it in a space colony.
Kojima: A cylinder-type colony doesn’t have much of a reality to it, does it? Originally I was thinking of setting the game in a torus-type colony or even in a sphere-like colony, but visually for today’s generation [a cylinder-type] is what they recognize as a space colony from a glance. When you think about that, all you see nowadays are Gundam-type space colonies.
Oshii: The cylinder-type colonies that appear in the Gundam franchise are really nostalgic for people like me. The whole thing has that kind of atmosphere. It’s really calming.
Kojima: It seems to be a common trend in games to have the player character replaced during the middle of the story. I usually can’t emphasize with that. But in the case of Policenauts it was very difficult to tell such a subjective story until the end.
Oshii: That’s certainly true for video games. When it comes to simultaneous proceedings, all you can do is watch when you’re shown something that isn’t from the hero’s perspective.
Kojima: Moreover, the original concept was to have no distinction between the movie parts and the gameplay visuals, but due to scheduling issues [it wasn’t feasible].
Oshii: The pre-rendered movies are treated as a single cluster, with no interactivity.
Kojima: That’s right. The pre-rendered movies are just loaded as clusters. As for the text portion, they’re cut into units of sentences while the program checks for flags. There was actually supposed to be a U.S. version made, but a translation wasn’t feasible. We talked about it on three occasions and each time the idea was ultimately abandoned.
Oshii: If the translated sentence is out of alignment, then it ruins the timing of the video. But if you end up forcibly changing the sentence, then it completely changes the meaning of the story. I think it must’ve been pretty difficult to have scenes where there are text messages, but no voice acting.
Kojima: What do you think about the voice actors?
Oshii: Since there were many actors that I recognized, it was easy to get used to them. Hideyuki Tanaka, who plays Jonathan Ingram, actually appeared in one of my movies, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard his voice.
Kojima: With Policenauts I wanted the actors to act as if they were dubbing an American movie, so I picked out people who had experience with movies. When we did the recordings we started with the NEC PC-9821 version. Since there were no video files for that version, we had them act out while we explained their scenes showing cuts of the visuals. The voice recording took quite a while, with the recording for the PC-9821 version in particular lasting six days.
Oshii: That’s quite a while. Did you do the casting yourself?
Kojima: That’s right. On top of that, I wanted to record the dramatic parts with 4 or 5 actors at the same time but such a thing seems to be rarely done in the game industry. If you record the actors one by one in isolation then there won’t be as much tension.
Kojima: What are you plannign to do after Ghost in the Shell?
Oshii: There are many things I want to do, but I want to take a break from animation for a while, since I’m really tired. I really want to do live-action, since it’s fun. But then the problem would be that I wouldn’t be able to eat when I want to.
The moment we decided on making a Saturn version, I was thinking of utilizing the Virtua Gun
Oshii: I still find the old text adventure games to be interesting. Maybe it’s because they stimulate my imagination. But when it comes to games released in this age, I think players expect them to have pictures, sounds and even moving images. Moreover, many recent RPGs and such are filled with mini-games in addition to pursuing a story.
Kojima: In case of Policenauts, if the player gets involved in a minigame, there’s a possibility that they might end up forgetting the plot. That’s why a recap mode was added.
Oshii: It’s pretty interesting to play with the Virtua Gun, whether it’s a main game or a mini-game.
Kojima: I was already thinking of adding Virtua Gun support the moment we decided on a Saturn version. We didn’t have a light gun peripheral until now. However, there are some difficulties with using the gun. It’s not really suitable in places like the moon surface, where it is difficult to keep your aim in one place. It has its pros and its cons.
Oshii: I actually fired real guns on my spare time, but I find the Virtua Gun difficult to use. I can fire a real gun all day long, but I get tired holding a light gun for two hours.
Kojima: I also underwent actual gun training during development. The shooting booth I went to was quite scary. There were no security guards or cameras, and you had to buy your own guns and ammo before bringing them to the booth. I once read a novel about a female FBI agent who hated gun training because of the smell it left on her and I never understood that until I started my own gun training. I realized what it was like when the smell of gunpowder tainted my clothes.
Oshii: Ah, that’s the smoke of the gunpowder. It turns your hands black. I wonder if there will ever be something as interesting as video games again. It’s the ultimate toy for boys. I don’t think there’s ever been such an interesting toy to such an extent. When it comes to video games, what is stimulating about them is the fact it takes you to a completely different world. Or should I say, it’s a completely naked product.
What does it mean to be interesting? Something we must think about once again.
Oshii: I think we’re talking whether it is important for games to have interactivity. Starting from the fact that these two things are different, I wonder if it’s better to go back to something that is simple and fun. I don’t know much about such matters, since I don’t play that many games.
Kojima: I don’t play games that much at home either. I shouldn’t had said that loudly. (laughs)
Oshii: I don’t think there are that many people who play games and couldn’t live without them. A game is a medium where you not only receive information, but send it as well while feeling the engine on the side. With that said, I believe the amount of people who want to be entertained up to that point are very few.
Kojima: I don’t think people who play games were originally common. Game development is also an interactive world. It’s a workflow, and at the same time it isn’t. If anything in the story, events or music becomes twists, then the whole thing will become uninteresting, so you need to excavate the raw elements and then reshape them. The finished product will differ depending how much you adjust it.
Oshii: Normally I work only with movies, but in the end ,whether it’s a game or a movie, it can only harvest either, its worldview or the drama. When it comes to harvesting the worldview, having a kind of promise would better for the story. But when it comes to harvesting the drama, the worldview must be adjusted to a certain degree before it can hold up. I think Policenauts harvested the worldview. If you harvest both, you will certainly fail.
Kojima: I probably picked the worldview without thinking about it. if anything, you are often told about the story because it is an adventure game. When it comes to making a game, it is completely different from writing a novel. We make the contents first, then we add the mini-games and such afterward, and if there is a good scene i come up with, we fit it into the time frame.
Oshii: In the old days there was many easy ways out such as lack of technology, primitive specs or minimal storage space, but now there’s no such excuses. When I started thinking about what makes video games interesting, I was wondering if there was a way to make things like they were in the old days one more time. I think such problems will emerge once 3D and polygons started to emerge. In other words, I think that will be the true place for people who make games.
Newsflash! The anticipated blockbuster JESUS is arriving on the NEC PC-8801!
Prologue
“It’s the year 2061. The Halley Comet is approaching the solar system. Since the previous year, many unusual natural disasters have been occurring all around the world, one after the other, such as the worldwide cold wave, the great earthquake of the Philippines, the great eruption of Saint Helena, and the collapse of the Japan-Trench.
At that time, a prophet proclaiming himself to be the “second coming of Nostradamus.” As he quickly gained followers, he predicted that the arrival of the Halley Comet will bring forth a demon that will destroy mankind and many unusual phenomenons will occur as a sign.
Among the uneasiness of society, the same science of mankind that launched an unmanned space probe 75 years ago, have finally evolved to launching a manned space probe to the Halley Comet. A crew of eight, each chosen from a different nation, have departed from the space lab JESUS, divided between two manned probes.
However, contact with the first ship, Comet, was lost after it had finally approached Halley. The second ship, Corona, changed its course and headed to provided aid to the Comet…”
It’s finally here! The newest game from Enix! It’s JESUS, a grand-scale sci-fi adventure game. As the Halley Comet approaches Earth, mankind launches two manned space probes.
But suddenly an incident happens! Something occurred to the crew of the first ship, Comet. Hayao Musou, the young Japanese member of the Corona crew, embarks into the Comet, where something awaits him…!
It’s quite unfortunate we can’t say anything more than that. That’s because tragedy engulf our young hero as many of his friends gradually die. “Could this thing kill Eline?” As Hayao is reunited with the lovely Eline, he stands up to his fear. How interesting!
The creators of the game consists of leading figures in their own fields such as writer Kōji Miya, programmer Takanari Suzuki, graphic designer Shintaro Majima, and composer Kōichi Sugiyama. Soon, I will post a profile for each of the creators, followed by an interview with Mr. Majima himself. Meow!
Creator Profiles
Koji Miya/ 雅 孝司 – A freelance writer whose age and academic background are a mystery. He is an author of puzzle books, as well as a critic of word processors. He wrote many puzzle books and lately he wrote an adventure book adaptation of Sakyo Komatsu’s novel Shuto Shōshitsu (aka Tokyo Blackout).
Takanari Suzuki/鈴木孝成 – He was responsible for Arale-chan no Jump-up and Xevious port [on PC-8801] under the alias Geimu Kiyoto/芸夢狂人, a name only known by those who know his work.
Shintaro Majima/ 真島 真太郎 – A mysterious illustrator who lives in Saitama. He was in charge of the graphics for Chikyū Senshi Rayieza. He also did the packaging illustration for Savior and the Famicom version of Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, among other titles.
Kōichi Sugiyama/すぎやま こういち – The famed composer, responsible for the background music of titles such as Dragon Quest and Wingman II.
Interview with master artist Shintaro Majima
Neko: Hello! I am Neko, excited to be interviewing a master artist. Could you please talk a bit about JESUS? First of all, around which time did the project got started?
Majima: Sure, make yourself comfortable! Well, the scenario was completed on November 18, 1985, so the team was assembled from that point.
Neko: Wow, that was sure a long time ago to start development!
Majima: That’s right. At any rate since the scenario was long, so naturally there was a lot of programming involved. There were even some scary talks about making it a five disk game due to all the animation that were being implemented. [The final game only uses three disks.] We’re planning on releasing it as soon as possible, since we want people to play it. It’s truly an epic work.
Neko: I see. Is there anything else?
Majima: I was in charge of the graphics. There were scenes where as many as five characters show up on-screen, so it was really difficult. The main screen was also really small. Moreover, I couldn’t decide on which graphic tool to use for four months, so I had the daunting task of working using the numerical keys. But even after I decided on the graphic tool, I was already too overwhelmed and things didn’t get any easier.
Neko: How many images did you end up drawing?
Majima: 150 and then some! Maybe even more! My head hurts thinking about the number.
Neko: The soundtrack of JESUS was composed by the great Sugiyama himself! It’s even used by ENIX themselves for their answering machines. It’s really good, isn’t it?
Majima: When it comes to what we could call game music, up until now it would be something that would only play when something happens on-screen or during a scene transition, but for JESUS the music is constantly playing on the background like a movie soundtrack. It will be amazing. There is also a small playful thing in the game too. It’s a gag that will get a chuckle if you’re someone who is familiar Enix games.
Tomokazu Fukushima/福島智和 was the co-writer for the original Metal Gear Solid, as well as Metal Gear Solid 2:Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, helping Hideo Kojima write the scenarios for each title. He also wrote the script for Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (as covered in previously translated interviews posted in this blog) and the Snake Tales that were added in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, as well as assisted in the writing for the Metal Gear Acid series. He would leave Konami during the development of Metal Gear Solid 4 (being last credited in the TGS 2005 trailer) before being employed by SIE Japan Studio, where his name can be seen in titles such as rain, Soul Sacrifice, Everybody’s Golf, Freedom Wars and The Tomorrow Children.
There has been a bit of speculation and misinformation over Fukushima’s exact role in the writing of the first three numbered MGS titles. Because of this I took the liberty of translating content from two MGS related books with material written by Tomokazu Fukushima himself that shed some light on how Fukushima was involved in at least the first two MGS games. The first is Fukushima’s profile from World of the Metal Gear Solid, published by Sony Magazines in 1998, which covers his involvement in MGS1, when he joined the team and Kojima’s thoughts on the man himself. The second translation is a two-page interview from the 2002 book Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making, also published by Sony Magazines, naturally covering his involvement with MGS2. Both of these books feature extensive information on the development of each title, which I will someday post on my blog, but for now I wanted to focus solely on Fukushima.
World of the Metal Gear Solid
Tomokazu Fukushima (writer, script unit)
“While the system employed by cinema and literature is closed to spectators, video games as a medium employ an open system that assumes interaction from the user. There seems to be a misunderstanding that the two systems can be fused when faced with the illusion of “the realization of narrative”, but since essential differences exists between them, their possible expressions differ and on top of that, their effective crafts are also different. In Metal Gear Solid, we tried to express things that are not only suitable for a video game, but can only be expressed in a video game. For example, when talking to Master Miller or Nastasha Romanenko, it seems that their vast amount of knowledge of survival techniques and nukes respectively don’t contribute much to the game at a first glance. But in reality each element behaves in an emergent manner as they are calculated and created in a matter that contributes to Metal Gear Solid as a whole work.”
Codename: Fusshi
Joined the Kojima Group on May 1997
Became part of the Metal Gear Solid team on July 1997
Joined at the last minute to write the [Japanese] voiceover script.
Kojima on Fukushima: “After the plot was decided, I had Fukushima helped me out on writing the script for the voiceovers. The harsher terms in the script, such as 父殺し/chichikoroshi (patricide) and 怯懦と蛮勇/kyōda to ban’yū (bravery and cowardice) were his contributions.
Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making
How was the procedure of writing a script with Mr. Kojima?
“I actually took part in Metal Gear Solid 2 after Ghost Babel ended development, which I wrote the script for. By that point Mr. Kojima had already written a rough draft of the scriptment [Note:A term coined by James Cameron as a portmanteau of “script” and “treatment”. In Kojima’s case, a scriptment is an overly detailed game design document that covers all sorts of aspects such as plot outline, game features, level designs, specifications, ect. Every game directed by Kojima since MGS1 has had a scriptment written for it.]. From there on we started transferring files to a PC based on that scriptment. We would correct each other by writing amendments directly into the scriptment using differently colored texts and writing down the reason for the change. We made around 20 or so revisions.”
How was the work divided between you two?
“While there were some parts that were edited by the both of us, but if I’ll be bold to say it, all the real-time cutscenes were written primarily by Mr. Kojima, as well as all the mandatory CODEC calls. I was assigned to writing all the optional CODEC. We ended up creating around 2,500 files.”
Were there any scenes that were particularly troublesome?
“The CODEC call with the Colonel and Rosemary at the end. We only had around two months to finish the script for the Plant chapter. There were many important scenes in the Plant chapter ,especially during the latter half, so we didn’t have enough time to work on the CODEC calls. We even wrote the CODEC calls when the Colonel starts glitching out in a single draft, wondering whether our work was good. Perhaps there were lines of dialogue that didn’t exactly convince Mr. Kojima.” (laughs)
Rosemary’s lines were quite peculiar.
“We imagined her as something of an independent American office lady in her 20’s, so we tried using movies and such for reference… It was pretty difficult… (laughs)”
What were you careful of when incorporating the theme of Metal Gear Solid 2 into the screenplay?
“There isn’t just one theme, but we intended to have the problems that individuals and groups face in today’s information society manifest themselves in various ways. However, a script is just one part of the game during the planning phase. While the dialogue is expressed in a direct matter, we thought about effectively arranging the presence or absence of interactivity in certain parts while calculating its effects.”
Which parts were you particularly fixated on when writing the script?
“It could be the modernity and the excess. For example I believe Metal Gear Solid 2 has both, real excess and imagined excess. Real excess would be things that are quantifiable like long CODEC conversations or long cutscenes involving each characters. Imagined excess would be excess of information of things such as anything involving the Patriots. If you pay attention closely, you will know that Metal Gear Solid 2 has an extreme balance between the acquisition and lost of excessive information. Naturally we were aiming for such results.”
“The character have an excessive expression, as well as a narrative aspect where they all betray each other. We put it there while calculating the effects it has on the player, although an interpretation is needed there. It is something that is difficulty to portray, but we wanted to show the possibility that it could be achieved on a major title.”
Do you have any favorite lines in the parts that you in particular (Fukushima) worked on?
«I like Otacon’s proverbs. They provided a relief during tension… They’re so ridiculous, but fun… (laughs) Since he’s an independent character, I was free to write him like I want.”
Sources
World of the Metal Gear Solid/メタルギア ソリッド シナリオ・ 設定完全資料集 (ISBN 978-4789791854)
Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making/メタルギア ソリッド2 ザ・メイキング (ISBN 978-4789718431)
The Thrill of the Finest 3D Action Revealed To The Next Generation
Last summer, in order to pursue the realism of their game, as well as put a global persuasive power in the degree of perfection of their game, the MGS team went on a research trip to the United States.
An Exciting New Game With An Anti-Nuclear Theme
Information about Metal Gear Solid has been leaking from various places. Every time we are impressed about something they’re doing. Whether it’s the secrecy of the game’s settings that gives the impression of a hard sci-fi world. Or the videos that looked a scene taken from a Hollywood-produced movie. The bold, yet delicate, 3D graphics with its frightening darkness and forceful animation. Even if you don’t think about it too deeply, there’s something about this title that makes it feel different from all the other games released up until now. Expectations are steady and rising.
In the dawn of the 21st century, members of a special forces group have taken over a nuclear weapons storage facility, who are making demands to the world with the threat of a nuclear weapon. A former special forces member codenamed Solid Snake is now tackling this danger. Can he infiltrate the nuclear weapons base invaded by the terrorist army within 24 hours?
The details of the scenery and animation of the characters are amazing. Since the main element is infiltration, our hero must hide in the shadows and must fight when he is discovered or if it’s necessary. It’s an action game with a strategic element full of tension.
Increasing the Accuracy of the World With A Research Trip to the US!?
Witnessing The Latest WeaponsThe world’s largest game show, E3, was held last June. Naturally, MGS was on display at the Konami booth. When the audience saw the trailer video, the reactions were great. Were these truly in-game images? Or did they just create a CGI animation for the promotional video? No, these were truly images from the game. The audience responded with amazement! Could the game become more popular in the U.S. than Japan?
The following is a translation of a Q&A section published in Konami’s official strategy to the Silent Hill Play Novel. At the time the book was published, only the original PlayStation game, along with the visual novel version for the Game Boy Advance that the guides were available at the time, while Silent Hill 2 was still under development.
Akihiro Imamura, who worked on the first game and was acting producer for the second game at the time, answered a series of seven questions for the guide.
Q&A
Were there any novels or movies that influenced you during development?
The project started by trying to create an action-adventure game that captures the flavor of the American modern horror genre. So we read a lot of novels in that genre from authors such as Stephen King, as well as many movies of the same kind. If there was a movie or novel that played a role in broadening our worldview and imagination, it would be Jacob’s Ladder by director Adrian Lyne, which had a particularly large influence on us. Personally it’s one of my favorite movies.
Were there any plans to make a sequel while working on the first Silent Hill for the original PlayStation?
There were no such plans when we were working on the first game. However, by the time we finished development we felt that the [original] PlayStation’s capabilities for expressing imagery was very limiting. However, the PlayStation 2 was announced around that period. So we decided to move platforms to the PS2 and aggressively challenge ourselves at creating visuals that were not possible in the first game while remaining completely faithful to its universe, and that’s how planning for Silent Hill 2 started.
What kind of content will Silent Hill 2 have and how does it compare to the original?
The gameplay is basically the same as the first game, but we improved and revised many things over the original. However this time we added a difficulty level without action elements in order to appeal to players who may had kept their distance from these kind of games. There are also three riddle levels to choose from when it comes to the puzzle solving, so you’re unlikely to get stuck in the middle of the adventure and drop the game. In addition to the control system from the first game, there’s also an alternate control where your character moves towards the direction you push the left stick. We also plan to make action functions simple to perform on Easy mode. Moreover, there will also be a “search view” function that allows you to see things from your character’s perspective. If you move the right stick while in this mode, then you will only move your neck. It’s quite refreshing to see the ceiling from this perspective.
Is there any relation to the first game?
I would like to think of the first and second games as completely different stories. The sequel is set in another block of the same large titular town, so you won’t be revisiting any places that were in the original game. Moreover, the time period and characters between the two games are not linked at all. Rather than thinking of it as a continuation of the first game, please enjoy it as a completely new story.
Will Silent Hill 2 move towards the concept of a “game that is close to a movie”?
To convey the worldview of the game, I think a film-like texture is the most suitable. For that, we try our best to create a visual quality that is free of the usual “CGI-ness” to it. In that sense, you could call it a “game that is close to a movie.”
It seems there’s an Xbox version scheduled for a later release. Are there any plans for new content or changes?
We are planning on adding an additional scenario exclusive to the Xbox version. On top of that, while we’re uncertain at this moment, there might be some adjustments to the visual side once we fully compare the specifications of the PS2 and the Xbox, as well as some adjustments to the gameplay.
Finally, is there anything you want people to observe about Silent Hill 2 without fail when they get to play the game?
We want people to pay close attention to the visual expression when they’re playing. I think you will be even immersed into the game worldthanks to the rendering of mist, darkness and shadows that were possible thanks to the capabilities of the PS2. Another thing I want people to pay more attention to is the script. I think became more polished too in this regard. Perhaps something will pierce through your heart once you’re done playing.
The following is a series of interviews that were published in the booklets for the Drama CD Metal Gear Solid series. The booklet for Vol. 1 contains an interview with Hideo Kojima himself, while Vol. 2 contains interview with Motosada Mori (the series’s military advisor, who served as the audio drama’s screenwriter as well) and illustrator Yoji Shinkawa. The scripts for the Metal Gear Solid radio drama has been translated for quite a long time now, but the interviews have not until now.
The Metal Gear Solid radio drama is a non-canonical continuation of the game in which Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh, Roy Campbell and Mei-Ling continue working for the U.S. military following the events of the Shadow Moses island takeover as they become involved in new missions set in various conflict zones. You can read a translated transcripts on the following links: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
Hideo Kojima
It seems that the story for the Drama CD is set after the events of the game itself.
Don’t think about it too deeply. (laughs) That was my biggest concern when it came to discuss the radio drama. There are quite a few inconsistencies if you think about it seriously. More importantly, I don’t think they [the main characters] would be willing to return to the battlefield after the ending of the game. You’re better off thinking of this audio drama as an alternate story using the same characters.
Mr. Motosada Mori, who worked on the game as a military advisor, seems to had been in charge of writing the script this time…
Originally I was told to write it myself but I wasn’t able to due to various circumstances. So when it came on deciding a writer, it had to be someone who was not only be knowledgeable of the Metal Gear universe, but also be familiar with military and world affairs, as well as firearms… I was wondering if there was such a worthy candidate. Not only does Mr. Mori has the expertise and experience, but he is also a published author. On top of that, he provided entertainment advice on the game itself, so I was confident to assign the job to him. At first I wanted Mr. Mori to employ his own unique gimmick and we thought a lot of what he could add to the script. But then the amount of technical terms he added to the script became too much for the average listener to understand, so we ended up reducing them. (laughs)
By the way, the character of Allen Iishiba was based on someone we knew… When we went to the United States for research, we were able to observe a tank in person thanks to a friend of Mr. Mori in the U.S. Army, so he became the inspiration for that character. [Translator’s note: The person in particular is Tomoaki Iishiba, who is credited as one of the military advisors alongside a Michael Allen.]
Were there any difficulties when it came to the difference in expression between a videogame and an audio-only CD?
Perhaps this is the fate of videogames as a medium, but there is a chance that if you only hear a line of dialogue once, you might not understand it the first time, so we have to repeat things like a parrot during conversations. [Translator’s note: This is why most conversations in the MGS series end with Snake repeating what the other person said in the form of a question] As a result, we end up writing dialogue that would seem out of place in a normal conversation. We had no choice but to write like that in order to make the game easier to understand, but because this is purely an audio drama this time, it covers more acoustics than the game itself. Therefore, the difference between the mediums was not a problem at all.
Finally, can you give us any last words?
I think that the Drama CD will depict a lot of things that could not be done in a videogame. Give Mr. Mori my regards. (laughs)
Motosada Mori
You worked as a military advisor in the original Metal Gear Solid game, but this time you’re writing the screenplay…
I actually played Policenauts when it was first released, so my feelings are rather complicated. I became a fan of Kojima because of Policenauts. While observing the game’s development process, I thought many times about how it would be like to be one of the players anticipating its release. Putting it in another way, I might be wondering if it was going to be a good game and I would wish to play it without knowing anything about it… (laughs) If there is ever a next game, I want to be just a player.
This time you’re working on an audio drama. Did that present any difficulties?
How to depict the world of Metal Gear without the use of visuals? That was the biggest challenge. Moreover, whether you’re listening to just one episode or the one that comes after, you have to write them like a single storyline. On top of that, I intended to write a drama that would appeal to both, people who played the original game and those that didn’t. Nonetheless, it was difficult. Writing the screenplay was an everyday hell. Basically, the story takes place after the events of the game, but like Mr. Kojima said, writing a story that follows the ending of that game was the best opportunity to show off my skills. To what extend can you demonstrate a unique worldview? The results is a kind of progression that proceeds from the video game to the audio drama and vice-versa.
Were there any instances where you based the story or characters on your experience?
Most of the incidents, including the characters who appear in it, are fictional, but some of it is partly based on my own experiences. For example, is it possible to distinguish between good and evil on the battlefield? The characters in this story, like Schultz, Cortez and Ivanovich, all act in their own interests, believe in themselves and try to justify their means. It’s a rule that doesn’t work at all on a normal society, but somehow you can get away with on the battlefield. Those with power seize everything. This is a drama about tragic men who were drunk on a power struggle and were conversely swallowed into it.
Finally, can you give us a few last words?
Enjoy this audio drama and let us know what you think! I want to make the best use [of your feedback] next time… Will there be even be a next time, Mr. Kojima?
Yoji Shinkawa
There are many characters being drawn for the first time for the Drama CD. What kind of mood do you usually have when you design a character?
My creation method varies depending on the character. For Allen Iishiba… well, he was modeled after a real person. (laughs) He was actually a gentle guy, but he became a bit scary in the artwork that I drew.
For Sergei Ivanovich, I originally drew him as an older man in his 50s or 60s, but then Mr. Kojima requested him to be “a younger and cooler type.” When I asked him what kind of feeling he wanted from the character, he answered “someone like Tony Redwood [a character from Policenauts].” I then drew him younger, but he still didn’t stand out, so I wanted him to hold a small arm. I asked Mr. Mori if it was alright if he was holding a knife and he answered that was fine. It’s the same feeling I had when working with Mr. Kojima.
The image of Marc Cortez was that of a brave soldier with a decisive military history. However, since he is a character of questionable allegiance, I gave him a hat that obscured his eyes in order to make him look very suspicious. Maybe it’s just like Roy Campbell and his beret or Master Miller and his sunglasses. Can you recognize a character with just that [an accessory] alone?
The familiar characters from the original game all appear in new outfits here too. Especially Meryl Silverburgh, who looks cool in her sneaking suit!
After the Metal Gear Solid game finished development, I wanted to have [Meryl wear the sneaking suit] and did a drawing. It felt quite right, so I asked Mr. Mori about it. She’s armed with just a single Desert Eagle pistol, so she would need the infinite ammo bandanna to match Solid Snake… (laughs). Just kidding about that. I wanted Meryl to be depicted much closer to her namesake from Policenauts.
Speaking of weapons, there’s seems to be quite an elaboration on them in this Drama CD…
That’s right! Even the AKM assault rifles wielded by the bad guys was chosen by Mr. Mori. I’m pretty sure it was his choice. I always think of the visuals first in my case. We had a few meetings before producing the Drama CD and I was surprised when they brought in an AKM without any prior announcement, as it was very different from how I was imagining it. But it was fun to collect reference materials. I was grinning while drawing them. metal gear solidhideo kojimamotosada moriYoji Shinkawa3 notes
The front and back cover to the 1986 anthology Metal Kids. The front cover is one of the earlier published works of Masamune Shirow.metal kidsmasamune shirow1986143 notes
The following is a translation of an article that appeared in the final issue of MSX-FAN, a monthly MSX-centric publication that ran from 1987 through 1995, lasting almost the entire lifespan of the MSX family of platforms. For the final issue, the publication gathered MSX creator Kazuhiko Nishi and representatives from three of the greatest MSX game publishers (Micro Cabin, Konami and T&E Soft) to reflect on their memories of the platform. There’s also a second part of this article in the same issue where the magazine published a series of survey cards that the developers answered for the magazine, which I might also translate at a later point.
Introduction
Since our premiere issue on March 1987, MSX-FAN has accumulated a total of 87 issues, including this one, for nearly nine years. Thanks for supporting us for such a long time. Our publication might had ended, but the MSX will remain with us forever. In commemoration, we decided to interview several key figures within the MSX industry to reminisce about the platform once more.
Kazuhiko Nishi: The Father of the MSX
The MSX computer platform started from an idea of a single person, ASCII Corporation president Mr. Kazuhiko Nishi. “I wanted a computer that anyone could use. A platform that any manufacturer could also use in the same matter as well.” And as one couldn’t imagined now, even with all the proud giants of the Japanese consumer electronics industry involved – Matsushita (Panasonic), Sony, Sanyo, Victor, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Yamaha, Casio, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hitachi, General, Canon – no matter who made it, an MSX was an MSX, giving the platform a universal face. Perhaps Mr. Nishi’s personality is what allowed that to happened. Therefore, we decided to interview Mr. Nishi for the first time in a while.
“The MSX is amazing because of the culture it created. And it’s made in Japan too. I think its users will be creating the Japan of tomorrow. It’ll be nice if they end up creating a unique world.” The MSX platform launched 12 years ago in 1983 and MSX-FAN followed suit four years later in 1987, lasting 9 years in publication. If a reader was in grade school when the magazine started, then he would be in college by now. “I’m already 40 years old. The people in charge of the manufacturers at the time have changed a lot and there are also people who joined ASCII because of their bond with the MSX.”
The first thing we asked him was the inside story of the MSX that he most wanted people to know. “The original MSX was born from the so-called 9918 video display processor from Texas Instruments. From there on, I’ve constructed the BASIC language of the Z80 processor which moves it. This was very different from what other computer companies were doing. The evolution at the time was to expand on BASIC. That’s exactly what NEC did with their PC-8001 series, the PC-8801 series, the PC-6001 series, ect. But I wasn’t thinking about extending the features of BASIC. I was thinking about adding graphics, sounds and controller functions to a computer. In other words, I wanted more interactivity from my computer.“
“After the MSX1 I wanted to make something even better, so we at ASCII created the 9938 video display processor with Yamaha. That’s how the MSX2 came to be.”
“After that, I was thinking there should be an operating system. Since the MSX uses an 8-bit processor, it had to be CP/M-80 compatible. As for the disk format, I thought it had to be MS-DOS compatible. Thus, we had a brilliant engineer called Suzuki within our company to create the MSX-DOS operating system. After we sold a million unit, we commission the construction of a dinosaur sculpture for an exhibition of sorts in the southern exit of Shinjuku Station. The reason why we put a dinosaur in the venue was because I wanted something that would attract children to computers and I thought it would be fun to recreate the image of a dinosaur with third-dimensional graphics.”
“Afterward, we’ve reworked the 9938 video processor into the 9958, which the MSX2+ ended using.”
“When thinking about the next thing, the first thing I thought about was how we would expand the video, CPU and DOS capabilities of the platform. The GDP (graphic display processor) once again came from Texas Instruments, but since we’ve already created our own VDP, we thought we could also create a faster CPU. So we decided to make a fast RISC processor. The results were quite surprisingly and I thought we created something really good. We licensed it back to Zilog, who made the Z80 processor, which is how we managed complete backwards compatibility”
“The R on the MSX turbo R stands for RISC. What I learned through the development of the MSX is that computers are rapidly converging development through the same architecture, making production of software much faster than before. If you can keep up with the speed you can make your complex software move much more smoothly. That’s why we’ve introduced a GUI (graphical user interface) this time. That was the MSX-VIEW.”
However, the turbo R ultimately became the last generation of the MSX produced.
“I wanted to continue development of the MSX after the last one by coming up with a CD-ROM attachment. I really wanted it to employ moving pictures (digital video and audio) capabilities to the hardware. I’ve assembled many people from Matsushita, Sony, NTT and Victor Japan who were acquainted with the MSX to form a research group. That group ended up becoming the Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG), but during their research we ended up finding out that making movie playback work on the MSX was going to be extremely difficult.”
“After some careful thoughts, I considered fixing the architecture of the MSX turbo R by making it into a one chip set. But the research for this ended up being halted due to the discontinuation of the MSX. Thinking about it, the 8-bit address mode for the R800 processor was probably a bit too weak. Which is probably why there weren’t that many software (made for the turbo R).”
“I thought about what the Apple Inc. did as an example. First they made the Apple series of computers, then the Mac series and then they evolved their OS. With that in mind, the biggest advantage of the MSX, the fact that the software and hardware are unified, perhaps might had turned out to be its biggest disadvantage. The machine was easy to understand, but by not having the software as a separate component, it ended up dragging down the hardware specs completely. This time I want to make something that doesn’t rely on a specific CPU, but instead relies on software and sets the hardware specifications on a software level.“
He continued talking for three hours after this point and along the way he started coming with ideas for a new MSX specification at one point. He talked about wanting to form a new company called the MSX Corporation that would continue to produce and sell MSX computers. The merit of the MSX, its charm as a machine that is still loved after all this time, born from an ideaman as individualistic as Mr. Nishi, was felt strongly after the interview was over.
Micro Cabin: They Cannot Talk About It
“The know-how we cultivated with the MSX became the basic technology of our development team.” Mr. Nakatsu, who was the lead developer at Micro Cabin, looks back.
Nakatsu: “The MSX was our first time we dealt with a VDP, a process dedicated specifically for video. Prior to that we dealt with platforms like the PC-8801 that used the CPU for everything and anything. If there is a VPD that can be instructed to display this or that, then the CPU can be used for different things. This hasn’t change with the next-generation machines we’re using now. Now if they added an interrupt function to the VPD, something to end operation.”
Nagai: “That’s the MSX3, isn’t it? There are foreign users who have constructed machines equipped with new video chips. They match the specifications of the MSX3”
Suenaga: “We’re now focused on next-generation platforms, but we still use MSX development tools like DD Club and such. The next-generation machines are capable of displaying many colors, but since memory is still pretty limited, we often write in 16-color parts. Especially for the characters. They’re tools that we’re pretty much used to.”
Nitta: “For music composition, I use a tool called Yumirin, which has been around since the MSX-era. Even though it was developed by another software house, we adopted it as our own.”
Nagai: “Nitta’s music data is a huge burden on the CPU. With a storm of envelop interrupts, it plays at almost half the speed.”
Misoda: “At any rate. The members of our development team had quite a bit of experience with the MSX. It served as a mentor-of-sorts to Micro Cabin.”
Konami: The Gemcrafters
Mr. Hideo Kojima of Konami, author of Snatcher, one of the greatest adventure games on the MSX, shares his passionate memories of the platform.
Kojima: “When I’ve joined Konami, there was no MSX2. We were still developing for the original MSX. It had quite a lot of limitations, including the numbers of colors we could use. I was quite envious of what the arcade division was capable of, but when I was shown Knightmare running on the original MSX, I knew what kind of games the machine was truly capable of when the developers gave some effort. When I started working on my first project, which turned out to be Metal Gear, I thought about making a vertical-scrolling shooting game, but the number of enemies on-screen was limited up to 3 and bullets was limited to 6. In that situation I thought that instead of having too many enemies on-screen, I would take the opposite approach and make a suspenseful heart-pounding game where you had avoid beeing seen by the few enemies on-screen. Of course, this was not conveyed well in the game plan, but the prototype was made and people understood what I wanted to make, I was given the “go”. In fact, my previous plan was actually rejected by the company. For this plan, I was trying to come back from the brink of death.” This is the first time we heard about a rejected game plan from Mr. Kojima.
Kojima: “I’ve started working on Snatcher around six months later. Back then we were told that we were taking too long to develop it. However, MSX users have a strong sense of duty and I’ve ended up received several letters telling me that they joined the game industry because of that title. Since everyone is always looking up at us, we can’t risk slacking off, so we’re making games for the next-generation of hardware. Policenauts on the 3DO makes use of fully-animated videos, but that kind of technology makes me worry if conventional pixel art by computers will decline.”
“I own two MSX computers in my home. It’s a machine I’ve spent my first five years in the game industry developing for it, so my feelings for it are quite strong. When I was told that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake would be the last MSX game we would make, I was shocked, so I ended that game with the MSX boot-up screen. That was intended to be a message from me. I wanted to express my thoughts towards what the MSX made me. I think the MSX was a machine with no limits. Such an expression was never used by sellers, but the possibilities were endless if you knew how. Perhaps it was also as fully-legitimate personal computer for users as well. I want every user to truly appreciate the MSX until the end. I want them to stay on its side and remember the fun of real games and not just be swayed by the pretenses of the next-generation machines.”
T&E Soft: Always Pioneering
From the makers of Hylide, the father of the action RPG genre, came the first MSX2 game ever made Laydock, a surprising game which showed off the power of the hardware. T&E Soft is a curious company that are always challenging the newest hardware. During the event there was a rapid-fire banter between Mr. Naito of development and Mr. Yoshikawa of public relations, as they share many amusing and powerful stories. By the way, is there anything they could tell us now?
“Now that mention that, there’s a LAN system for education purposes that uses MSX computers. It was something that used an RS-232C to exchange data between teachers and students. This was a request from Company T, but it ended up being delivered to Russia. It seems it was made by several hardware manufacturers upon request. But this story ended when the CoCom scandal happened.”
It seems that some people from Matsushita also went to Russia.
“Speaking of Matsushita、when we were delivering copies of Laydock to Tokyo, we didn’t have sufficient time to package them in their boxes and we couldn’t just manufacture them while in the truck, so I had to come along. It was quite surprising. I also ended up spending lots of time debugging”
There are truly lots of memories of the MSX.
“I’ve already wrote this in the survey, but during the MSX1-era I would receive a daily BIOS-ROM from ASCII.”
This is the second Konami-themed interview featured in a 2005 commemorative issue of MSX Magazine, following the previous translated Hideo Kojima posted here. This time the person being interviewed is Kazuhiko Uehara, who joined Konami as a sound designer in 1986 (the same year Hideo Kojima himself joined), where he worked on games such as Space Manbow and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. He was involved with the creation of the SCC sound chip that Konami employed in many of their later MSX games, starting with 1987′s Gradius 2 (aka Nemesis 2), although it was originally designed for their racing game F1 Spirit.
At the time interview was published Uehara-san was an executive producer at Pawapuro Production, a subsidiary of Konami that were involved in the development of various sports games for the Japanese market, most notably the Power Pro Baseball series, which the studio took its name from.
The interview was conducted at Osaka two days after the Kojima interview at Roppongi Hills and it started with the MSX Magazine editorial staff showing of Gekitotsu Pennant Race, a baseball game by Konami for the MSX running on the MSX Game Reader.
SCC: A Sound Chip Born From The Rivalry With The Famicom
Uehara: Amazing! The SCC sounds like it should. I made this “strike” sound effect. Wow, it brings me back! Gekitotsu was made with the SCC from get-go. This was the beginning of the Power Pro series.
MSX Magazine: The reason we created the MSX Game Reader was because we wanted to play your company’s games (on a current computer). There were many models of the MSX back in the day and the tone of the PSG sounds differed between them. Why was that?
There were a few reasons. Some MSX models have balance differences between the PSG and SCC, so the bass output might had varied between them. Personally I really liked how the Yamaha models sounded. Speaking of which, I have some old documents here that could help me remember things. Wait a moment. (Mr. Uehara takes out a bulky file). Because I worked on the previous program, I gathered documentation of how to control the work, algorithm and such. However, this is all the documentation that remains that hasn’t been thrown out yet.
When you joined Konami, did you became involved with hardware? When I heard about it from interviews and such, I thought the SCC chip was built on a hardware level.
Not at all. I was involved with software, or rather I should say I was a “sound creator”. When I’ve joined Konami there was the MSX Team, the Famicom Team and the Arcade Team. The Arcade Team was the most abundant and flourishing when it came to sound sources. That was followed by the Famicom Team, which had one more sound port (than the MSX). But I was assigned to the MSX division (laughs). Its stock PSG sound source could only produce three types of sounds, so I couldn’t helped it but feel envious.
Mr. Kojima told us the same thing. (laughs)
I really regretted it. I was wondering whether it was possible to increase the number of sound ports on an MSX. At the time there was this application called “Idea Notes”, in which employees of Konami would submit ideas directly to the President. There I suggested exploring the possibility of using an additional sound source that could be employed through the MSX’s cartridge slot. I’m not sure if this suggestion was what caught their attention, but we were given the go ahead to develop the SCC chip and that’s how it came to be.
Was your frustration with competing against the Famicom’s sound source your initial reason for making the SCC chip?
That’s exactly the reason. The MSX is supposed to be from the same generation as the Famicom, yet…
It seems that everyone else felt that way too about the MSX. When you joined the MSX department, you had a feeling that you were missing out. So there was much joy when the SCC appeared. With such sound chip, the MSX could finally compete against the Famicom.
Nemesis 2 was the first game to employ the SCC, but we originally developed it for F-1 Spirit. Due to scheduling changes, Nemesis 2 ended up being released first.
Creating A Waveform By Trial & Error, Sometimes Using A Bug
There’s an “editor” referenced in this document. Did you happen to create a tone editor?
Yes. We made a so-called tone editor, which would later be known as a “synthesizer”.
There was once a time when music was composed with raw hexadecimal data.
That’s how it was when I’ve joined Konami. It took way too much time and effort, so we developed various tools to increase our efficiency.
That was the wave form of the SCC.
I think it might been with Space Manbow or Metal Gear 2, but there was an instance in which the waveform was being overwritten by the software.
You mean the “Waveform Change Program”.
That’s right. That was it.
When Scitron released one of their game music albums the other day [TL’s note: Likely referencing to The Legend of Game Music Premium Box set, which contains a CD consisting exclusively of MSX shoot-’em-up music], I heard a story that Ms. Miki Higashino, who was involved with the music of the original Gradius, tried to remake the first stage music from Space Manbow on an SCC for another shoot-’em-up, but she had problem trying to make it sound different from the original.
That’s because it was a very difficult system to work with. The truth is that there was a bug in the sound loading program. Under certain conditions it would fly into the program data instead of the waveform data. Because of this adding any additional programming would’ve altered the sound. It was a huge bug, but I choose not to fix since it ended up producing interesting sound that wouldn’t had been possible otherwise.
Because of such accidents that an amazing soundtrack like Space Manbow was possible. It’s such an awesome heavy sound.
It’s a coincidence that such a bug exists. The waveform produces sounds like that, no matter where they’re reading the data from.
We heard that during the recording of Space Manbow they would bring in 8 MSX computers into the studio, synchronize them by connecting a custom-build interface into each of their ports, and then collect all the sounds with a mixer.
That was precisely the development board for the SCC, which was around the size of two MSX units. We worked it so that each port would sound off one by one, but it felt so good. Different EQ and effects were applied to each port.
It seems quite difficult to produce the tone of the SCC.
Nowadays you can use a so-called “Pro Tools” to view the waveform, but such things wasn’t possible back then. Strictly speaking, if it had a round shape, it would make a round sound and if it was a sharp shape it would be a sharp sound, so there was already a process of trial and error. As I’ve explained before about the Waveform Editor, the method would involve drawing a waveform and then distributing the spots over it, so that also caused some trial and error. At the first it was just a theory, and then we tried to apply it.
Konami’s mainly used the SCC chip instead of other sound sources such as OPLL or FM.
The MSX Team wasn’t used to FM sound sources, since there was naturally a lot of restrictions involved. If you look at Konami as a whole (and not just the MSX department), we did have the know-how of using FM sounds, since we employed it in many arcade games, but in terms of familiarity the SCC was still preferable.
The Sound & Soul of the SCC Still Lives
The MSX used PSG and FM as sound sources in addition to the SCC, but the SCC was unique to the MSX, so its tone was pretty fascinating. Even nowadays it’s being used on a genre in the music scene known as “Chiptune”.
Is that so? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that. The hardware was cheap, so it could be a bit noisy. But since the sound wasn’t clear, a loud noise could be interpreted as a harmonic overtone. I think that could be part of its charms.
As a sound source based on waveform memory, the SCC had a clearly different tone compared to other sound sources such as PSG or the PC Engine. Was that a conscious decision?
There was no reverb or delay on the hardware. Because of that, the SCC relied on data tremendously. There’s only 8 sound ports used, including the 3 ports used by the stock PSG sound source, but basically it sounds dull having only one tone come out from one port at a time. With a keytone there, it ends up using two ports as an echo port, but if you have the sub-port do some amount of interruptions and lower the volume, you’ll end up producing some incredible sounds.
There are people still making music on the MSX that are familiar with such techniques. Techniques that were made by Konami.
Even now, I always tell the sound team that “our work is influential and our jobs are very important, so you must absolutely never cut corners no matter what.” It is a sound that enters your ears without knowing it, which is why I think it’s some people are influenced by it.
The spirit of the SCC seems to be refusing to die.
Sometimes, even within Konami, someone will ask me about a certain sound effect. For example, the alert sound in Metal Gear when Snake gets discovered, that was composed specifically for that game. Then there’s the item acquisition sound in Parodius, which sounds similar to a ding dong sound in a TV quiz show. Those kind of simple sounds are archived somewhere.
Sometimes when they play such a sound effect on TV, I would go “ah”.
You recognized that sound! That’s nice! Actually, those sounds are from on a library CD. It seems to be played in various places since it’s free to use.
Speaking of sound effects, I love the sound effects of King’s Valley 2. They’re very fun to listen to, especially the sound effect of the flying knife.
I still don’t know how that particular sound effect came to be. I was once asked how I did that, but it was actually the result of a hardware bug. I have no way of reproducing that sound. It actually happened that way.
You probably come up with many sounds ideas while on a ride.
There was a point where I was trying to make all sorts of sound effects I could think of. To give an extreme example, there was one time I tried to make the sound effect for the first step, second step, and third step different for each step. The closest I ever got to do something like that was for SD Snatcher.
Certainly, the “boh” sound effect when you reach the harbor in that game is an example of that. Or the background noise when you enter the game center.
But in the end I came to the conclusion that a good sound effect can be used multiple times. You can use the same sound effect in various places and nobody would noticed it. In the end, I would be fixated on a particular sound that I put all my heart into. So I became more focused on trying to make good sound effects instead.
Memories of Working With The MSX Team
Is there a particular game that you have fondest memories working on, Mr Uehara?
Well, it was before the SCC was made, but the first game I worked on when I’ve joined Konami was The Maze of Galious. But the first music I’ve ever composed was the ending theme to Vampire Killer [an MSX2 version of the original Castlevania that was made in parallel with the Famicom Disk System version]. I did something unusual when composing this track and that was using a “1 Port Echo”. There was no one else doing that back in those days and since it was being used for a whole music track, it ended up consuming a large amount of data. But when it comes to actually playing the games, my favorite is Nemesis 2.
There many people who proclaim that Nemesis 2 is the best shoot-’em-up they ever played in their lives. Recently Konami released Gradius V for the PlayStation 2, which continues the story of the MSX Gradius series. After 20 years of losing hope, we can finally destroy the final boss [Dr. Venom].
Back then I would often be asked if “you could only bring one game with you to a deserted island, which one it would be?” Without hesitation I would often reply Nemesis 2. Besides that, I also loved Gekitosu Pennant Race. It was the precursor to our current Power Pro series. In terms of sound, I was satisfied with how SD Snatcher and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake turned out. I hope that you agree.
According to Mr. Kojima earlier, because the MSX team weren’t selling as much as the Famicom team, they were given much greater leeway and because of that there was less compromise with the quality.
That’s right. That’s something we tried to uphold. I think the MSX team were the most conscious of what the Konami brand meant.
That’s because they were assigned to do MSX games.
At first I wondered “Why MSX?”, but in retrospect it was an absolutely necessary first step.
We didn’t love the MSX at first either, but we eventually learned to appreciate the platform. It wasn’t something we wanted at first, but we were assigned to.
After the MSX department was disbanded, Kojima moved on to work on the PC [TL’s note: Uehara is likely referring to the NEC platforms rather than the PC as we know it in the traditional sense, since Kojima worked on Snatcher for the PC Engine in 1992 and Policenauts for the PC-9821 in 1994 after his MSX days were over], while I shifted my focus to the Super Famicom. I still wanted to work together with Kojima, but at the same time everyone wanted to work on the Super Famicom. My boss at the time nominated me to be in charge of the sound effects for the Super Famicom department since I’ve proven myself with the MSX. I was pretty flattered that they thought highly of my work, but then Kojima accused me of betrayal. (laughs)
It seems like it was a wonderful period for both of you.
We created the Konami Sound with that kind of feeling, which is why it’s amazing that even Power Pro series still has that Konami sound. Nowadays I barely do any sound work since I’ve been promoted to producer, but the younger staff members have almost no tangible memories of what’s been taught to them.
Perhaps it’s the DNA.
Maybe that’s it. It sounds like the Konami Sound no matter who is listening it. It’s something that’s been passed on.
One last question. What does SCC stands for? I heard it could mean “Sound Creative Chip” or “Sound Customize Chip”, but a official meaning was never given to MSX Magazine back in the day.
Wasn’t it written here somewhere? Let me check for a moment! (starts opening a document). I’m sure it was written somewhere. I’ll have to ask some of the other people involved and ask them about it. That will be my homework.
The following is a translation of a two-part published in the publication MSX FAN for Konami’s MSX2 video game SD Snatcher, which was an RPG adaptation/remake of the original Snatcher. The first part of the interview was published in the May 1990 issue and involves an anonymous member who was involved with the scenario, which likely suggests Yoshihiko Ohto, the game’s planner and the first person billed under the scenario credit, or Hideo Kojima himself, and was conducted before the game’s release. The second interview, published in the July 1990 issue, involves Konami’s spokeswomen Ms. Hayasaka and Ms. Sagoi (not Sunai) following the game’s release, who were also interviewed by MSX Magazine around the release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake during the same year.
Part 1 (May 1990)
Itmay look funny, but it’s actually very serious. As an RPG, it’s quite deep too. The MSX Fan representative has completely changed from easygoing mood to very serious as he made a direct phone call to Konami’s scenario writer for an interview. This is a transcript of that interview.
Paopao of MSX Fan (henceforth MF): What was your aim with this game?
Konami Representative (henceforth K): Alright. I’ll answer your question. First of all, there was the fact that we at Konami wanted to make an interesting RPG. Practically every RPG has a fantasy setting and that has become pretty stale. The original Snatcher was a game that depicted a futuristic setting with sufficient storytelling and a tight backstory. We decided to use it for an RPG. In this case, the random monsters that typically appear without any meaning in a usual RPG can be explained here as creatures by the Snatchers.
MF: What’s the game’s selling point as an RPG?
K: Of course, there’s the fully-realized strategic aspect of the game’s battles. You can choose which parts of the enemy to aim and what weapons you can use, and that will affect how much damage you can do. Then there’s the storyline-rich scenario that revolves around this.
MF: The original Snatcher felt like it ended in the middle of the story. Will we find out what happens afterward?
K: I can’t say much now, but I think you will know when the game comes out. The sample version we sent to publications consists of only two disks. These two disks cover the story of the original Snatcher.
MF: Meaning…?
K: Meaning that there will be a third disk in the final version that develops the story afterward.
MF: You mean we’ll find out Gillian Seed’s past? Or perhaps the secret of the Snatchers and Jaime Seed’s past? Or even Harry Benson’s past? Will everything be told?
K: Well, play the game and you will find out. This is a game that we’re greatly convinced that will not only appeal to RPG fans, but will also be a must-have for fans of the original Snatcher.
That’s how the interview. Here are some of the mysteries that the original Snatcher left behind.
What kind of past does Gillian and Jaime Seed have? What did they do before the events of the game? Could they had been involved with the Snatchers?
Related to the first mystery, will this confirm the theory that Harry Benson is Gillian and Jaime’s son? [TL’s note: In previous issues of MSX-FAN, the magazine published a series of theories regarding the inconclusive ending of the original Snatcher. One of them correctly guessed that Harry was Gillian Seed’s son.] It is believed that the Seeds went into cold sleep around 1990 before awakening in the future. If Harry was born a few years before that, then it would be consistent with his present age. Moreover, Harry says that he felt he met Gillian before when they first meet.
What is the objective of the Snatchers? Like we wrote in the beginning, the Snatchers may be stupid, but they are definitely a threat. What is their purpose and what can we do to get rid of them? How many do we have to kill one-by-one before getting to the end? How many of these questions will be solved? That will be find out by playing this game.
At any rate, what I am truly interested at is in the game‘s ending. I’ve never been so interested in a game’s ending or the conclusion of its story before. I really want to know about Gillian Seed’s past. At any rate, I think want to play the original Snatcher one more time to see if there was any sort of foreshadowing.
Part 2 (July 1990)
Usually a video game article is written by having the magazine borrow a sample version of the game from the manufacturer in order to time it around the game’s release. During that period we are indebted to the company’s sales department. They coordinate things with the editors during a game’s development. While they have other roles within the company, their influence on the game’s production is pretty significant. There, we’ve talked to the flowers (?) of Konami’s sales department, Ms. Hayasaka and Ms. Sagoi.
Manbow of MSX-FAN (henceforth MF): First of all, what are your roles within the company?
Ms. Hayasaka (henceforth H): I’m involved with everything from the sales of Famicom games to PC games. We even sell puzzles. I’ve only been in the company for the less than a year, so I’m still studying things. There are many platforms, so it’s a bit troubling.
Ms. Sagoi (henceforth S): That’s right, but I think it’s fun to have games on so many platforms.
M: Konami indeed does put out many games on different platforms. Among them, what do you think of SD Snatcher?
S: The characters are cute, but the game takes itself very seriously. That gap is good though. The story is pretty suitable for an RPG and it even solves the mysteries that were foreshadowed in the original Snatcher.
H: You’ve done your homework, Sagoi (pats her back).
S: Heh-heh. But I don’t really know that much about our company’s games.
M: I see… Is there anything else (you could tell us)?
H: Don’t you think the game’s battle system is pretty cool? Thanks to that, the game has a feeling of tension. Plus, I really like to destroy Snatchers.
M: I see. Is there anything you would like to tell our readers?
H: Please read the manual carefully before starting the game.
S: Save your progress frequently. You might not know what might happen.
M: Thank you for your answers.
Scans of the original interviews as they appeared in their respective issues.
Letters to the MSX (MSXにおくる手紙/MSX ni okuru tegami) is an article that was published in the final issue of MSX-FAN magazine (dated August 1995), in which the publication sent out a questionnaire to various people within the video game, computing and consumer electronics industries (from companies such as Micro Cabin, Compile, Game Arts, Sony and Matsushita), asking them about their involvement with the MSX and their thoughts about the platform, which was being discontinued from the market after 12 years in the market.
Originally I only intended to translate Hideo Kojima’s answers to the questionnaire, but then I decided to do the whole article because not only does it bring a lot of insight to the MSX culture in Japan, but it also provides a picture of how the computer industry was back in the mid-90′s and where it was heading. This is why it took me a while to publish this translation (and why I have been inactive on Twitter for almost a month now), since it was not only quite a long article, but there’s also quite a bit of technical jargon and idioms that I wanted to make sure I would get right.
Anyway, I hope that you will enjoy it.
Introduction
We sent out this questionnaire to as many companies as possible who were involved with the MSX via fax or PC. We wanted to publish the thoughts of the people who were involved during that period. We do believe this will lead to our next step.
The contents of the questionnaires are as follows. Please read them fully and compare them.
The text has been printed the way it was sent to us, but editor’s notes have also been in parts that we believe might be too difficult for some readers to comprehend. The text after the red circle is written by the editorial department to introduce the developer who answered the questionnaire, followed by their answers to each question. If the answers to question 1 and 4 given by the person in the previous section, then “same as above” will written in its place.
MSX-FAN Final Questionnaire
Company’s name
Name and current department
Job(s) during the MSX era
Most notable MSX products by the company
Your most nostalgic MSX moment and why
Words you wish to impart to MSX-FAN readers
Bonus/ Secrets, inside stories or such you wish to share
Tokihiro Naito
We can’t help but feel from reading Mr. Naito’s comment that the MSX was a machine that everyone made good use of. With such powerful talents, his games have served as an inspiration to numerous players. Before long, people learn about the enjoyment of creating games just like Mr. Naito… We feel it’s quite a wonderful chain.
T&E Soft
Tokihiro Naito, Development Division
DD Club/Pattern Editor Programming and Manual Manuscript Creation, Undead Line/Game Design. Hydlide/Game Design and Direction, Hydlide 3/Main Programming, Rune Worth/Game and Direction. I feel there were more projects (I’ve worked on), but I don’t remember any of them.
3D Golf Simulation, Hydlide series, Laydock series, Daiva, Psy-O-Blade, Rune Worth, DD Club, T&E Disk Magazine, and more
Laydock/ The truth is that I want to talk about everything I’ve worked on, but this particular title left the most lasting impression. This had an unexpectedly short development time, meaning that it was released even before the new MSX hardware. However, the developing target was pretty unstable, and with the hardware and BIOS specifications changing everyday, it led to a difficult development period. The person in charge was all (^ ^;
The MSX was a very interesting job for me. The MSX was probably the first time I was introduced to the concept of a VDP at such an early stage. Since the MSX was also the first machine I’ve ever experienced the use of sprites with, it was personally very fun. Even though MSX-FAN might be gone now, I hope many people will still use the MSX as a starting machine for programming or for making CGI.
DD Club contained a tool called SPEN, which was not a product by the company. It was actually a hobby program I designed in my home for over two years. At any rate, the name stood for Special Pattern Editor for Naito. This program was given free of charge to T&E Soft as my dedication to them./During the development of Laydock, I received a new BIOS-ROM from ASCII almost everyday, but every time the BIOS was changed it would cause the game to stop running, and we had to cool out the prototype MSX2 computer with a paper fan while programming as soon as it was overheating./ The 800 kanji fonts for the MSX1 version of Hydlide III that were on a 7×8 pixel format were in fact created by me. Were they hard to read? I’m sorry if that was the case./ There are many more unrevealed inside stories, but… (Editor’s Note 1: We this much content, we can’t publish this letter without cutting off some parts. Hmm…) (Editor’s Note 2: Hmm, I wonder if the other editor has seen that one last sentence.) (^ ^;
Akira Misoda
In the MSX world there is Micro Cabin. Nothing else needs to be said. We are grateful to them for many things. We thank them for porting Princess Maker to the MSX. And in addition to providing software for our supplemental disks, we learned many things from Mr. Nakano as the lecturer for our Picture Story & Movie Classroom articles. Producer Misoda has made an effort to backup all the above. I don’t think the Princess Maker port would’ve happened without his influence.
Micro Cabin
Akira Misoda, 1st R&D Department
Producer & Programmer of Campaign Daisenryaku. Programmer of The Tower of Cabin. Producer of Princess Maker.
Fray, Xak, Xak II, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei Yatsura, Daisenryaku, Super Daisenryaku, Princess Maker, Illusion City, The Tower of Gazzel.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the MSX version specifically, but Xak was the first game I programmed desperately after I’ve joined the company. I gave the rough source code to Mr. Nakatsu when he joined the company to produce the MSX version, but I’m still impressed that such a difficult code to understand could be ported so well.
The MSX is a hardware that has raised many people. There are quite a few people at Micro Cabin who used to be MSX users before joining the company. With the proper knowhow, you could make games on the MSX without having to purchase any expensive add-on (compared to other platforms). In that sense, it’s such a great loss that another platform that has produced game-making geniuses (!?) is disappearing from the industry. I might be exaggerating a bit, but… I really feel that way.
I’ve worked on the MSX prior to joining Micro Cabin. I did around four outsourced jobs from three different companies, and two of them were for Micro Cabin.
Yasuhiko Nakatsu
Programmers are said to stay up all night, tend to run away and are all unusual men, but there is no one who makes good products that keeps his deadlines, sleeps on time, and provides gentle guidance to everyone. We at the editorial department asked for such a person to serve as our lecturer for our picture story show articles. We are grateful to Mr. Nakatsu for everything he did to us and we apologize for asking too much of him. We are truly sorry for that.
Same as above
Yasuhiko Nakatsu, 1st R&D Department
Planning, programming, writing
Same as above.
I have many fond memories of software that came out on the MSX. Among there was this software called Su**s Gri… Oops! I’ve almost mentioned something I shouldn’t. My bad. My bad. Personally, Illusion City was my most memorable game when it comes to the most hardships I have to endure.
Thank you for publishing my articles after such a long period. For those who are not good at programming at BASIC, please look up any back issues and try your best at creating a picture story. The MSX was a machine with many ways to enjoy oneself. I look forward to future activities with the platform.
I was the one responsible for raising the memory of the A1-GT to 512Kb. Thanks to that, the machine was able to play MIDI without the burden of access time. I’m truly grateful at everyone in Matsushita.
Hitoshi Suenaga
Rather than introduce the person, I thought it would be more fitting to introduce his projects. He’s a talented genius responsible for the character designs in Micro Cabin.
Same as above
Hitoshi Suenaga, 2nd R&D Department
Xak 1, Fray, Daisenryaku, Illusion City
Same as above
Xak 1, since it was the first MSX project I ever worked on after joining the company.
I am grateful to everyone who supported our work, as well as everyone answered the questionnaire. While it’s sad that the world will go on without the MSX, I will still use it for my hobbies and personal work. In fact the character units in the 3DO version of Konpeki no Kantai were drawn on my MSX computer and then converted to the console.
If you want to be honest, if ASCII had asked for my input, I would’ve balanced out the hardware specifications of the MSX turbo R a bit more and I think the platform would’ve been around a bit longer. When I learned about the MSX turbo R’s hardware specifications after unveiling conference, I began crying on my bed… I’m serious! The MSX2 was a serviceable upgrade from the MSX1, but after that…
Katsuya Nagai
Mr. Nagai made one MSX software after the other while in Micro Cabin thanks to his love for the MSX and the effort he made to program every day and night.
Same as above.
Katsuya Nagai, 1st R&D Department
Programmed the opening and ending of Xak I. Also made the fighting minigame in The Tower of Cabin.
Same as above.
I was involved with Xak I as soon as I’ve joined the company.
Even though we are no longer making MSX games, we hope you’ll still support Micro Cabin in the future.
The Fray vs. Pixie minigame from The Tower of Cabin was ported from the PC-9801 version and I got to draw the animation patterns of a special move that was planned for the game. However, not all the animation frames could fit into the game’s memory, so I ended up using the regular patterns instead.
Naoko Arakawa
When talking about the TAKERU software vending machines, there is Ms. Arakawa. She was always full of energy when we met her during events. She even worked together with our editorial staff on the Sorcerian port, which is a project that brings us deep memories. She also worked on Sorcerian Relay, which is included in this final issue. Since it’s just a relay race game featuring characters from Sorcerian created by the editorial staff, it might not be anything special, but… We would be grateful is she re-releases more classic MSX software via TAKERU.
Thanks to the news announcement from MSX-FAN, our game reprinting project attracted attention from many users, which evolved into the TAKERU Meisaku Bunko (Masterpiece Library) series. We;re now re-releasing PC-9801 and X68000 games on TAKERU as well, becoming an important pillar of our service more than ever. I think it was all thanks to the planning of MSX-FAN and our MSX users.
I truly salute MSX users for their passion, enthusiasm and creative urge. While we gathered many games for our reprint series, there were still quite a few things that left a bit to be desired (like why we didn’t include games from a certain company or why we didn’t include a particular title). There were many games that did not come out on TAKERU due to various circumstances, so we apologize for that. From now on we’ll do our best to have software reach MSX users via TAKERU, even if it’s just a few game. Please support us.
I have strong memories of sneaking out to see the A-Bomb Dome while I was en route to the MSX Festival in Hiroshima. On another occasion, I was photographed by a professional for the first time when I was interviewed by Mr. Tokita and Mr. Sasaya. The photo looked like a portrait than any normal photo. It’s one of my most treasured possessions.
Akkii
Falcon is a company that undertook a substantial role in the porting of Sorcerian that MSX-FAN and TAKERU (Brother) helped produce. Their president, Ms. Midori Ito, while working for Yamaha to promote the MSX, unexpectedly ended up becoming a programmer herself and before long she ended up marrying Mr. Kazuhiko Ito, who was employed at Micro Cabin at the time. The two ended up forming their own software development company. Answering in this section is Mr. Moribe, who was the lead graphic designer.
Tierheit (aka Falcon)
Akkii, Planning & Development Department – Development Section 2
Pixel art, debugging, intermediary with TAKERU’s executive officer, and many other jobs
Sorcerian, Sengoku Sorcerian, Pyramid Sorcerian
All of it, of course. It was the first company I’ve joined and the first job I was employed at.
The ending of Sorcerian was very anti-climatic. I’m sorry about that. Of course, the MSX is a hardware that exists because of its users. Even if this magazine will no longer be in print, the MSX scene will remain active as long as there are users, especially when it comes graphic designing (personally). Good luck!
Well there’s something I want to say, but… Oh no!
Yoshihide
I often used to go to the MSX Fair. I used to work at Osaka, bu moved back to Tokyo along with my wife last year. I want to know if the secret title was Dragon Spirit or Valkyrie.
Namco
Yoshihide, Consumer Sales Department – Promotion Division
MSX software sales and PR activities (including planning). Since there weren’t that many people, I did a bit of everything.
Return of Ishtar, Xevious: Farland Saga, Pac-Mania, ect. We also did the Disk NG series too.
For Xevious, I remember doing a bit of everything ranging from joining in the planning, production, advertising, distribution, sales and public relations.
I wish good luck to everyone involved with the MSX at Namco (including our users).
There were many games that we announced, but didn’t get released. On one hand I think it’s regrettable, but on the other hand it’s a bit horrifying.
Masamitsu Niitani
It’s because of Disk Station magazine that the MSX became an interesting world. It’s because of them that we had the Puyo Puyo series and Carbunkle. With its low-price, the fun-packed Disk Station was a brilliant plan that managed to rejuvenate an industry that has hit a rut. It was always a pleasure to deal with President Niitani himself when calling the company, even if it was the middle of the night.
Compile
Masamitsu Niitani, President
Planner, Producer, Graphic Designer, Programmer
Guardic, Madō Monogatari, Nyanpi, Golvellius, Rune Master, Adventure of Randar, Disk Station
Disk Station
Let’s walk with the times
I want to talk to Mr. Nishii of ASCII about his thoughts on the MSX.
Yoichi Miyaji
The founders of Game Arts got their start as part-timers at ASCII back in the old days. Because of their talent, they quickly formed their own company, where they gave birth to Thexder. At any rate, we had a chance to seriously think about developing for the MSX with Mr. Miyaji.
Game Arts
Yoichi Miyaji, President
Producer
Thexder, Fire Hawk, the Gyuwamburaa Jikō Chūshinha series, the Sum series
The debugging of the MSX-BASIC rom was carried out back when the founders of Game Arts were employed at ASCII. I think the BASIC was made extremely well.
I treasured the MSX like it was my own child. I did my best with the belief that the MSX was a better hardware than the Famicom (NES). It’s been more than 10 years (ed’s note: 12 years precisely), the age of the Famicom is over now and it’s time to let the MSX go too. It’s truly been a long time.
Satoshi Uesaka
Mr. Uesaka was the one who originally created the card concentration game called Card Desu as soon as MSX-FAN started including supplemental disks on each issue. It had an edit function in hopes that it would lead to a series of edited works, but not many edited versions were made and the whole thing amounted to nothing.
Same as above.
Satoshi Uesaka, Section Chief of Development
Producer, Director, Programmer, Pixel Artist, Scripter… I did many things.
Same as above.
The Sum series ended with 14 games that were released in a span of a single year.
Never forget your dreams, even when they end. (plagiarized)
Kamiji
BIT2′s president Mr. Kuribayashi was observing various creative tools for the PC-9801 one day when said that he would make his own versions to surpass them on the MSX. So he ended up making the CGI tool Graphsaurus, the FM music tool Synthesaurus and the MIDI tool Midisaurus. Without these tools there would’ve been no CGI contest on MSX-FAN and no MIDI Sandogaza column. In Mr. Kuribayashi’s place, this questionnaire was answered by saleswoman Ms. Kamiji.
BIT²
Kamiji, Sales
Accounting
Graphsaurus, Synthesaurus, Famicle Parodic
When they started putting all their efforts into the Turbo R and GT was when the MSX started sinking.
We still wanted to make MSX software, but since not many people were buying them anymore, we had to discontinue them.
Toshikazu Awano
While persistently providing software for the MSX, he also provided his invaluable insights on the MSX during the MSX Symposium (see our June 1991 issue). It seems he got into this world from the records industry, but has since be transferred into KOEI’s U.S. subsidiary and is now busy selling English versions of the Nobugana’s Ambition series for consoles.
Koei
Toshikazu Awano, Koei Corporation (of America)
Head of Sales
Nobunaga’s Ambition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Nobunaga’s Ambition II came out when I’ve joined the company and since it sold pretty well, it left me with a strong impression.
Our company used to sell MSX soft until very late, but when we discontinued them, we suddenly receiving porting requests from MSX users. Many of them were specifically middle and high schoolers with a strong sense of appreciation.
Tatsuo Matsuda
As someone who greatly loves the MSX beyond all else, he aspired to turn it into a machine that gives everyone the opportunity to bloom their talents. That is, even if you’re not rich or you live in a rural area, you should be able to use the MSX to awaken your hidden talent by creating CGI and music or get the opportunity to express yourself.
ASCII
Tatsuo Matsuda, Multimedia Department Promotion Manager
Promotion for MSX Sales
MSX
We have shipped over 4 million home computers to young people around the world, including Japan.
I want you to become smart Japanese people with unique personalities who could work around the world.
There are still many people using the MSX around the world. The MSX should be classified as a computer, not a game console. I’m very pleased that many people have learned about computers from this platform and have found employment through it.
Hitoshi Suzuki
Everyone who was involved with MSX has called him a genius. Without his genius, perhaps MSX wouldn’t had gotten such a good BASIC program. Nevertheless, he’s a truly wonderful person with a sense of humor who made Basic-kun as a side-project
Same as above.
Hitoshi Suzuki, Director of Digital System Division and Silicon Software Development
Listener to Mr. Matsuda’s complaints and causing uproars at parties.
I haven’t really done that much (Ed’s Note: He did a lot. Many of the programming for tools and systems used by the MSX were done by him.)
Yukiko Okada’s suicide haunted me. (Ed’s Note: At the time of her death, she was appearing in the advertising of a certain company.)
Our youth is a brief moment that only shines once. The memories that have gone through all of us at a rapid-pace will shine within me forever. And on my deathbed, I will utter “Em…Ess…Ex” as my last words.
There’s a huge mouse in Osaka. (Ed’s Note:It seems that the three main proponents of the MSX platform (Mr. Yamashita, Mr. Matsuda, Mr. Suzuki) once went to a business trip in Osaka. Nobody truly knows what happened there, but it seems that Mr. Matsuda was nicknamed Mr. Mouse after a certain incident. Don’t tell anyone, you meanie!)
Shingo Tamura
Mr. Tamura joined Sony at the midst of the audioboom. He was responsible for the famed live recording machine Densuke. Afterward, he became involved with the MSX and was in charge of the PalmTop. Even though Mr. Tamura is the section chief with a scary reputation, he’s actually a romantic who likes the stars, nature and soba noodles. We thought about what Sony means as a company with stuff such as sending mail through the internet in this day. Is it linked to their merchandising? We also wanted to emphasize the MSX’s side as a cool PC.
Sony
Shingo Murata, Planning and Development of Merchandising
Sales Chief of Planning and Development of Hardware, Software and Peripherals
The HB-55 was the first HiTBiT promoted by Saeko Matsuda. The HB-F1 was a budget-priced MSX2 computer that retailed at 32,800 yen. The HB-F1XD is an MSX2 with a floppy disk drive that retailed at 54,800 yen. In terms of games, there was The Wiz, which was perhaps a famed Sony original.
There was a software called Igo Club that was an online go game, and a Kanji Video Titler. There was also a BASIC-learning kit aimed at an industrial-level (after applying for the correspondence education, you would be sent an MSX with a handbook).
Every middle schooler who got their start on the MSX dreamed differently from Famicom owners. They could learn how to program or how to make a software run to their own accord. They continued in their creative endeavors now, even now as adults. If they can have home terminals like that in the 21st century, I think we can once again stir up some creativity. As long as people have dreams, we’ll embark on new challenges.
We tried to make and sell all kinds of products. The hardware is a business that really ought to make use of the software. With that in mind, we couldn’t make the DC machine (Ed’s note:a portable device) because the resolution was a bit overly optimistic and there were too many constraints. I would like to thank my subordinates, editor-in-chief Ms. Kitane and her staff, and my good friends at Sakurakai (Ed’s note: a liaison between multiple MSX hardware manufacturers that gathered once in every month, where they would improve on the good points, reflect on the bad ones and collaborate with each other. It was last held in May ‘95), even if they would normally be suspected of bid-rigging. And of course, everyone at ASCII. It was thanks to the MSX that I had a bond we all of the above people. And what would become of Mr. Kurami, our MSX historian at Sony who served as our walking encyclopedia? Thanks!
Naoya Kurami
Mr. Kurami is a delicate perfect fit for Sony’s corporate image. Everytime he received a call from our editorial department, he always winced momentarily whenever it was some kind of difficult call… Despite that, he seems to have what appears to be a poster of Saeko-chan…
Same as above.
Naoya Kurami, Vice Director of Planning and Development of Merchandising
Planning and Promotion of hardware, software and peripherals
Same as above
I don’t know if it can be said that its directly MSX-related, but do you know the stock-trading computer HB-T600 or the online go software Igo Club? Either way, studying stocks and studying go was a painful experience. And considering all that, the results were not quite good.
Well, for better or worse I spent the last ten years of my life working on the MSX. With this information now out on an MSX-related magazine, I feel a bit embarrassed. By the way, I own a train poster of Ms. Seiko Matsuda (advertising for our HiTBiT computers) as a souvenir from the past. I thought about selling it for a high price… I would like to thank all of editors at MSX-FAN and all of its readers. It’s been such a long time.
Hideaki Yagami
We, at the editorial staff, get the impression that the people at Matsushita are very serious and diligent. Both, their hardware and software are designed with the need to bring enjoyment to their users without betraying their expectations. Only Matsushita machines are strong against instantaneous blackouts and their PACs (Pana Amusement Cartridges) might had been a manifestation of that mentality. Under such circumstances, Mr. Yagami (who is also skilled at skiing) was pretty good at gaining the trust of the software house (not just for the debugging meetings) and still is to this day.
Matsushita
Hideaki Yagami, Software Development Department of the Interactive Media Division
Development & Planning of Software at the Pana Amusement Production
The FS-5500F2 is famous for being the first MSX computer with 2 disk drives. The FS-A1 was a budget-pridced MSX2 that retailed 29,800 yen. The PACs were MSX cartridges containing S-RAM backup. Other products include the CF-XXX series, the FM-PAC, a Bowling System and an educational system aimed for Russia (that’s a secret)
The AshGuine series were a series of games starring the first character made by our company. We made the games all-night at the development site with the developers from the various companies involved to decide on the content of each game, their packaging and the posters.
When the MSX was brought to this world, a personal computer meant for the users something that could run the program they made, not just the packaged software they bought from a store. In today’s world, computers take many shape in order to support the needs of the world, but in spite of that it’s no longer easy to program by yourself, even if you own a PC. Even though PCs are becoming much closer to humans now, I can’t helped but feel a sense of nostalgia when the distance between them was more primitive, that is to say when a PC was just a programming tool. Back then the PC was the embodiment of a user’s dreams full of possibilities. It could be said that people who lived through the era when PCs were born are living witnesses of a valuable era that brought fruit to a trend of rapid creation and evolution. Keep those memories of freshness in mind and continue dreaming, seeking the possibilities of new challenges.
I wonder if there was any other unified effort between multiple home electronics manufacturers to promote a unified standard (MSX). MSX-FAN may have ended with this issue, but for the hardware manufacturers I think it was an era of everyone pursuing the dream of a single unified standard of PC. To all the companies that provided software, I’m truly grateful. I’m also grateful to Ms. Kitane and the rest of the editors of Tokuma for being there until the end. And finally, I would like to thank of all the MSX users who supported the platform.
Kazuaki Hiraga
Mr. Hiraga was suddenly put in charge of the MSX in a matter of months and became a familiar figure in ten years, leaving quite an impression. He has the personality you would expect. He plays Gekitotsu Pennant Race pretty well too. He also planned to lend out MSX computers to a culture festival. Thanks to that, he experienced a “ghost incident” in the Kanazawa Inn. At any rate, he held a mini-4WD competition to bring excitement to the event and played games with other users. In a sense, he was a familiar and energetic face to the MSX.
Same as above.
Kazuaki Hiraga, Software Development Department of the Interactive Media Division
As a member of the PAP, I’ve worked as a contact for various software providers and at the same time I was involved in the development of original software and peripherals (such as the PACs). I also planned and managed nationwide events. I was Pana Amusement Club member no. 0001! By the way, the Amusement Club began business around the time Vampire Killer came out
Same as above.
At the beginning many hardware manufacturers created MSX machines, but in the end it became a fateful confrontation between Matsushita and Sony. Right now our Panasonic-branded products are selling quite well, especially our TVs and videos, but our no. 1 product in Japan is the “A1″. This symbolizes the magnitude of expectations that Matsushita applies to its products.
Looking at the current software industry, there are quite a few people who joined the industry from the MSX, so I feel it’s a big deal. in that sense, I appreciate all those people who are still passionate about the MSX and I’m eagerly awaiting even more people to become experts in the field of software development.
Thanks to the MSX, I have a nice family (ed’s note: Mr. Hiraga met his wife when she was the host of an MSX event. They now have a child together). It was also fun to go through various events nationwide and talk to representatives of software houses and magazines. Everyone gave it their best during the 4WD races in particular. (ed’s note:Mr. Naito of T&E Soft is known for using a turbo mode technique that connected batteries in a serial format.) One of the packaging illustrators for the AshGuine series was the now-famous Teppei Sasakura (who at the time was an unknown). Looking at the prices of Mr. Sasakura’s works recently, I tried to look for the original painting, but it’s nowhere to be found. Ah!
Masao Ito
Mr. Ito is an obliging person who planned out products he thought of while working on Matsushita’s hardware designs. If things are any indication, we believe he made the FM-PAC by embracing a headfirst approach. Within the people at Matsushita who supported the MSX until the end, Mr. Ito has been patiently answering various questions from our editorial staff up until this final issue.
Same as above.
Masao Ito, Planning and Selling of Foreign Software for the Interactive Media Division (I’m making 3DO stuff now).
First I worked on hardware designs. But then I acted as a jack-of-all-trades, examining the MSX standards at the same time. At the the end, I was responsible for product planning, as well as in charge of designing domestic and overseas systems.
Same as above
In Russia, I almost got arrested by the Moscow police one time after spending several consecutive nights bowling there.
The MSX was a cost-effective platform. It was useful in various ways if you knew how to use it well. While the MSX’s days are numbered, its ideal still remains true. The concept will surely be revived in the future (don’t hesitate to ask in which form).
I did quite a lot of things, but for some reason I am still an unknown in this industry. The PAC and FM-PAC cartridges were possible thanks to me! By the way, I’m still waiting to receive my own PAC and FM-PAC from the company.
Yuya Iwakiri
Mr. Iwakiri is a gentleman who organized many MSX events that gave us the chance to gather everyone. He supported up us until the end.
Same as above.
Yuya Iwakiri, Public Relations Department Editorial Department
As a professional, I’m a latecomer to the MSX when I was employed in 1989. In my private life, the first MSX computer I touched was a so-called King Kong word processor, which was a unique experience. Because I came from an advertising background, I focused on the planning and organizing of MSX fairs, where I involved in the creations of catalogs and advertisement (thinking about it though, the job was rather lonely since MSX-FAN was practically the only MSX-focused media remaining by that point), as well as the promotion and advertising of word processors (such as the UI series and the SLALA model).
Same as above.
For me, it’s perhaps the FS-A1GT, which ended up becoming the last MSX machine ever produced. The slight hopes of everyone who had an affection for the MSX, such as Ms. Kitagane, whom I have a strong rapport with, and the various celebrities (in every sense of the word) from all sorts of software house starting with Mr. Tanaka (director general of Micro Cabin), were gathered thanks at the nationwide fairs thanks to this machine. Until the bitter end, there was hope for another model, hope for the uncertain future of the MSX… Even though I knew how it was going to end, I still couldn’t help but feel a sense of bitterness when it was over. It was like falling in love with someone you were forbidden to, like a feudal lord and a peasant or Romeo & Juliet…I thought about why I was given a job during such a moment.
There’s always one way or another to do things because of the mischief of the age. I don’t want to ponder any “what ifs”, “perhaps” and “if only”, but just like life, I still wonder if the MSX could ever return to the starting line… I’m sure everyone involved with the MSX is thinking this as well. In this age in which Microsoft is now threatening IBM’s grasp of the PC market, it would wonderful to imagine the MSX engine from Japan taking over the world.
My kids (ages 6 and 4) play all sorts of gaming platforms. The Game Boy, the Super Famicom and the 3DO. But they really like MSX games over everything else. Perhaps they inherited my preference and nostalgia for MSX games… DNA is quite a scary thing. Anyway, I’m truly grateful to all the MSX fans around the world! Until we’ll meet again.
Masayuki Takeuchi
“Study hard and play hard” is a saying that suits this person. That’s because studying and playing are truly above-average.
Same as above.
Masayuki Takeuchi, Interactive Media Division Software Development Department Promotion and Planning Section
Planning for advertising and sales promotion.
Same as above
Before PCs became widespread, we put out the first MSX word processor with a built-in printer, which was a pretty successful product. Another product we put out was the A1, a budget-priced MSX2 computer sold at 29,800 yen. In order to promote the A1 at the time, we did several publicity campaigns such as a truck that traveled all over the country and the advertising character AshGuine. They were pretty memorable ad campaigns.
I’m sorry that it’s over. However, I’m truly grateful that people still appreciate the MSX to this day.
There was a golf game from Hudson that was pretty popular where you could switch between a professional and amateur mode. There was also a shooting game called Zanac, in which I made a bet with another employee named S-kun, who offered me a yen for each point I made. He owes me 2.4 million.
Taro Sugimoto
Even though Panasonic has officially ceased advertising their MSX computers in our magazine, they continue to publish advertisement for their U1 word processors. Perhaps they did out of obligation, but I feel they cherish their users more than that. Some members of their MSX development team has since moved on to the 3DO, but they still demonstrate their power even in their word processors. Because my nickname among my seniors was also “Taro”, I would often ignore people calling me out during MSX events if they didn’t attach my surname.
Same as above.
Taro Sugimoto, I.T. Division Commercial Affairs
I was doing promotion and advertisement under Takeuchi, Iwakiri and Hiraga, all whom I’ve received regards individually. In particular I was in charge of the MSX game events that were held once in every season. Since I was employed by the sales and promotion department, I never got around to making my own product, but I did write a utility book for an A1 peripheral. As a freshman employee at the time, it was my first experience with a PC, so it was extremely memorable.
Same as above.
The above-mentioned event. While I still organize events nowadays, the MSX Festival was the basis for everything. I used to travel all around the country, ate various delicacies and became acquainted with various representatives of software publishers, including Ms. Kitane, all whom have become valuable assets to me. I still treasured the t-shirt and sweatshirt that were produced for those events.
I’m currently in charge of advertising and managing promotion for our word processors and MSX-FAN could help us out by published our ads in each issue… I think. I’m sorry.
While organizing an event in Osaka, there was lack of manpower, so I helped out while wearing a sweatshirt. I was already in my second year within the company and I ran into a college acquaintance at the venue and he asked me “you’re still working as a part-timer.” Anyway, please support our word processors.
Hideo Kojima
When one hears the name Konami, a mountain of memories pop up. Konami has been releasing software vigorously since the beginning of the MSX’s lifespan and they always had an amazing quality to them. We have wonderful memories of games such as the fun Antarctic Adventure and Space Manbow, which turned out to be a good game despite constant delays thanks to the commitment of the developers. It seems that Konami carries the philosophy during development that one has to observe games that are hits or duds, and understand why they sell or not. As a result, Konami has created the most splendid games in the world. In such circumstances, Mr. Kojima created a new kind of game with a scenario for the PC market that wouldn’t had been possible in an arcade environment.
Konami
Hideo Kojima, Development Section 5
Planning, writing, direction, and a few character designs
For Kojima: Metal Gear, Snatcher, Solid Snake. For Konami in general: the Nemesis series, the Knightmare trilogy, Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, Space Manbow, Penguin Adventure, The Goonies, and many more.
My most memorable project was the original Metal Gear. Back then I was a rookie who didn’t know to distinguish between his right and his left, so I didn’t know how to make a game at the time. I didn’t even know how to get assistance from people. I had no credibility as a planner (since my previous game proposal got rejected). I think it was pretty reckless of me to create a new type of game. I had nothing but enthusiasm to drive me.
With the MSX, there was a sense of “learning together” and “living together.” In particular, I was full of feelings that I shared with players during my youth. My game development career was never in the limelight, so I don’t know how much the sincere opinions of all my players have encouraged and supported me. Even now I’m still encouraged by the correspondences of players from those days. I think there’s some sort of coexistence that goes beyond the framework between a receiver and a sender.
Each year new talent enter the game industry. Among them are many people that choose this path by being inspired by the MSX. At the very the least they inherited a burning passion for the MSX. The users (receivers) and developers (senders) will always remember the “sensation” of that time. If they have “pride”, then I’m sure the game industry will move towards a good direction.
If you’ve read my previous post about Hideo Kojima’s 2-part guest column on Beep! Mega Drive, then you probably noticed that his columns were labeled Part 2 and 3. Well Part 1(published on the March ‘93 issue of the same magazine) was actually written by Toyo Shotaro and dealt with his experience with the original MSX version of Parodius.
Toyo Shotaro, also known as Takemasa Miyoshi, worked as a graphic designer in various Konami games, including (but not limited) to the arcade version of Parodius Da!, the Super NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, and the N64 fighting game Deadly Arts.
Inside Stories of the MSX Now Revealed Part 1: Tragic Story – Ah! The MSX of Youth
by Shotaro Toyo
Speaking of Parodius, did you know the original version was on the MSX? (I can’t believe it’s been over six years since it came out). First of all, development started rather frivolously as a side-project alongside another game we were working on and then we realized something… It was going to be a limited print run with just 10,000 units to be produced… That’s when our hardships began. When the lid was opened, the development period turned out to be just one month! The development plan had sloppy programming instructions with advice such as “I’m counting on you for the movement of the boss!” Everyday, from morning to night, I was devoting my youthful energy to Parodius.
Even with the super hard schedule, I wasn’t pleased with some of the stages that the staff made despite their great commitment, so they had to be trashed! It feels like it was only yesterday that felt that we were being strangled out of our necks! But we can create a work that we can be confident in when it is done in such a matter. Our ideas, gags and game features must stand out on every count.
Because of its small print run, the MSX Parodius seems to be a very hard game to come by in game shops, but if you do manage to find it, make sure to play it at least once! The experience of the original is a bit different.
By the way, the cover artwork by yours truly is a must-see! Look for it!
Comic Translation
Hayasaka (the lady): “Oh-no! The space bar felt out! What? The M and N keys are missing too.“
Masa (the guy): “Is that so? They broke because you’ve been playing too much shumps! You overdid it with the Gradius games!”
The following is a translation of a short interview with Hideo Kojima that was published in the Konami Support column of the November 19, 1998 issue of PlayStation Magazine by Tokumashoten Intermedia.
Special thanks to Twitter user HeitaiS for providing the scans, which can be found here.
The Strangeness of Naming
How did you came up with Ocelot’s name?
Well, originally he was going to be named Lynx, which is a wildcat [山猫/yamaneko in Japanese, literally a mountain cat]. However, to a Japanese person that name doesn’t quite convey that image. I thought making him a wildcat would be cool, wouldn’t it? So I really wanted him to be a wildcat.
So there’s a story written by author Yoichi Funato about a certain wildcat and it’s an ocelot, so that’s when I thought “alright, this is the one.” [Kojima is likely referring to the novel Yamaneko no Natsu/山猫の夏, otherwise known as The Summer of the Ocelot.]
Are ocelot wildcats?
That’s right! I decided on Revolver Ocelot since it sounded cool and was the easiest to understand in terms of image. Like an ““old man wildcat” who happens to be sly. It’s the same thing with Raven. There are various birds in the Corvus family, so calling him “Crow” would’ve been too obvious. When a foreigner hears the name Decoy Octopus, it sounds as suspicious as a phony ninja. His name comes from the fact that octopuses are masters of disguises and are good at camouflage. That and “Decoy Chameleon” couldn’t be used. (laughs)
Raven’s Interests
Don’t you think Vulcan Raven seems a bit rough to be an elite university graduate from Alaska?
Well he’s a shaman. He’s a sort of magician, or at least was raised to be that way, and possesses such powers. He went to university since he wanted to support the studies of such powers scientifically.
In contrast to Raven, who is a shaman who harmonizes with the power of nature and prospers mutually with it, Solid Snake is not a man created by nature, which is something that is very interesting to Raven himself. Despite his mythical powers, he cannot read Snake, which frustrates him and fills him with the desire to fight against him. Well, at the end he is pleased to mention that before dying.
Is there any reason why the six members [of FOX HOUND] have animal names?
No particular reason at all. Americans tend to like that sort of thing. But usually they tend to pick poisonous animals, like a cobra.
Who are the Snakes?
Does Snake represent a snake that ate the forbidden knowledge, which would be cloning technology?
So it came to this. (laughs) There is such a meaning. Solid Snake’s name does have a significance. A snake is a fluid creature, while “solid” means something that is uncorrupted or a hard object. In other words, a solid snake is a contradiction in adjective. It something that originally didn’t exists like a stiff flexible object or a frozen jelly
So does that Liquid is a pure thing?
You’ll know that when you get to the end, but Liquid is a genuine kind. Apart from that, the fact that Solid and Liquid are siblings is not a mystery. It’s pretty obvious from the beginning. I didn’t make it into a complete mystery, since that would be pretty old-fashioned (laughs). Instead, I want you to play the game while thinking what it means to be recessive or dominant.
For the April and May ‘93 issues of the Japanese video game magazine Beep! Mega Drive, Hideo Kojima himself wrote a 2-part guest column where he revealed various inside-stories regarding the development of the MSX2 video game Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. This was shortly after Konami started supporting the Mega Drive (a.k.a. Genesis) as a third-party developer and began publishing a monthly article in Beep! Mega Drive where they would discuss their latest projects for Sega’s 16-bit console.
I took the liberty of posting scans of both columns and providing my own translation for each below.
Inside Stories of the MSX Now Revealed Part 2: The MSX of Our Youth [The Final MSX Machine]
by Hideo Kojima
Personally I would like to cover Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake in this issue, which ended up becoming the last MSX title we ever released, since there are some heavy inside-stories regarding its development that can now be revealed.
Metal Gear 2 is a game that I have a particular strong attachment towards, with various inside stories surrounding it (nothing tragic though). In the next two months I will be publicly revealing 5 or so anecdotes about the game (you won’t be disappointed).
Part 1: Snakes from different mothers
Do you know where the idea for Metal Gear 2 came from? It was a strange circumstance. Another department within the company was working on a Metal Gear sequel (Snake’s Revenge) for the NES at the time, since the NES version of the first Metal Gear was a million seller overseas. One day I received a passionate request from one of the developers from the other team, which was tom make this sequel. If I wasn’t approached by this so-called brother from a different mother, it might had never been born.
Part 2: The sales division was holding out on us
This happened because the Famicom version of Metal Gear was not well-received domestically (in Japan) compared to abroad (at the time the MSX sales division had many people that were transferred over from the Famicom division). Our staff went on a business trip for a whole day to persuade the sales division. Thus, our enthusiasm and planning intention got us through one obstacle.
Part 3: There was no designer!
Despite the fact that our team was already formed, we still went days and days without a designer. At that rate we ended up carrying out an internal design contest for the Metal Gear mech and the best one ended up serving as the finalized design for the Metal Gear D (we even gave out an actual prize with monetary expenses). However, the designer ultimately ended up becoming a member of the game’s development team.
To be continued in the next issue.
Inside Stories of the MSX Now Revealed Part 3: The MSX of Our Youth [The Final MSX Machine]
by Hideo Kojima
Continuing from the the previous issue, we will reveal further anecdotes regarding the development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the final MSX game we made.
Part 4: The game developers became battlefield otakus
Since one of our goals for Solid Snake was to pursue realism, we spent the days and nights gathering as many reference materials we could think of as possible such as movies, books and model guns. The reference materials and model guns were piling up like mountains on the top of our desks and people were even starting to show up for work in full combat fatigues. We even met with an author who was a former Green Beret. We secluded ourselves to a mountain in order to play a survival game using infrared guns. Thus, our work became a hobby and our geeky daily life became a simulation of the game. All of the equipment that belonged to the developers were photographed and used for the packaging and manual. The crawling characters that appear in the game were even roughly designed after staff members who were acting out the poses.
Part 5: The development of the game was temporarily suspended
While in the middle of development, progress on SD Snatcher was compromised, so the entire Solid Snake team was brought in to lend them support. There were concerns that the development of Solid Snake might be halted under those conditions, but development resumed without any issues after SD Snatcher was completed and the game was released shortly afterward. In retrospect, that incident provided a suitable cooling-off period so we could look into Solid Snake more calmly.
By the way, did you know that the final shot of the ending features the MSX boot-up sequence? This message contains a flood of emotion towards the MSX, which has walked alongside me up to this point . To the users who supported us, as well as our staff… The MSX will keep on being a page of my youth (that was a very moving ending).
The following is a translation of an interview with Akihiko Nagata that was featured in the February 1988 issue of MSX-FAN. Nagata-san was a developer within Konami’s MSX department during the 1980′s. This article is mainly focused on the Konami Game Master utility cartridge, known as the Konami no Game wo Jūbai Tanoshimu Cartridge in Japan (literally “The Konami Cartridge That Makes Games Ten Times More Enjoyable”) or the “Jūbai Cartridge” for short. This interview specifically focuses on the enhanced that was released in 1988 known as the Shin Jūbai Cartridge, also known as the Game Master II.
Akihiko Nagata is often credited as one of the original creators of the Akumajō Dracula, although in reality he only worked on the MSX2 version (released in Europe as Vampire Killer) and not on the original Famicom/NES game, although he would later become an executive producer in many titles, most notably the PC Engine version of Snatcher, as well as Policenauts and the original Metal Gear Solid.
Introduction
We wondered why kind of developers are the people behind Konami who put hits after hits such as Shalom and Salamander. We did a direct interview with Mr. Akihiko Nagata to find out.
Mr. Akihiko Nagata is the supervisor who leads the PC department in Konami’s development headquarters. He is 28, unmarried and currently resides in Hyogo. His hobby is work. He was busy during this day, attending this interview and a party.
Secret History of the Game Master
MSX-FAN: The Game Master 2 was released last January, but the original Game Master was already something of an unusual software. For starters, it’s not a video game at all.
Nagata: That’s because the Game Master is a software we used to test out games during development. It was a software that we made out of necessity for development. It was pretty easy to make it into a retail product. No development costs were necessary, it was simply a matter of putting it together. (laughs) The hardest part was trying to make the Game Master compatible with the games that were released before it. So when it came to the older games, we had to insert many programs for each of them. The next obstacle after that was trying to make the Game Master compatible with all MSX models with a second cartridge slot. That was truly difficult.
Speaking of which, the usage and functionality of the original Game Master differs when played on MSX2-specific games.
It couldn’t be used to import screen data or to create save data [on those MSX2 games]. The Game Master was also required to be on the second cartridge slot [as opposed to the first slot]. Because of this, the Game Master 2 not only has the same usage and functionality as the original Game Master, but it can also be used to record screen data and game progress on MSX2 games.
It seems that you can save your progress using S-RAM.
We added 8-kilobytes of S-RAM in order to make saving progress convenient. You can save your progress on the Game Master 2 or on a disk with around 2 key inputs.
That sounds convenient for RPGs and Adventure games. So does that mean we’ll be seeing more of those type of games?
We have many requests for such games. I would like to make a game that could becoming a series like Dragon Slayer or Hydlide, but I would also like to develop a software that could create a sense of unity between the player and the game and of course, have a Konami-like sense of action.
Games Born From The Game Master
There are Konami games that make use of the MSX’s second cartridge slot for interesting features. For example, you can turn the Vic Viper in Gradius [released as Nemesis in the UK] into the titular ship from TwinBee.
When we were working on Gradius for the MSX, the neighboring Famicom division were working on Moero TwinBee [released on the NES as Stinger in North America], so we’ve tried putting a side-way TwinBee for a bit in the game. It turned out to be fun and that’s how it ended up being.
Have you created such games while thinking about using the second cartridge slot from the outset.
It was planned from the beginning with Gradius 2 [aka Nemesis 2] and Salamander [note: the MSX version of Salamander has a secret ending that requires you to clear the game with a Gradius 2 cartridge on the second slot], but usually we put such features in a game just before it goes into mass-production in around a day.
Finally, which was the game that gave you the most concern?
Naturally it was a game that didn’t sell well, but it’s difficult to describe what kind of game it was. (laughs) For instance, it was a game that was described by a certain publication as a “Konami-like shooting game”. I will leave it to your imagination to figure out which game it was.
I’m sure we can rely on Konami for making fun games. Thank you for taking your time today.
The following is a translation of an interview with Hideo Kojima that was published in a special commemorative issue of MSX Magazine published on May 12, 2005. At the time, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on the PlayStation 2 was the latest entry, while the MSX2 entries of the series, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, had just been ported to Japanese feature phones, although they would later be given an international release a few months later through their inclusion in the Subsistence re-release of Metal Gear Solid 3.
In this interview, Kojima talks about his involvement with the MSX development department of Konami and how it shaped him to become the game developer he would become later on and also discusses some of the other MSX games put out by Konami. The original Japanese interview can be found here, which also includes an interview with Metal Gear 2 sound designer Kazuhiko Uehara, which I might post a translation at a later time.
EDIT (2019/6/8): I completely revised the translation of this interview, since I’ve noticed quite a few mistakes that slipped by me after the initial posting. I’m much more satisfied with this version of the translation. I’ve also uploaded my translation of the Kazuhiko Uehara interview, which can be found here.
Disliking The MSX At First
We brought you a present, Mr. Kojima (an MSX Game Reader, an adapter that allows users to play actual MSX cartridges on a PC with an emulator).
Hideo Kojima: Oh, cool! This is truly amazing, isn’t it. Nice! (opens box). Are they still selling this?
Sorry, but we’re currently sold out. Of course, that one is yours.
But you can’t put two cartridges at the same time. [TL’s note: Most MSX computers had two cartridge slots. Some Konami cartridges had special features that would be unlocked when played together. For example, playing Gradius/Nemesis with TwinBee on the second cartridge slot would replace the Vic Viper with the actual TwinBee.]
Actually, you can. You’ll just need to buy another Game Reader.
Is that so. (while looking at an issue of MSX Magazine) MSX… How nostalgic. How are things going with the MSX?
We were not sure how many copies of the first issue we would sell, but it went beyond our expectations. There are many passionate fans.
There are many developers who came from the MSX. Even in Konami there are many people who would tell me that they joined the company because of Metal Gear. But the truth is that I actually hated the MSX when I joined Konami. (laughs)
Huh, is that so? Now that you say that, there are quite a few people who came to the MSX without ever getting a Famicom bought for them.
But in the end, we would only use it to play games on it… Everything else was done in BASIC. Nowadays I like playing games on it, but I don’t use any of its other programs. It’s way too complicated for me. But back then there would be many people who would try making stuff on their own.
Why did you hate the MSX at first?
Back in my college days, I thought about joining the game industry since I spent most of my free time at the video arcades. But the MSX hardly crossed my mind. When I joined Konami I was only thinking of doing arcade and Famicom games and I had many ideas for those platforms, but for some reason I was assigned to do MSX games instead. It was difficult (working on the original MSX) since sprites would disappear when you line them up next to each other and the graphics were monochromatic. It was pretty painful.
Did you had to design things yourself too?
It was that sort of era. The development tools were made in-house and after our meeting was over, we would go to a place that was like a design department to use them. The arcade and Famicom departments would also have their designers nearby.
It must had been pretty difficult under those circumstances.
Essentially the MSX couldn’t surpass the arcade nor the Famicom. At least not in terms of graphics and sounds. Therefore you had no choice but to be focused on your work. So when it came to the planning, level designs and playability, you really needed someone to be a planner. The MSX division was the only Konami department that had planners. Although a planner is not what you would call an actual profession, they generally served double duty as designers. I started my career as a planner and thanks to the excellent seniors who were there to guide me, I was able to acquire experience that allowed me to make unusual games such as the original Metal Gear.
Using Hardware Limitations To Your Benefit
What brought upon the existence of the original Metal Gear?
I think it can be told now. At the time there was a popular arcade game by Capcom titled Commando, so I was told to make a game similar to that, but on the MSX1. [TL’s note: For some reason Kojima mentions the MSX1 specifically, even though the original Metal Gear was released on its successor, the MSX2. I’m guessing he’s either misremembering or he’s talking about a prototype version that ran on the older hardware. It’s hard to tell.] Back then I think you could only move in six directions. Six directions was going to be impossible, but even reducing it to just four was too restricting. We had no choice but to make a game that could be done without enemies. And that’s what allowed me to develop Metal Gear.
Metal Gear’s gameplay system used the MSX’s hardware limitations to its own advantage. It’s noticeable during gameplay that there aren’t that many bullets on-screen.
They wouldn’t come out horizontally either. There were five function keys, so we thought about using each of them. The F4 key for example, would bring up the transceiver. Simultaneously pressing one key and another was unthinkable on a controller.
If I remember correctly, the original Metal Gear didn’t cause much of an impact at first, but afterward it started getting a following as word of mouth spread. It was a difficult game to understand at first, but then people ended up acquiring a taste for it.
That’s because the company didn’t interfere with us too much. At that time, arcade games were still pretty popular and the Famicom boom was in its peak. While the MSX was also popular, we were selling less than the other departments, who were selling millions. But because of that, we were given more leeway to do what we wanted. At the company’s cafeteria they would post the five best-selling games for each platform on a board. When it came to the MSX, the top five titles were all games published by Konami. We were proud of that fact, but our salaries were never raised.
We’re going to interview Mr. Uehara for this issue too. Did you two work together on Metal Gear?
We worked together not on the original Metal Gear, but its sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. I had the most joy in my life during that period. A contrast from the original Metal Gear, which was the most difficult for me. We did Metal Gear 2 for most of 1989, but it wasn’t released until 1990. It took a while to come out since our team had to assist in the development of SD Snatcher. It ultimately ended up becoming the last MSX game we ever released.
And then it evolved into Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation.
When I heard there was going to be a home console capable of 3D polygon graphics, my first thought was “we can finally do a true hide & seek game”. We kept the bird’s eye view so far out of reluctance, but I was curious if we were capable of doing stuff like hiding under desks or inside lockers, so we were going to make Metal Gear Solid with a simple set-up, but contents of the game ended up being almost identical to Metal Gear 2. Stuff like “searching the back of the game box [to learn a certain character’s frequency number]”.
Metal Gear Solid was a huge success at the end.
Yes, but the MSX version [Metal Gear 2] was the most interesting.
Konami’s Golden Titles
Snatcher was another memorable game for us.
After I’ve finished working on Metal Gear, the way people saw me within Konami changed. My status was raised quite considerably, but my salary was still pretty low. (laughs) I didn’t know what to do next, so I took a one week vacation and drove to Awajijima with a friend. At that moment I felt like I wanted to make an adventure game like the Portopia Serial Murder Case, a game I was into during my college years. Also, if it was an adventure game, I would’ve be the one making the vital decisions during development. Working for a game company that specialized on arcade game was tough, since they prioritized programmers.
The original version of Snatcher was the one for the NEC PC-8801.
While planning out Snatcher, Enix put out another game titled JESUS. It was a great game, wasn’t it? When I saw [JESUS], I was convinced that I had to develop [Snatcher]for the PC-8801 or it wouldn’t be good. Konami’s condition was that I would also develop an MSX2 version of the game, but I was extremely pleased with that and thought “alright.”
It was the first Konami game developed for the PC-88.
That’s right. We had quite a lot of pressure, since we didn’t have the tools nor the sales channel. It was ultimately released a year and a half behind schedule. After that happened, we couldn’t make the sequel anymore [TL’s note: The PC-88 and MSX2 versions of Snatcher ends the story on a cliffhanger at Act 2. The later console versions added Act 3 as a conclusion, but originally Kojima wanted to do a Snatcher sequel that picks up from where Act 2 left off.], so we ended up going back to the MSX.
The game afterward was SD Snatcher.
That’s right.
I wondered at the time why it became SD.
I thought so too. I wondered myself why they were developing such a game. Nevertheless, nobody would’ve known how the story of Snatcher would’ve ended if we didn’t include the rest of it. It would’ve been an awful story.
Space Manbow [a side-scrolling shoot-‘em-up released by Konami for the MSX2 in 1989] was another game that we were passionate about.
Initially the game was going to be titled “Alphard” if I’m not mistaken, which didn’t seem like a very marketable name. The game itself was excellent in terms of programming, but something about it didn’t seem too interesting. That was when Mr. Akihiko Nagata [the head of the MSX department, who would end up becoming the executive producer of the original Metal Gear Solid.] loudly proclaimed something like “Space Manbow sounds good, doesn’t it”? The Manbow [otherwise known as a Ocean Sunfish] was a popular fish back then. The title was decided after everyone said “huh?”.
I heard that they had to replace all the characters in the game in around a month.
It was actually supposed to be a port of Thunder Cross [another side-scrolling shoot-‘em-up by Konami, released for the arcades in 1988], but the developers ended up becoming too absorbed into their work. At the time Uehara and myself would work together until midnight and since my lodgings were located close to him, I would drive him home there while listening to the music he composed for Metal Gear 2 on the car. We usually had dinner together. We would go to a nearby sushi bar or something, get drunk, have a fight and then we would get up early for work… It was that sort of lifestyle.
I get the impression that the entire staff were lodging together.
That’s right. The building in Kobe even had a bath and a gym. I once stayed there for 24 hours. But there were no friends around, even during vacations. I had no choice but to travel alongside co-workers during vacation trips. We were an unhappy bunch.
The Reason Why Konami’s MSX Games Were Interesting
We have a strong impression that the content of Konami’s MSX game were thoroughly scrutinized before they were released.
That’s because we had planners. That’s how our development method differed compared to the other departments at Konami. At the MSX department we would do the packaging, catch-copy, design and manuscripts for a game’s manual all by ourselves. We did everything. It brings me back.
The planner system was the key.
There was this sort-of mentality of “making the player have a game over in one coin” that was borne from an arcade origin like Konami, which resulted in simple games. Those kind of game were really rampant when I joined the company, so I would get angry whenever I was told that I only have a day to come up with the backstory of the game’s world. PC game companies, such as Square and Enix, understood what world-building was about, and that’s where planners like Yuji Horii [creator of the Dragon Quest series] came from, since their development infrastructure were completely different. However, in such situation, the presence of unusual markets such as the MSX, is what I think what Metal Gear made possible, which made me who I am now.
The graphics were pretty too.
At the time our in-house tools were pretty substantial. Not just on the MSX, but also on the arcade and Famicom departments. At the time when other companies were using mouses, we were already using stylus pens. But that wasn’t the reason why our graphics were good. You can still draw poorly even while having decent tools. But afterward, our compression technology would be applied and that’s what made it look good.
How did Konami managed to release so many quality games in a row?
The department at the time evaluated the games thoroughly. We had around four teams, each led by a different planner, and they would evaluate each other’s works. If one of them was putting out an uninteresting game, everyone would join forces to fix it. Everyone in the other lines would stop their work and help rebuild the game. This accommodation would last around a month. It was interesting.
Games that are made like that tend to be successful.
They all were. Space Manbow and Hinotori both underwent that process. Treasure of Usas didn’t turn out to be very interesting though, even though people helped out on it. SD Snatcher was also completely remade when I got involved. That’s why we never put out a bad game. You could say that was our corporate or house style.
Emotional Support From MSX Users
It’s not unusual for people to buy games because of the creators involved nowadays, but back then we would buy your games because of your involvement.
Back when the original Metal Gear was being made, Famicom games were selling so well that there was a lot headhunting happening. We were told that we couldn’t put our names in the game, but we really wanted to. In the end, we ended up doing so and my name appears as “H. Kojima” on the staff roll [TL’s note: They actually used his full name in Metal Gear. “H. Kojima” was used on the NEC PC-8801 and MSX2 version of Snatcher.]. This practice wasn’t allowed elsewhere, but we were forgiven since we were doing only MSX games.
That’s how we were able to follow your work.
We would receive survey cards asking “is Kojima-san alright?”, but since they only saw my name written in romanized characters, they would write it in kana only or use the wrong kanji characters. They didn’t start publishing my face and the kanji for my full name until they released the PC Engine version of Snatcher. In terms of sales, we were outclassed by the Famicom division, so we didn’t get much praise, but we sold well enough to be kept around.
But we did your recognize your games.
During the MSX1 era, it would take a pace of 3 months to produce a single game and it was the same thing for the Famicom. Maybe 6 months if they realy took their time. In my case, my projects would’ve taken a year and a half to complete, which wasn’t normal back then. Naturally, nobody appreciate that.
They would complain that you were taking too long.
The sales people around me were kind though. After the release date, I would’ve received tons of FAX where they would sent me everything. Even if we weren’t appreciated in a business sense, we were still recognized thanks to the players and sales people around us.
We are happy to know that you received positive feedback.
The survey cards and letters we’ve received were always placed in the lounge. I would read them over and over again like I was indulging them. We would also receive chocolate around this period. Nowadays we don’t get them that often.
MSX users like us would often argue with the Famicom-owning kids at school. For example, we would brag that the MSX version of Gradius had a long laser, while the Famicom version didn’t have that.
That’s amazing, but no matter how you put it, the MSX was inferior in terms of hardware and it was expensive at that, wasn’t it? But since [MSX users] came from a highly intellectual place, we strongly felt we had to implement various schemes to appeal to them.
Your experience with the MSX is what led you to become who you are now.
It was because of the MSX. At the time I thought “Why must I join the MSX”?, but now I’m truly grateful. I believe the MSX department was really blessed, since I haven’t been so for a while.
The following is a translation of an interview with Konami’s Naoki Matsui that was published in the MSX Tsūshin supplement that came included in the January 1988 issue of LOGiN magazine. It centers around the development of the MSX version of Salamander. The interview is very brief and somewhat tongue-in-cheek in nature, but it does give a bit of insight in the development of the game.
As I’ve mentioned before, Naoki Matsui was the lead developer of the MSX Gradius series, which consists of Nemesis, Nemesis 2, Salamander, Parodius and Nemesis 3: Eve of Destruction. He also directed the first Nemesis game for the original Game Boy. Matsui was also a very instrumental figure during Hideo Kojima’s early career, helping him get the MSX2 version of Metal Gear approved by their superiors, as well as serving as supervisor during the development of the NEC PC-8801 and MSX2 versions of Snatcher. Matsui has since retired from the game industry, but is still somewhat active as a guitarist in the indie scene.
Interview questions have been typed in bold, while general statements are typed in italics. Matsui’s answers have been left in regular typeset.
Interview
We’ve interviewed the developer of Salamander directly from a phone dating club. The interviewer is Chavfraska Kagawa from our editorial department, while the interviewee on the other end is Mr. Matsui from Konami’s MSX department. While Mr. Matsui is young, he has already worked on numerous titles such as Konami’s Soccer, Hinotori, King Kong 2, Nemesis and Nemesis 2.
I apologize ahead of time, since I know you’re busy. If it’s too much for you, we can quite anytime.
…
How confident are you in Salamander?
It’s the best version yet. There’s tons of content that isn’t in the arcade and Famicom versions. Even more so than Nemesis and Nemesis 2.
Wow! You’re really confident about it!
Will there be any possible ROM cartridge combination in the game? Let’s say for example if you put Q-Bert in the second, will smoke come out or something?
Listen carefully. I can’t reveal the precise details yet, but if you play Salamander in combination with Nemesis 2, an important item can be uncovered in the game that will affect the final outcome… You will experience a magnificent space opera that transcends time and space. If you don’t have Nemesis 2, get your copy now.
We will promote it as much as possible.
Mr. Matsui, by the way, is seen by him and his peers to be a young metalhead. Naturally, he formed his own band and shreds with his Flying V guitar. He seems to be working hard, even on holidays (or not).
How’s the ending?
Well, it changes depending. on how you play, but to sum it up in a few words, it will affect the results of Operation Seed Leak.
Can you tell us any stories of hardships?
There are many things I wanted to do with Salamander on the MSX that involved things from memory capacity to processing speed. I also had to be convinced to change the graphic designs of the game from the one previously used in the original Nemesis and Nemesis 2.
It seems you have a hard time after all. Wah!
The main programmer told me that he’s “doing nothing but hard work.” Of course! No one could’ve expected Salamander to be ported to the MSX. That’s all the stories I have to say. Except for one thing. In the work schedule that Ms. Kamio (from Konami’s PR department) gave me, there wasn’t a single rest day on it. Her dad must be Dr. Venom, no doubt about it…
I see.. I understand what you’re feeling pretty well…
We asked Ms. Kamio the next day about this and she said this wasn’t the case, but everyone from the development team seems to believe that. We think so too.
Los ataques protagonizados por empleados díscolos y ransomware crecieron con fuerza 2018 según Accenture.
Relación de industrias atacadas con ransomware durante el tercer trimestre de 2019 según Coveware.
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