exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

So I've had this MSX cart for some time now and it has caused me a good deal of annoyance!!

The instructions are a bit poor, and from a search of the web, I found people were having a variety of problems like me, so I had a play around to see what would get me started.

After a lot of research, overall the best option for a plain MSX like my Toshiba seemed to be to use Sofarun, a browser type program, which runs off the SD card and allows you to mount DSK images and ROMs etc, so I downloaded that, and also NEXTOR.SYS, COMMAND2.COM and I created an AUTOEXEC.BAT file containing the following lines:
The only thing you might do here is remove the last line as this is what will start Sofarun at boot time. Removing this line just means you need to run it manually.

Don't worry too much about getting the files you need, I have attached a file called MSX_Disk.zip.txt to this post, just remove the .txt file extension and unzip everything you need. I also included the best manual I could find, again, remove .txt and access the PDF as normal.

So what did I do?

1. First I booted from the cart with both of the switches set to the right when looking at the front of the cartridge (This enables mapper mode) and a blank 2GB SD card in the front slot.
2. Next I ran the command CALL FDISK from the BASIC prompt and followed the on screen instructions to create a single 16MB FAT 12 partition on the 2GB SD card.
3. I then shut down the MSX machine and transferred the SD card to my laptop and unzipped the contents of MSX_Disk.zip to that partition.
4. After ejecting the SD card from the laptop, I reinserted into the cart and powered on the MSX. The MSX now booted with NEXTOR.SYS, MSX-DOS and with Sofarun started.
5. From Sofarun, press ESC and select the option to exit to BASIC.
6. Now NEXTOR.SYS is loaded, I re ran 'CALL FDISK' from BASIC and used the menu to review and delete the 16MB partition and create a new 2GB partition.
7. I repeated the power off process and moved the SD card over to my laptop again and re-copied the contents of MSX_Disk.zip back onto the new 2GB partition, then back to the MSX, where it now boots and I have a 2GB SD card where I can start to add DSK and ROM files that I can start using Sofarun.

Note, NEXTOR will only allow for partition sizes up to 4GB, so don't expect to use anything larger. I was however able to create 2 partitions on an 8GB SD card, though I suspect that could hold all of the available MSX software several times over!!

None of the above was easily available in one place, which was not helpful.

This is what it looks like booted:


And as you can see it looks very like normal DOS environment. Note that on first run, Sofarun (SR /S) will create a few work directories, this is normal, just wait for it to complete.

Here is a ROM (Dig Dug) executed directly from the Sofarun environment:

So I said this was a review, well that part comes now.

The cart I bought is very nicely made, and I have no complaints about that, however getting to a point where it can be usefully used like for example the FinalGROM for the TI99/4a or the Concerto for the Atari 7800 is, as you can see, a pretty painful process.

I expect now that I have the files to get booted and a process, then in all honesty, it's simple and repeatable, hence adding the instructions above to help folks who are struggling.

If I'd known all of this before, I'd have likely looked for something else more like FinalGROM, but it is what it is and it works.

As it is now with Sofarun, it's going to be really handy, but if you want a cart that will just plug and go, this isn't for you.

If you're prepared to do the setup as I did, then you're good to go.

I've now created an IMG file that can be written to SD card and a DMG file for Mac users. Hopefully these will help in getting an SD card set up:

MSX SD Card for Mapper - IMG file

MSX SD Card for Mapper - DMG file

I haven't uploaded these due to their sizes, 2GB each, but feel free to download as you wish.

Aside from being bootable in the Mapper cart, I have added a number of games considered to be the '100 best games for MSX'. Sofarun will execute at boot and you can pick from ROMs, DSK images and CAS (Cassette) files.

Be aware with all the ROMs it can seem like Sofarun has hung, it hasn't, it just takes a while to enumerate the files, so be patient.

I'm keen to get my hands on the SCC version of this cart for testing purposes.

terriblefire wrote: 18 Aug 2022 20:19 I'm keen to get my hands on the SCC version of this cart for testing purposes.

Isn't it opensourced? Could you build your own or is the chip shortage still causing issues?

These MSX games are kinda cool and there is a lot of variance in quality between titles.

Some are really bright and colourful, with multi colour sprites and backgrounds, yet some are more like Spectrum games complete with colour clash.

Some don't work at all, but I had kind of expected that, I have similar results with some of my other machines...

Overall a great cart, but took a lot of setting up.

I guess the difference is between MSX(1) and MSX2 machines as the graphics chip in the MSX2 is far more advanced than the 1979 vintage TI9918A.

stephen_usher wrote: 22 Aug 2022 12:52 I guess the difference is between MSX(1) and MSX2 machines as the graphics chip in the MSX2 is far more advanced than the 1979 vintage TI9918A.

Yes, and it seems like a lot more video ram too, though remaining backwards compatible.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 22 Aug 2022 10:24

terriblefire wrote: 18 Aug 2022 20:19 I'm keen to get my hands on the SCC version of this cart for testing purposes.

Isn't it opensourced? Could you build your own or is the chip shortage still causing issues?

I dont think so. I contacted the designer/seller and he said naw. But if its open i could build it myself.

terriblefire wrote: 23 Aug 2022 10:50

rubber_jonnie wrote: 22 Aug 2022 10:24

Isn't it opensourced? Could you build your own or is the chip shortage still causing issues?

I dont think so. I contacted the designer/seller and he said naw. But if its open i could build it myself.

Maybe it's just the Mapper/Megaram that opensourced and not the SCC version. Be nice if you could build one though.

Ok then, it seems it was a good job I documented my experiences setting up the MSX card for the Mapper/Megaram cart, as my SD card decided to fail yesterday, so it was relatively trivial to rebuild by imaging another SD card.

I did have a tidy up of the image, so here is the latest for download, it can be written under Windows using Win32DiskImager.

MSX Card Image

On a side note, I'm now short of small capacity full size SD cards, and I really don't like the micro SD to SD adaptors, they feel really flimsy, so went to look for full size 2-4GB cards and other than ebay, they seem hard to find and expensive.

I guess it's a side effect of improving technology, but annoying nonetheless when all you can use in the Mapper/Megaram is 4GB, and I feel annoyed when half an SD card goes to waste.

Nevertheless I managed to source 4 4GB cards, so happy days.