My Hardware #4 - Philips VG-8235 MSX2

MSX platform was never a popular computer system in Poland. During communist times we had some SVI's imported, but they never got very popular, mainly because of the lack of software available in my country. But as a retro computer enthusiast I was always interested in this format, mainly because it is so exotic here. My interest peaked in 2016, when I've seen an MSX2 demo Baltak Rampage by Traktor, released at Revision 2016. It amazed me, that this 8-bit machine has such great graphics capabilities, and I started scanning online auction sites for potential hardware. After months of waiting, I found Philips VG-8235 auctioned on allegro.pl. It was unchecked, without any warrandy (sold "as is") and probably found on some German scrapyard. Nevertheless, MSX2's are very rare on polish auctions, so I placed a bid, and won the auction with final price of around 250 PLN (around 60 euro).

Here are the computers specifics from MSX.Org:

Brand Philips (Manufacturer: NEC)
Type VG-8235
Year 1986
RAM 128kB
VRAM 128kB
Media MSX cartridges, 1DD floppy disks
Video Yamaha V9938
Audio PSG (custom chip integrated in MSX-Engine S3527)
Chipset Yamaha S3527
Extras 360kB 3,5" floppy disk drive, external disk drive connector, reset button, firmware on disks (MSX-DOS1 - Home Office - Designer)

When I recevied the VG-8235 it was ultimately dirty, the disk drive wasn't working, and some of the keys didn't respond. But it booted into BASIC, so I had hope. On pictures below you can see, that the reason for keyboard problems was dirt, and that floppy drive had the rubber belt torn to pieces.

I replaced the drive belt, cleaned the keyboard parts and diskdrive with vacuum cleaner and alcohol, I also soldered a cable to connect an external floppy drive. A cool feature of VG-8235 is that it has an external FDD port, compatible with standard PC 3,5" floppy drives. So a 1.44MB 3,5" drive from my old PC works fine with it and formats 720kb disks. Which is useful, as VG-8235's internal drive is just single-sided with 360kb capacity.

So, after cleaning and some minor repairs my Philips VG-8235 is fully operational. I also equipped it with SD512 card reader/memory expansion module, which I described on my blog some time ago, so now my MSX has more RAM (768kb), than my vanilla Amiga 1000 (512kb). Below are some pictures from the current state, and a video showing booting from SD512 into SofaRun, and running Space Manbow *.rom image with execrom.com .

SD512, SD card reader and memory expansion for MSX computers

Just recently I've bought myself a cool gadget for my Philips VG-8235 MSX2 computer.
It's an SD512 cartridge by 8bits4ever (http://www.8bits4ever.net/product-page/098e6224-da0c-4b83-ab5f-3cac906cd249), I ordered it from ebay (but also from the manufacturer), as it was out of stock in the online shop at the time. The cost was 81,5 euro with shipping, and 4GB micro SD filled with MSX goodies.

I've received the card around a week after my order, it came in a solid, well protected package, and I was sent all the necessary instructions and OS files via e-mail earlier. The card itself is manufactured really nicely, the one I have is in a blue transparent case, with a blue led blinkin' while accesing the card.

SD512 has two independent slots, one for micro SD, one for standard SD card. It also comes equipped with 512 kb Ram, which can be configured by switches to either Mega Ram, Mapper, or turned off. I use it most in mapper mode, with purpose of mounting *.ROM images.

On the attached micro SD I found Nextor 2.10 software, along with latest SofRun installed, and some *.ROM and *.DSK files with games for my tests. For those, who don't know Nextor is an operating system compatible with MSX-DOS with native support for Fat16, and SofaRun is a great software pack, aimed at easy running of games from *.ROM and *.DSK files.

While I'm still an inexperienced MSX user, I've found that not all of the games I have run straight off SD512. With ROM files it's really a gamble, most of the smaller, MSX1 roms work, but I have problems running a lot of MSX2 ROMS. Around half of the 256 kb ROMS work, and I haven't been able to run any of the 512 kb roms, even though SD 512 has the necessary memory. Same applies to DSK software, and that's because some of the non standard disks work only from a real floppy, or using a floppy emulator like HXC. On the other hand, all of the standard files based software, including all the recent MSX1&2 scene demos works great.

Short list of some of the ROM's that run flawlessly:
Aleste
Androgynous
Ashguin 2
Kings Valley
Maze of Galious
Metal Gear
Nemesis 1-3
Parodius
Penguin Adventure
Salamander
Vampire Killer


Overall I must say that SD512 is a great piece of hardware. The thing with some ROM's not running is due to the fact, that I'm a lamer when it comes to MSX, and I still haven't investigated software like execrom.com and romload.com correctly, I still need to mess some more with the options. And another tihng is that this sowtware is in fact a hack, and ROM files should be flashed using proper Flash ROM cartridges, and no be mounted in RAM, and that is completly different hardware than SD512.

The baseline is: SD512 is a nice hardware, doing it's job as a mass storage device and RAM expansion.

p.s. You can also check a cool article about MSX ram expansions here: http://www.lavandeira.net/2016/07/multi-review-msx-memory-mapper-mega-mapper-and-memory-samurai-part-1-of-2/
cool links:
http://msx.org - ultimate msx resource
http://www.8bits4ever.net - hardware producer
http://lhalter.free.fr/mgr/ - SofaRun and other great soft form MSX

Tfardy