Yearbook 2014 of MSX Resource Center by TnC (part 2)

And I shall continue:

Aug
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sanders-msx-party
+ Tnc: Great way to origanize MSX parties, just invite a MSX friend from an other country !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxemu-1519
+ TnC: another Android MSX Emulator without adds, so you have to pay for it.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/vampire-killer-and-knightmare-released-project-egg
+ TnC: Interesting that Konami is joining this project and on the other hand closing a fansite like konamito...
- http://www.msx.org/news/msx-related/en/retromaniac9-special-msx-30th-anniversary
+ TnC: Just another reason to learn myself Spanish.
- http://www.msx.org/news/msx-related/en/penguins-memory-tale-happiness-1985-anime-movie-featuring-pentaro
+ TnC: A whole movie about Pentaro, my hero in the first MSX game I ever played !
  I had to see this.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/penguin-adventure-released-wii-u
+ TnC: Mmmm, 1 more reason to buy a Wii-U
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/dskpro-651
+ TnC: How a announcement for a new version turned into a discussion about various formats for MSX-disks images...
  I better stick to the news, instead reading all comments...no use.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sg2msx-sg-1000-game-loader-msx-dos
+ TnC: An emulator for use on MSX itself ! Never heard of SG-1000, but more software
  for MSX is always welcome, emulated or not.

Sep
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/music/en/3bit-band-plays-msx
+ TnC: Yeah, a band playing live MSX game-musics, with the original game
  playing in the background !! Not to miss...
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/ay-music-contest
+ TnC: Didnt know that old Amstrad Spectrum Apple computers had the same soundchip as MSX.
  I hope I can listen to the results some day, MSX can use a couple of good PSG songs.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-fair-nijmegen-2015-announced
+ TnC: Nice to see there still is a MSX fair in Dutchland

Oct
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/46th-msx-users-metting-barcelona-ready
+ TnC: I think this is the biggest MSX fair in Europe, but Barcelona is a little too far for me
  I am sad cause cant go there.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/good-game-show-korea-2014-photo-shoot
+ TnC: MSX fair in Korea, okay. Another country with some MSX fans.
  Great, another country full of MSX. We take them one by one !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/moonblaster-v14-basic-driver-update
+ TnC: So many years after the release of Moonblaster (1992) a new driver ?
  You got to be kiddin ! Everybody uses Moonsound or other trackers these days !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-turbo-r-technical-handbook-scanned
+ TnC: Great work, but in Japenese ? No way ! This is no news for an
  English MSX website. A waste of my time.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/book-project-about-msx-france
+ TnC: Wow, MSX info in france. What is next, MSX Siberian Technical Manuals ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/gauntlet-finally-available-selling-internet
+ TnC: A new MSX game that is really finished and for sale is worth to mention.
  Not all those announcements that will never be finished.
 
Nov
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/matra-games-colorful-cartridge
+ TnC: Pink coloured, so you know what kind of game it is...
  But new MSX stuff should be promoted any way you can, yes ?
-  http://www.msx.org/news/en/repro-factory-msx-shop-announced
+ TnC: A new shop for MSX software I hope it will last.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/zombie-incident-cartridge-release-announced
+ TnC: msxdev game winner can now be bought. Fine, that is a hole in one !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/gem-v121-released
+ TnC: A Gameboy emulator for MSX ! But you have al lot of additional hardware
  to run this simple looking games. Is it really worth the trouble ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sinterklaas-remakes-nemesis-2-and-maze-galious
+ TnC: A Dutch parody on famous MSX Konami games ! Gotta catch them all !
  I like Sinterklaas more than Santa, so I am existed !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/skyscraper-tenoble
+ TnC: Nice looking MSX-1 game, but where is the download link on this Japenese
 page ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/openmsx-0110-released
+ TnC: That other MSX emulator for Windows and other platforms. Should I
  give it a try or not ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/boulderdash-msx-music-remake-themysterystudios
+ TnC: Boulderdash 1 and 2 were always my favorite games, and I liked the original Boulderdash music too.
  So any remake or remix is welcome. This one is great and with the video featuring the gameplay...even more fun.
 
Dec
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/matrix-quest-deliverance
+ TnC: A new free MSX game and I like any breakout game. So I am double happy.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sunrise-foundation-halt-all-its-activities
+ TnC: Sad news, Sunrise quits. I remember them selling MSX games like Pumpkin Adventure 2 and MSX hardware like Moonsound
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-eggerland
+ TnC: A new website dedicated to 1 MSX game, that's a challenge.
  Hope the webmaster is not alone to fill it.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/bombjack-available-cartridge-again
+ TnC: Re-releases are good. If you can still buy MSX games, MSX will still have fans.
-  http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/msx-image-converter-256-colors-v06b-msx-image-converter-16-colors-v10b
+ TnC: I use http://msx.jannone.org/conv/ and I am happy with the results, why invent the wheel    again...





I had to hurry to finish the list, before 23:59 today...
Finally I made it.
Happy 2015 and a Merry MSXmas to you all !

Yearbook 2014 of MSX Resource Center by TnC (part 1)

This is the yearbook 2014 of MSX.ORG acc. to TnC:

Jan
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/mrc-monthly-newsletter-01+ TnC: I want it too, so I subscribed asap.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/trilotracker-071
+ TnC: a Konami SCC Music maker, if it support in the future MSX-Music
  and make a player...I gonna try using it
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/tas-submitted-cure
+ TnC: Vampire Killer on MSX-1, yes its possible, impressive gfx,
  in the video it look so easy to finish the game The Cure
- http://www.msx.org/news/challenges/en/game-music-cover-challenge-deadline-extended
+ TnC: always nice a battle between MSX composers, next time a Game Over Music Challange ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/tecnobytes-announce-new-msx-v9990-and-opl4
+ TnC: every now and then somebody announce to make an MSX-3, did you see one yet ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/reminder-msx-nijmegen-2014-next-saturday
+ TnC: MSX fair in Dutchland, nice to know, but I wont go, too many people who know people.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/bluemsx-launcher-1135
+ TnC: A new launcher for my favorite MSX emulator, I didnt know somebody still making
  something for the BlueMSX emulator. Everbody uses openMSX nowadays ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxblog-resurrection-konamitoes
+ TnC: I like konamito website, but I always wonder why that name and when the big Konami
  found out about them... Good idea to start a blog with a new simple name to remember
  Although when I checked the blog was down and you can find them in twitter and facebook
- http://www.msx.org/news/websites/en/msx-extendido-new-spanish-blog
  TnC: another Spanish blog, in Spanish speaking countries MSX is still every alive
 
Feb
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/history-msx-dos
+ TnC: Just what I tought, ASCII just need Microsoft for a Basic and a DOS program.
  Not much of a co-op after all. I think thats why we had to wait so long for MSX-DOS 2.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/nextor-20-final-released
+ TnC: Something else then MSX-DOS...I should try it...

Mrt
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/fmsxandroid-381
+ TnC: a new version of a MSX emulator on Android with new modern features ?
  Gotta have em on my tablet
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/ascii-lists-rarest-msx-machines
+ TnC: MSX rareties are always nice to know and see. Glad that msx.org translate the Japense page.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-exhibit-atlanta-vcfse-20
+ TnC: What ? MSX fair in the USA ? No way !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/homecomputershow-announced
+ TnC: And bring enough MSX computers with you, to conquer all Commodores !
- http://www.msx.org/news/events/en/18th-bonami-retro-computer-fair-announced
+ TnC: Another Dutch fair, but is it more then a pile full of MSX-computers waiting for a new owner?


Apr
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/45th-msx-ru-barcelona-announced
+ TnC: a real MSX'er today should speak Spanish and English, otherwise he/she misses
  so much...
- http://www.msx.org/news/music/en/koichiros-mgsdrv-works-5th-update
+ TnC: the site a sort of soundcloud with lots of SCC musics of famous Japanese MSX games

May
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-club-west-friesland-25-years
+ TnC: on the fairs of Zandvoort & Tilburg I always bought the newest releaes
  of music- or demodisks...
- http://www.msx.org/news/mrc/en/mrc-goes-down
+ TnC: Well, msx.org celebrates April Fools Day in May, bit late.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/symbos-21-first-beta-released
+ TnC: A GUI like Windows on your MSX-2/Turbo-R, better than what Ease had to offer
  lightyears ago. Lucky me, only for Amstrad and MSX, no Commodore 64.

Jun
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/openmsx-0101-released
+ TnC: New version of the MSX emulator I gave up installing it.
  I think an emulator should do, run MSX programs. Without having to
  copy roms to disks, tweaks to get it run without errors and without
  reading a manual (like openMSX). That way I still use BlueMSX.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/auf-wiedersehen-monty-and-batman-improvements-ramones-sutchan-and-jam
+ TnC: lot of MSX-1 games were converted games from Spectrum, with often te same strange
  controls. It was terrible playing with ASWZ when my MSX had nice cursorkeys and 2 joystick-ports...
  
Jul
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/kai-magazine-facebook-page
+ TnC: Manga style with a very naughty twist, I know that games from reviews
  (without screenshots, until now...)
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/se-ei-kay-demo-released
+ TnC: the most famous Finish MSX NYYRIKKI has made another demo,
  released on a Finish demo party (are there still ?) Everything NYYRIKKI
  does I found interesting, funny, or just great, he is a multi-talented MSX'er.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxdev-compo-2014-coliseum-clash
+ TnC: The msxdev-compo is a great way to get MSX-programmers interesting of making games
  and selling them, while MSX gameplayers have new toys to play with...
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/new-private-beta-release-ms2
+ TnC: There is not much software for Moonsound, so Moonsound Music Studio could
  be a good thing, but why it looks soo much as Moonblaster ?

Another Xmas Post (Part IV)

I think this will be the last part, cause I could not find that MSX-1 Xmas Basic demo
I was looking for.

It had at least 3 parts, the last part were best wishes in a lot of languages in animated different coloured boxes, maybe I find it some day...

But I have some more tapes for you !

After I made the 3 tapes I wanted to hear more modern Xmas songs, not only Elvis Presley with "Blue Blue Blue Blue Christmas" or Bing Crosby with "you know what I mean".

Just famous classics in a new modern music-style.

So I bought a couple of (cheap) Xmas CDs and collected the best songs on 3 tapes,
called: Modern Christmas 1, 2 and 3.
Yeah, I had to think hard for the right title...;-)

This time I even wrote what was on the tape...which CDs were used for recording.

Here is the list:
* Rockin' Christmas
* R&B Christmas Party
* Reggae Christmas
* Merry Mambo X-mas
* Rave the X-mas

* The Santa Clause (see above)
* Chill Out Christmas
* Raindance Christmas

I dare you to listen to 1 of these tapes, it's a real rollercoaster of Xmas songs
in different music-styles.
These tapes were made the same way I made those Moonblaster House Mixes
as Mixmeister TnC (at mixcloud).
So be warned !

I know it's a lot of Mbs, but every tape is 2x 45 minutes long, that's why...

Here are the links:
Modern Christmas 1: Mediafire / Gavitex
Modern Christmas 2: Mediafire / Gavitex
Modern Christmas 3: Mediafire / Gavitex

I had to confess I had not enough songs to fill 3 tapes of 90 minutes, so I fill them up
with more bits and pieces of Rave the -Xmas

If you enjoyed the rock version of Silent Night at a beginning of some tape,
that was Deliverance  on the What A Joke album.

Final note: sometimes tapes are so bad, it cannot be digitized.
Here is an example of Richard Clayderman going mad: Mediafire / Gavitex

Another Xmas Post (Part III)

Some time ago I was so bored about the songs that SkyRadio played on the radio,
that I decided with my wife to make our own Christmas Music tapes with the best songs
we had on CD.
The tapes were specially made for playing in our old VW Jetta, cause it had only radio and tape.
But we played them also at home, it saved us a lot of skipping tracks and changing CDs.

These 3 tapes I want to share with you. The sound is very loud and something out of tune,
but when I listen to them again, I hear a lot of forgotten goldies...

Some songs you always hear in every Top 100 or Skyradio, some are sang by Dutch singers and groups, some are not so famous but very enjoyable.

In other words, I have no idea what's on every side of the tapes...

Have fun with this collection:
Christmas Songs A:                     Mediafire / Gavitex
More Christmas Songs B:             Mediafire / Gavitex
Christmas Songs Once Again C:   Mediafire / Gavitex

Xmas post (part 2)

Every MSX-er who programmed some demo's, should have made one or more
Xmas demo's.
And EMP-Soft (me and Elko D.) was no exception. But we did it quick and dirty.

Elko ripped the Xmas picture out of the Philips NMS8280 demo and changed/converted
the titles, background and colours. He also composed the 2 MSX-musics.
I created the programs to put it all together to get a sort of picture-demo.
Mmmm...I must admit it's not a good demo, but the musics are okay.

Here are the links to the Philips NMS 8280 demo:
Mediafire
Gavitex (ex-DepositStorage)

PassionMSX has also a NMS 8280 demo, but somehow the zipfile was damaged,
when Itried downloading it. So here is my version.

If you still wanna see the EMP-Soft Xmas demo anyway:
Mediafire
Gavitex

I warned you !!!

A Xmas post (part one)

It's almost Christmas (or Xmas if you're a lazy typer), so everybody and everything
must be in Christmas style.
So I had to bring some Christmas spirit into my blog.
Here is the part one.

For me is the Toshiba Xmas demo the best Xmas demo ever made on a MSX-1.

The graphics are simple, but very colorfull.
The great PSG-musics  are short but great famous Xmas tunes.
And it has also a little animation in it !

I was amazed the first time, I think it's still impressive how they made it.
I had the demo somewhere on a disk, but lost it.
So I was happy to find it on PassionMSX (MSX Goodies)

On YouTube I found video's of other (MSX-2) Xmas demo's,
but this one deserve also a place on YouTube, it's less boring...
And I recorded the demo with my old BlueMSX emulator.
Here is the link for YouTube.

See ya at part 2.

MSX Google: week 50, 2014

I was searching for a MSX-Basic Christmas demo, which was made by Philips (I tought).
Searching my diskimages got me nowhere, so I tried to find it on the net.

That was not a great succes, although I found a simpel website about a guy from Holland who collects EVERYTHING Philips every made or published for the MSX system.

And it was more than I ever imagined, for example Philips sold lots of game from other game-companies including Konami !

It's nice to see all the Philips MSX hardware (and software) I once owned.
Including my worst joystick ever:

I nearly destroyed that thing while playing Beam Rider.

And my most frequenly used Philips hardware:

With this modem I browsed every MSX-BBS and every MSX Videotex page I could find
to get MSX software. I mostly searched for music, tools, digitize images and basic games.
I didn't play much games so I was not a real game collector.

Last be not least a picture of the Philips datarecorder I used to record every Wordstore sample I made.
It did his job very well, every MSX-tape could be loaded.
Sometimes after a few tries with the volume switch (right below).

Oke enough talk, here is the link

More Wordstore+ Demo's: What's That You're Doing Karaoke !

This funky song of Tug Of War album was so good, I just couldn't understand
why it was never released as a single.
The bass of Paul, the keyboards of Stevie, everything fits like a glove.

So after the succes of Ebony and Ivory (ballad duet with Stevie Wonder),
Paul decided he still can make a hit on his own and released Take It Away as 2nd single.
Well, the title says it all...it was an easy to forget song and sounded oke,
but not catchy enough.
In the end What's That You're Doing was never released as single, otherwise it would
be the 2nd hitsong with Stevie Wonder and Paul...

Here is the link to a video with the lyrics:

I remember that my sister bought the LP at Vroom&Dreesman, a Dutch megastore
which you can find in lot of cities in the Netherlands. The whole recordstore
was filled with poster of the cover of Tug Of War and they played the titlesong
over and over again. She never regret buying it.

To me it was one of the best albums from Paul McCartney & (or without) Wings.
The other ones are the London Town album and Band On The Run...
The title song Tug Of War, reminds me of London Town of the album with the same name, but every song was a pleasure to listen to.
Some highlights: ofcourse What's That You're Doing (funk), Wanderlust (great ballad),
Ballroom Dancing (modern rock).
I remember a Dutch DJ who liked the break in Ballroom Dancing so much,
he played that part twice in his radioshow.
Paul loved the song too, so he re-used it on the Broad Street soundtrack.

Here are the Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Love Is Strange Karaoke !

 I consider that Love Is Strange was the best song on the LP Wild Life of Wings 

(with Paul & Linda McCartney).
It was the first album of Wings and the worst, I think.

To make things more badly, Love Is Strange was a reggae cover of Micky & Silvia
song in 1956 (see the nice 50s style videoclip), so the best song of Wild Life wasn't
even composed by Paul.






Anyway I liked the reggae version so I sampled the intro in Wordstore+.

Not much to say about Wild Life, the first song Mumbo is as bad as the rest of the album.
If Mumbo was arranged differently it would had been an nice rocksong.
There are some bootleg live versions from '71/'72 that shows how Mumbo was ment to be played.
Another song that was played live, was the title song Wild Life, some kind of blues song
I liked it, if it was shorted to 3 minutes, but it was not...
And only in the last song Dear Friend, we hear more than just Wings members playing,
no a real orchestra !
But that song is repeating itself over and over again.

I played Wild Life maybe 3 or 4 times, and every time I was disappointed.
After Paul McCartney's album Ram I had expect something better.
That's all there is to say.

But I found a animated videoclip of Love Is Strange by Wings, which fits
the songs perfectly, the link is here


Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: HeyHey Karaoke !

An instrumental song from Pieces of Peace LP of Paul McCartney.
I like the funky parts of it, so I made not 1 but 2 Wordstore+ recordings of it.

After the Pipes Of Peace album, I never bought any Paul McCartney records, CDs or else.
The album before, Tug Of War, was so great so I thought Pipes would be great too.
No, it'was not.

It seems to me Paul wanna sells easy a lot of records by just putting 2 songs with
Michael Jackson (Say Say Say and The Man) on it and some left-overs of Tug Of War sessions.

And I noticed Paul was not capable to follow the new styles and influences in the music
at that time.
He became for me as old fashion guy, and his album after Pipes:
"Give My Regards to Broad Street (the soundtrack of the film)" confirmed that.

It had with lots of recycled old songs from The Beatles, Wings and Tug Of War album.
On top of that, I never liked the new song and single "No More Lonely Nights".
So I was no longer a fanatic Paul McCartney fan.

I found on YouTube only 1 video with a simple animation in it of the song Hey Hey. 
Yeah, just a flower which get some colour...

Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Coming Up Karaoke !

As I look back to my Wordstore+ recordings, I discovered I recorded the most funkest songs of Paul McCartney I knew at that time.
That is Coming Up, What's That You're Doing and Hey Hey.
But now I only discuss Coming Up song.

I always like the song of McCartney II, but after I landed on a blog with lot of
bootlegs and live recordings, I found out there are 2 versions.
The official (studio) version of McCartney II and the live version from a concert
of Wings in Glasgow.
The 2 versions are really different from each other, but still I don't know
which version I liked best, the happy version of Paul or the big funk version
of Wings.

So here are the links to a live version of Coming Up (live from the Kampuchea concert)
and the Paul's funny videoclip

Some words about McCartney II.
It was the first solo album after the last album "Back To The Egg" of Wings.
Just like his first solo album after he left The Beatles, he played all instruments.
I was really suprised that Paul could play all instruments on Coming Up !

But the whole album was not that good, lots of songs are just boring,
because Paul used so little instruments.
Only Coming Up, Nobody Knows (country-rock), Dark Room (experimental electronic)
and One of These Days (acoustic guitar ballad) were my favorites.
I recorded Darkroom in Wordstore+, but again the loop I wanted was too long
to fit in Wordstore+.

There are re-issues of the album with lots of other tracks, but I am not a collector
anymore that wants to have everything Paul had made.

Wordstore+ Karaoke links:
MediaFire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Birthday Karaoke !

Note: 
I discovered today, 10th of July 2018, that this text was never updated
when it was made on the 7th of December 2014 !!!
Years went by, so I had to make some changes to post it now...

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Karaoke ! (Introduction)

After I published my Wordstore LOUP demo, SupMSX asked me to do more than just one LOUP demo, to create a sort of mega-demo I think...

I had plenty of Wordstore+ stuff, but I can only makes MSX-Basic things, and the replayer
of Wordstore allows me no more than change the speed, the volume and the part that will
be played...after the sample stopped...

But it kept spinning in my head and I decided to get all my Wordstore+ stuff together,
and sort them out. While doing that I got new ideas about a sort of framework I could use
and res-use for mulitple sample parts.

Now I have finished the first batch...the Wordstore+ Karaoke Demo's...
Don't be too exited, cause Wordstore+ can only sample about 20 seconds so it's
more Music & Lyrics than Real Karaoke.

Every demo has only one long sample, but I will post some comments about the sampled
song itself and the album it came from.
So if you don't wanna spoil your ears, you can read some comments I made.
I had to tell you, at the time I sampled this music, I was a fan of The Beatles and a great fan of Paul McCartney & Wings.
Sorry about that.

Last but not least: I made all Wordstore+ demo's for the MSX-1, cause the program was
written for it (and my Music Module sample demo's work only on MSX-2(+).