Tjeerd of WORP3 just informed us that the first version of the long awaited MIDI-PAC manual is ready!
Inside you will find a lot of information about the MSX-DOS utilities for MIDI-PAC, the setup and configuration options.
You can download this manual from the WORP3 website, www.worp3.com (in the download section).
Some users report that their FM-PAC is not working with the PlaySoniq. Others report that the joysticks are not working. For FM-PAC support you first have to activate the FM-PAC. After typing CALL MUSIC (or add this enty in the sega.bas file) everything works. Albert Beevendorp wil release a tool with which you can activate the FM-PAC from MSX-DOS. We hope to make this available soon. For joystick support you also have to edit the sega.bas file. By default only the keyboard is active. To change this, change line 120 by entering ‘ 120 OV=4 ‘ and save “sega.bas” again. Please note there’s an overlay matrix in the manual were you can check which option best suits your needs, or the game you want to play. PCEFAN reports that overlay code 3 works best in most situations. Just try and check the results for your configuration.
If you experience soft SCC sound, there a few ways around this. First of all, there’s a volume adjuster on the PCB which you can adjust to balance the SCC mixing. Please check the manual for details. To get full control over the audio mixing, also for mixing OPLL sounds with PSG, MSX with PlaySoniq and our upcoming MIDI-PAC we bought a Behringer VMX-300 3-Channel audio mixer. These can be picked up for about 50 euros at local or webbased trade-in markets. New it’s about 120~150 euros. We got ours for 50.
You can see the VMX-300 and the MIDI-PAC prototype in action here:
Albert Beevendorp (better known as BiFi in the MSX community) just informed us that he has put a developer webpage for Franky online. On this page you will find the latest development tools to program for Franky Mode 4. New tools are currently in development and will be released in the near future. Links to other Sega Master System development tools and information that is useful for developing on Franky is also present. Please check http://bifi.msxnet.org/franky/ for details. Thanks BiFi!
The first version of our instruction manual of Franky is now online. Please don’t hesitate to send your comments. Our special thanks go to Maxim and Charles to give us permission to use their earlier texts on the Sega VDP and Audio parts to make this manual happen.
Check it out if you want to know more about Franky and what you can do with it.
supersoniqs 