/yamashnik

YIS-503/IIIR MSX-2 MSX-Link hardware + software

Primary LanguageC++

yamashnik

Yamaha YIS-503/IIIR MSX-2 MSX-Link hardware and software

This package facilitates use of a remote MSX-2 workstation equipped with network module. The only known instance of such workstation is Yamaha YIS-503/IIIR that used to be deployed in Russian schools in the 1980s.

To operate, a hardware adapter is needed for the PC. It's a USB to Serial converter with optocouplers needed to connect to MSX workstations. KiCad schematics and PCB layout are provided.

The host software supports 3 different modes:

  1. CP/M upload: files can be uploaded to the RAM disk of builtin CP/M into remote machine
  2. BASIC send: BASIC and ROM files can be transferred over network to remote machines
  3. A special version of MSX-DOS can be deployed to the remote machine. Its transfers file system requests to the host machine, which then becomes a file server. Disk based MSX-DOS software can be used using this mode. MSX-DOS files MSXDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM are not included in this package.

Compatibility list

  • Turbo Pascal 3.0
  • Zork

PACKAGE CONTENTS

  • kicad/ USB to MSXNET adapter schematic + PCB layout for home making
  • sw/spyvspy/ software that emulates server software and supports various boot protocols

HOW TO BUILD

MSX-Link Hardware

If you need help, ask someone else to do it for you. There are RS-232 based variants of the adapter too. All through-hole version here and a breadboard version here.

Software

You need Linux or Darwin/OSX and a sane build environment. wget utility is needed to fetch z80asm from savannah.

It should work in Windows with some POSIX-emulation layer but it's not proven.

  1. check out or download the source
  2. cd yamashnik/sw
  3. type make
  4. if all is well, msxnet and remote bootstrap files are in yamashnik/sw/spyvspy/build subdirectory

HOW TO USE

[ ] todo

LICENSE

This package is distributed as is. You can do whatever you want with it as long as you give credit to the authors.