I've released an updated version of FIXBOOT. It fixes a small bug that caused disks/paritions with the dirty disk flag set not to be corrected and adds the option to force the Volume ID to be according the MSX-DOS2 specifications. This only works on FAT12 paritions.

Today I received a Franky cartridge from Sander van Nunen after I offered to look into how things work with it. But first a few specifics...

Franky is a cartridge extension containing a 315-5124 chip, which is available in the Sega Master System consoles. This chip contains both a VDP and the SN76489 PSG. The VDP is based on the TMS9928A and extended with some console-specific features:

• palette in 2 banks with 16 colors each of which 1 bank dedicated to backdrop and sprite colors
• horizontal and vertical hardware scrolling
• TMS9928 style tile patterns and sprites where each pixel can have its own color
• line interrupt
• extended name table with up to 512 tiles, options to mirror, flip, change priority (sprites will go behind it) and palette bank for a tile
• flags to disable specific rows or columns from scrolling (useful for score boards in games that use scrolling)
• access to horizontal and vertical counters

The audio exits 2-way, to the MSX via de cartridge slot and via de 15-pin SUB-D (VGA connector), which has the same pinout as the ESE3 for convenience purposes.

Right now many Sega Master System titles can be played when they get converted while the game files get loaded. Some titles have been converted manually already as the automated converter has problems converting those.

Yesterday I got an original ARC: 2 diskettes and a cartridge in the box. After a short while I decided to dive into the internals of the protection the cartridge contains. With some preparation work I did a bit over 2 years ago, I found out how the protection works and I've already implemented it in openMSX and closedMSX. The cartridge also contains a ROM which required to be dumped and after a while I was able to play the game. In less than a day I was able to create both the emulation code and a block diagram of the protection.

Patrick van Arkel (Vampier) released a SCREEN 5 Graphic Editor, which allows to create 16x16 tiles. Vampier used to use a similar program in the past, but after it was lost somewhere in his disk archive, he decided to redo the whole thing. I've been helping him out with a bit of assembly to speed up the things that turned out way too slow in BASIC.

Direct download link: Graphic Coder

I've done some more work on SaveROM. The list of changes:

• full MSX-DOS2 support, which allows saving to FAT16 drives, and use sub-directories
• fixed a bug causing dumping megarom 00-FF range to get in an infinite loop
• megaROM question has become a type select
• added memory overview of pages containing something
• added display for megarom block number as a progress indicator

Thanks go to Patriek Lesparre for improvement ideas.