MSX2-Technical-Handbook

MSX2 Technical Handbook

This is the (almost) full reference of the MSX2 system as published by ASCII Corporation in 1987. I converted it to text files in 1997 (the OCR used consisted of my eyes and my fingers) and now here it is in markdown format for easier browsing and reading. There’s also the BASIC KUN (also known as Turbo-BASIC) compiler reference as a bonus.

These are the book chapters, chapters 4 and 5 are split in two files each due to their size:

• Chapter 1: MSX system overview
• Chapter 2: BASIC
• Chapter 3: MSX-DOS
• Chapter 4: VDP and display screen (sections 1 to 5)
• Chapter 4: VDP and display screen (section 6)
• Chapter 5: Access to peripherals through BIOS (sections 1 to 6)
• Chapter 5: Access to peripherals through BIOS (section 7)
• Appendix 1: BIOS listing
• Appendix 2: MATH-PACK
• Appendix 3: Bit block transfer
• Appendix 4: Work area listing
• Appendix 5: VRAM map
• Appendix 6: I/O map
• Appendix 7: Cartridge hardware
• Appendices 8 and 10: Control codes and escape sequences

• Appendix 9: Character set

• BASIC KUN compiler

The original text files are in the txt directory.

Contributing

This is in principle a finished project, however contributions (preferably pull requests, but you can also create an issue) in any of the following forms will be welcome:

• Fixing typos and mistakes.
• Improving the markdown layout/formatting e.g. converting the ASCII tables to markdown.
• Converting the ASCII figures to pretty pictures as they were in the original printed book.
• Providing the missing parts (Appendix 7 and Appendix 9)

Last but not least…

…if you like this project please consider donating! My kids need moar shoes!