MSX : Prototyping a MSX Game Cartridge idea

Prototyping an Idea - designing and building a MSX Game Cartridge

I wanted to build a Cartridge for my MSX-1 so that I could do something without the hassle of  using tapes and cabling once in a while.

In the distant past I once downloaded a PCB design what could be used as a  MSX Game cartridge , and the time presented itself to do something with it (see my other article ), unfortunately the applicability turned out not to be optimal in practice.
No less than a maximum of 11 jumpers make this MSX Game cartridge both very flexible and very cumbersome to use at the same time.
Searched in vain for a description of this design or for an explanation of what the jumpers had for specific functions.

All this eventually made me decide to gather knowledge and to design my own MSX Game Cartridge:

So by thoroughly diving into the matter and supplemented with the knowledge I had already gained in designing and building the various cartridges for the Commodore 64, I got to work.
Brainstorming what I would like for my own MSX and how that should be shaped.
After I had pretty much crystallized my idea, I wanted to build a prototype, but without having to make a set of PCBs 2-3 times to test my brilliant ideas 🙂 .

Using one of the PCB's I had left, I built a first MSX Game Cartridge prototype with Jumpers.
Unfortunately that turned out not to be very practical since half of the jumpers disappear in the cartridge slot of the MSX and I had to lift the cartridge every time to move a jumper.
Finally made a switchbox that replaced the jumpers and literally made it possible with 'a flick of the switch' to use a different setting on the MSX Game cartridge.
That way I was able to quickly rule out what I did and didn't need to run games from a cartridge.

The final result of my extensive prototyping has become an MSX Game cartridge that can be used from quite a few banks on the basis of the used Eprom, for example .

27c801     64 X 16KB       32 x 32KB
27c040     32 X 16KB       16 x 32KB
27c020     16 X 16KB         8 x 32KB
27c010       8 X 16KB         4 x 32KB
27c512       4 X 16KB         2 x 32KB

Should this design not suffice, I could make an Obesicart for the MSX that can accommodate 2 or 4 x 27C801 Eproms, which would account for 2 x or even 4 x the number of 16 KB or 32 KB banks.

No fancy boot menu, I don't have the programming skills for that and that requires quite a bit of additional hardware to create a bank switching environment. Simply select binary banks by choosing a row of 0 and 1.
The big advantage is that when you have set it up, the cartridge really behaves like a single game cartridge, so when you switch on your MSX you don't get a menu, but the game starts automatically, until you use the jumpers to select another bank. chooses.
I realize it's not optimal, but until the time I can find a design based on an Arduino or Pi zero, it works just fine for me.
In any case, it's a lot faster and less cumbersome than the fiddling with cassette decks and unreadable tapes 🙂