What happened to BlueMSX / MSXBlue ?

By Accumulator

Champion (333)

03-05-2023, 08:11

Is this still in development or can we archive this emulator.

I have not seen updates for a long time. Is development canceled or let say on hold?

By ro

Scribe (4963)

03-05-2023, 14:50

Further development is halted, it is now a dead project. And that really is a shame. Though openMSX does a really good, or even fantastic, job, it can't keep up with the very user friendly interface of Blue. It is one of the finest emu's I've had the pleasure to use.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6481)

03-05-2023, 15:11

I would say that for most players, blueMSX, even without updates since 10 years, remains the best option. The case of the developers is different, I notice that many of them use both blueMSX and openMSX, so it means these emulators are complementary of each other.

By santiontanon

Paragon (1805)

03-05-2023, 15:46

blueMSX was also just windows-only right?

By gdx

Enlighted (6213)

03-05-2023, 15:59

I'm one of those people who regret BlueMSX. It's no more the best option since two or three years except on PCs less powerful. OpenMSX is more solid in emulation. I'm still using BlueMSX mainly for debug because its frendly interface despite its many shortcomings compared to OpenMSX.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6481)

03-05-2023, 15:58

santiontanon wrote:

blueMSX was also just windows-only right?

blueMSX has been ported on many other systems, for example you have CocoaMSX on Mac.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6481)

03-05-2023, 16:02

Note: the correct name of both emulators is without capital letter as first letter.

(but the Wiki limitations convert the 1st letter when it's the name of a Wiki page - however, the text should use the correct names)

By gdx

Enlighted (6213)

03-05-2023, 16:08

CocoaMSX was off to a good start, but development stopped too soon (probably because of the CPU change of Macs). It's a unfinished light version of blueMSX.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6481)

03-05-2023, 16:44

I don't expect a new version of the emulator in the future. The main developer is too busy with his professional activities, and I've slowly evolved to other activities, including javascript, what changes me from BASIC with line numbers!

By cjs

Expert (103)

03-05-2023, 16:41

mars2000you wrote:

The case of the developers is different, I notice that many of them use both blueMSX and openMSX, so it means these emulators are complementary of each other.

Right. For me, for example, the openMSX interface is far and away superior to the blueMSX interface because openMSX has a full programming language embedded into the console and you can have other programs connect to the console from outside the emulator. For me, having everything available programmatically is much more important than nice menus. And to be honest, even now that openMSX has better menus in it with recent versions, I still tend just to type stuff in at the console.

By theNestruo

Champion (421)

03-05-2023, 16:54

cjs wrote:

the openMSX interface is far and away superior to the blueMSX interface because openMSX has a full programming language embedded into the console and you can have other programs connect to the console from outside the emulator

You are mixing "features" with "interface". OpenMSX may have the best set of features, but they are mostly hidden under a rough interface (poor discoverability).
To be honest, the interface is the biggest drawback of OpenMSX.