This looks like a really impressive book. It includes routines for an arcade game including sprites! I'd like someone who speaks Spanish to post some Spanish computer vocabulary in this thread to help me translate the book. These should be frequently used terms such as joystick, fire button, RAM, graphics screen, etc. Sorry for not having a Spanish keyboard installed to type this, so no accented characters. One important term is "Senalizador de Tocado", which may mean fire button. I already know that "bucle" means loop, "barra espaciadora" means space bar, "tecla" means key, "teclado" means keyboard, "octeto" means byte, "pantalla" means display, and "direccion" means address.
Both CX5mer snd I have ordered this book on Amazon in English so this may solve the problem.
The book was marked as sold by Amaxon 2 to 5 weeks delivery. I somehow doubt that Amazon have a supply of MSX books but we will wait and see.
They also have another book by Steve entitled MSX routines which I have ordeted.
Again apologies for any typos. Using my phone.
PS. Just a comment. I know there is an MSX Assembly page, but as a beginner Assembly developer I find this completely beyond me!
It looks like I won't be translating it now, because we've managed to get copies. The contents are as follows...
Introduction
What is Machine Code?
Machine Code equivalents of BASIC commands
Storing Opcodes in RAM
Understanding the picture and display
Sprites
Space Invaders program
Advanced features of MSX
Some useful routines
Appendix
I think the most important parts of this book are how it begins by comparing Machine Code to BASIC, how to write an arcade game, and the useful routines. These routines include shifting a line of text one character to the right or left, or up or down, laser sound effect, and bomb sound effect.
Lets hope Amazon deliver
There's still no sign of my book! I recently found out it hadn't even been dispatched. I can't help wondering what's happening. It seems to me like they're taking orders for books they haven't got, or are planning to have more copies printed once they get enough orders. Today, I received the following email, which seems to be from Amazon themselves...
Hello,
We’re writing to let you know that the following items have been unexpectedly delayed:
Webb, Steve "M. S. X. Machine Code"
Estimated arrival date: April 16 2015 - May 06 2015
One of our aims is to provide a convenient and efficient service but in this case, we've fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies.
You haven't been charged for these items. We don't charge your payment card until just before your parcel is dispatched, at which time we'll send you an e-mail to confirm the payment details, estimated delivery date, contents and method of delivery.
If the order won't arrive by the time you need it, you can cancel the order or an individual item from your order by visiting Your Account, and viewing the order details. As long as the item hasn't entered the dispatch process, you'll be able to cancel it.
We hope to see you again soon.
Regards,
Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk
Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that can't accept incoming e-mail. Please don't reply to this message.
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I'm afraid I've had another long email from Amazon similar to the one above, where they finally admit that they never had a copy of this book when I ordered it, but were confident they could get me a copy, they didn't charge me at the time and were going to charge me at whatever time they managed to get a copy of this book. It would probably have been at the most inconvenient time possible, causing me to cancel a night out. My order has now been cancelled by the seller, who is selling through or hiding behind Amazon. My advice is that if anyone gets any emails like this through Amazon, just cancel your order immediately, then complain. I'm going to complain about this now.
I plan to attempt to translate the Spanish version of the book by myself. I can understand a lot of it already. I recently did a PC building course where one of the instructors was a Spanish woman and I'm now doing a follow up to this, so we're in touch. The other instructor told me he owns the complete set of Michel Thomas language courses and offered to lend me them, but I said I thought I'd already learnt all these languages the hard way. I now realise that Spanish is one of them I haven't learnt properly, so I could ask him to lend me the course.
I purchased this book back in the 1980's, I have no idea where it is now! It was a good introduction to machine code. I would reccomend it if you can obtain a copy.
If you purchased this book back in the 1980s then it depends on where you were living at the time and where you've lived since then where it is now. Perhaps your parents are still both alive and living in the same house, or they put it into a box and took it with them when they moved. As for me, that doesn't apply because both my parents have died and I didn't take over any homes that they lived in. It seems almost definite that all copies of the original English language version of this book have been destroyed or lost. In that case, I must translate either the Spanish version or a version in another language if one is still available. I hope to do some more work on the translation from Spanish over this weekend. I hope to do this, but I may be distracted by the Danish general election campaign on www.dr.dk .
@CX5Mer ANY Z80 book will be ok to learn assembly language, the thing to remember is that with MSX you are supposed to use BIOS to access I/O ports, BIOS listings can be easily found anywhere on the internet.
Hello,
Just to let you know that I have also had the same message from Amazon about the book.
Whilst I still love the MSX format, I have become rather disillusioned. I have probably been spoilt by the ZX Spectrum community with its huge range of scanned magazines and books.
I fully understand that the MSX was far less popular in the UK then the ZX range, but as far as I can see there are no MSX related books available as scans (apart from BASIC books such as the Graham Bland one). Yes there are generic Z80 books, but not much a community in terms of sharing documentation for the beginner / average user to get started on moving from BASIC to assembler.
Maybe the sharing community is not as strong as with other formats, or perhaps the books have all been destroyed?
Peter
