I recently acquired a Korean MSX2 (Daewoo CPC-400) and learned pretty quickly that little non-Korean floppy disk software is compatible with this machine. As per msx.org, it has its own proprietary MSX1 backwards compatibility circuitry rather than the industry-standard MSX-Engine IC. So I went ahead and picked up a Carnivore2 cartridge to see how successful I would be with cartridge software.

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Now, there are a few hurdles to overcome, and the learning curve is pretty steep for a newcomer to MSX.

• Flash the latest Carnivore2 firmware
• Format the CF card
• Prepare a compatible Boot Menu

The Carnivore2 documentation is very comprehensive but also quite dense, and expects some base knowledge of the MSX platform.

When it comes to flashing the firmware, the first hurdle is the programmer hardware and software. As recommended in the documentation, I picked up an Altera USB Blaster (clone) from a random eBay seller. Then, there was the software. To cut to the chase: If you're a 64 bin Windows 10 user, you must absolutely without exception use v13 of the Altera Quartus software suite from 2013. Releases since the Intel takeover of Altera in 2015 are horribly borked for legacy programmers and FPGA chips. At least the 64 bit Windows device drivers are. You will suffer absolutely debilitating BSODs the moment the drivers are activated.

Once you know this trick the rest should be smooth sailing, with the Carnivore2 documentation providing very helpful step by step instructions to flash the onboard Cyclone II FPGA chip.

Onto the next step: Unlike most flash cartridge solutions, the Carnivore2 requires you to partition and format the CF card from MSX2 DOS directly. You can't do this from a modern computer. Unfortunately for me, the embedded version of MSX fdisk that comes with the Carnivore2 firmware seems to crash instantly. I suspect CF card compatibility since my Apacer Industrial CF5 256MB CF cards are not represented on the compatibility matrix. New CF cards are now ordered, and hoping that this will clear the next hurdle.

Hi @rdmark
It's been a while... how's been so far your experience with the Carnivore?
I got recently a Panasonic A1F and I have an MSX-USB in its way, but I'm considering some other options to have RAM and SCC.

@pfuentes69 Unfortunately I have yet to able to get the Carnivore fdisk software to work with the Daewoo CPC-400. I tried a multitude of combinations of MSX DOS boot disks and versions of Carnivore fdisk, to no avail.

Actually, now when I read my thread of the msx.org forums I see a new message that the May 2023 release of their software should now be CPC-400 compatible. Let me try again once I have a moment to refresh my memory how to operate this thing!

It works! With the latest c2man40.com for Korean/Arabic systems, I can flash the boot menu and load ROMs to my heart's content. That was such an epic journey to get to this point.

The final stretch to get to a working environment, if anyone reading this is struggling, was the following...

1. Source bootable MSX DOS disks. I sourced my copies via the TOSEC MSX collection on archive.org, and used Microsoft MSX DOS 1.8
2. Mount the FAT filesystem of the floppy image somehow. I used OSFMount on Windows 11.
3. Download the appropriate tools from https://github.com/RBSC/Carnivore2/tree/master/Util (for Korean/Arabic, look under the special dir)
4. Copy the requisite files over to the floppy's FAT file system (c2man.com / c2man40.com / boot menu image etc.)
5. Without inserting the Carnivore 2 cartridge, boot the MSX off the floppy image (physical floppy drive or Gotek etc.)
6. Hotplug the Carnivore 2 cartridge
7. Launch c2man / c2man40 and find the maintenance options in the menu system, then flash the boot menu image
8. Restart the computer!

Nice to see your progress.
For now I think I'll wait to receive the MSX-USB and then I'll see about something better.
There's the Carnivore, but there are a couple more of options and I still need to understand the differences.

I haven't used the C2 a lot yet, but I think the selling point is how versatile it is. You can emulate two ROM slots. It can emulate a Music ROM, Backup RAM, IDE hard drives with FAT16 file systems and boot capability...

It kinda turns the MSX into a gaming and productivity work horse. :)

>> rdmark said:

I haven't used the C2 a lot yet, but I think the selling point is how versatile it is. You can emulate two ROM slots. It can emulate a Music ROM, Backup RAM, IDE hard drives with FAT16 file systems and boot capability... It kinda turns the MSX into a gaming and productivity work horse. Click to expand...

Yeah, the C2 is pretty appealing... but also pretty expensive...
There's also the FlashJacks and the MegaFlashROM and I would like to understand pros and cons...