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70% RazerBlue6

::|CONTENTS

1. Tools
2. Sound Capabilities
3. Restrictions on submit
4. Playback (for voting)
5. See also

The Sharp X68000, commonly called the x68k, was a home computer created by Sharp Corporation and released exclusively in Japan in 1987. Though not exclusively a video gaming machine, its specifications being similar to arcade hardware at the time made it a popular way to game. The X68000 contained a YM2151 soundchip, sporting 8 channels of four-operator FM synthesis, as well as an OKI MSM6258 soundchip, sporting a single channel of ADPCM sampling capabilities. Thus, this format is mostly FM-focused with the capacity for one channel of samples; not entirely unlike the PC-98's YM2608.

Tools

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- Furnace Tracker can be used here; either select "Sharp X68000" under "new -> Computers" or manually add 1x YM2151 and 1x OKI MSM6258 to your module. Select the "X1/X68000" clock speed in the Chip Manager settings for the YM2151 chip, and the "8MHz (X68000)" clock speed for the OKI MSM6258. Export to .vgm once you're done.
- MDX (MXDRV MML for Sharp X68000) - an MML route which is extensively documented. MXDRV is the default and most often used sound driver used on the Sharp X68000. The driver is very feature-packed and offers full FM support, ADPCM (+PCM8) support and also supports the Mercury Unit. Available MML compilers for this driver are NOTE.X'

and MXC.X (MDX_Tool)

. See also: BotBr Sinc-X's workspace with bare-bones documentation here

.
- Z-MUSIC v2/v3 - Another popular sound driver used on the on the Sharp X68000.
- Professional Music Driver (PMD) - A music driver originally written for the PC-x801 series of personal home computers which got ported to IBM PC, Fujitsu FM Towns and the Sharp X68000 series of personal home computers. PMD does not have as many features to offer as MXDRV and Z-Music, but it does have its significance in the scene. Compilation can be done with the latest version of MC.EXE. If you intend to use it on modern Windows, use it with a DOS emulator, such as this one: MC.EXE + other PMD tools/docs

Emulators
Since almost all MML compilers, players and other tools available only run Sharp X68000 computers, you will be needing either real hardware or an emulator. This section covers which emulators to use and how to set them up correctly.

- Run68

- This is the recommended and most easy way of using available MML compilers. Run68 is an instruction emulator that is able to interpret compiled code for Human68k (the main operating system of the Sharp X68000) and acts as middleware that will translate user input from a modern operating system, such as Windows, to the emulator that will turn the x68k code into runnable code within a modern operating system. A big advantage of this method is that the output files are generated directly to a user's disk drive, instead of a virtual one as used in full Sharp X68000 emulators. Since most, if not all, of the tools are command-line based, a user on Windows for example can just run a command prompt and run a tool like so: run68.exe [toolname.X] {-options}
- XM6 TypeG

Sound Capabilities

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Since the Sharp X68000 was targeted as a personal home computer to offer near-arcade perfect ports of games, it uses the often in-arcade-games-used Yamaha YM2151 (OPM) 8-channel 4-operator FM synthesizer bundled with a 1-channel OKI MSM6258 ADPCM unit to provide sample playback.

The Yamaha YM2151 (aka OPM) is an FM synthesizer that provides 8 independently programmed 4-operator channels. The unit can provide stereo sound, has a highly configurable LFO and also provides a noise generator on the last channel.

The OKI MSM6258 ADPCM unit generally only provides a single channel of sample playback @ 3.9, 5.2, 7.8, 10.4 or 15.6 kHz. However, there are some software drivers that provide multiplexing so that the channels are expanded to a total of 8. The most used drivers for this are PCM8 (+ optimized for games variant 'PCM8A') and Rydeen. They provide free controlled repitching of the samples, as opposed to only being able to use the hardware playback frequencies to repitch samples.

Sharp introduced an 8-channel hardware accelerated ADPCM expansion card, called the "Mercury Unit", later in the life-cycle of the computer. It supports playback of audio up to 16-bit 44.1 kHz. There were other expansion cards like the Mercury Unit available, but were third-party add-ons which weren't as common.

Another expansion card was available to provide MIDI output for MIDI modules, keyboards, etc, but this is not allowed for the BotB x68k format and will therefor not be discussed any further.

Restrictions on submit

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Submission should be playable on a Sharp X68000 or in an emulator.

Playback (for voting)

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.VGM
For .vgm, a player such as VGMPlay

can be used.


.MDX (MXDRV)
A binary compiled MXDRV MML song. Often bundled with .PDX files, which are ADPCM sample data containers.

Please note that the following players do not have support for Mercury Unit playback:
- Hoot
- MXDRVg - A user by the name of Mr. Gorry has made a player to play back MXDRV songs on Windows, called "MXDRVg". It requires "X68Sound.dll" for its sound generation. Both of these are provided as download on Mr. Gorry's website

.
- FMP7

However, it's also possible to just play it back by using a Sharp X68000 (either real hardware or emulation of the computer). You must first run MXDRV on the computer and then run a suitable MXDRV player for it, such as MDXP.X

.

You can download the latest version of MXDRV on RetroPC.net

.


.ZMS (Z-MUSIC)
(to be written)


.M (PMD)
A binary compiled PMD MML song (beware that this is the same file extension for YM2203 songs). Often bundled with .P files, which are ADPCM sample data containers. Playable in Hoot. No method has been found to play back on real hardware yet though. A possibility may be that replacing a game's song file with your own works (when a soundtest is present).


MMSP (Player)
(to be written)

See also

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- ym2151 (format)
- pc-x801 (format)
- MML
- mml (format)