The latest version of the openMSX Catapult manual can be found on the openMSX home page:
http://openmsx.org/catapult-manual/
The latest version of the openMSX manual can also be found there:
You can also use these URLs to get up-to-date versions of the hyper links if you printed out this manual.
This manual is about Catapult, the (optional) GUI for openMSX. You can find more information about openMSX on the openMSX home page. You can also download Catapult and the emulator itself from there.
openMSX is in alpha state, which means that some things work but not all features are implemented yet. Many emulation features are implemented, but in terms of user interface it is rather bare bones. However, since the emulation is already pretty good, it would be nice if non-insiders would be able to play with it, too. To allow people to use openMSX without having to find all options the hard way, Catapult was created. Like openMSX, Catapult is still in development and doesn't support all features we would like it to, but still it has become a great addition to openMSX. This manual assumes that openMSX has already been set up. For further details how to setup and use openMSX please refer to the openMSX manuals .
Although Catapult was designed to be self explanatory, we still decided to create a comprehensive manual to familiarise people with the various pages and controls.
Disclaimer: We do not claim this guide is complete or even correct. What you do with the information in it is entirely at your own risk. We just hope it helps you enjoy Catapult (and with that openMSX) more.
The following people contributed to this document in one way or another:
Thanks to all of them!
This section gives an overview of the changes that were made to this document. It doesn't contain every single modification (use the CVS log for that), only the big picture.
On a Unix-like system, if you use a recent KDE or GNOME, you can find Catapult in the menu, under Emulators or under Games. If this does not work for you, you can start Catapult from the command line by simply typing:
Windows users can simply double-click on the Catapult icon in the start menu if they have chosen to create it during setup. If not, simply find the executable and start it anyway you like.
When you start Catapult for the first time it will ask where it can find openMSX. To make it as easy as possible, Catapult first checks the default locations for openMSX to see if the executable is there. If it is, you only need to press the OK button. If it is not on the default location, you will need to locate it yourself.
At the bottom you can uncheck the check box if you don't want to run the hardware configuration test. We recommend to leave this on though: it will check which MSX systems will work with openMSX and which will not. The ones that are not working are probably missing some system ROMs. See the openMSX Setup Guide on how to deal with that. By default, the list of extensions and MSX machines that can be emulated, will only show hardware that is found to be working. You can change that in the View menu. After having installed more ROMs, you can always run the test again via the "File - Test MSX Hardware" menu option.
After you press the OK button, Catapult's main screen appears, as shown in the picture below.
The main screen of Catapult consists of 6 pages to separate different kinds of functionality. This creates a much clearer interface than trying to put everything on one page. This Section introduces the different pages and how they can be used. It also tells about the global section of Catapult.
The next chapters discuss Catapult's functionality in detail. You will find links in this chapter to those detailed explanations.
This page lets you select which MSX machine you want to use, what extra functionality that machine should have and what kind of media (disks, cartridges, cassettes and hard drive images) you insert. This is the most used page of Catapult. [details]
The Miscellaneous Control Page ("Misc Controls") contains the controls that can't easily be put in one category. This page contains three types of controls:
[details]
This page contains all controls to select how openMSX should display the MSX screen. Some of this controls can cause openMSX to slow down. This page also contains some controls to let openMSX make screen shots. [details]
When Catapult starts, this page looks completely empty, but once openMSX is started, this page contains a mixer of each sound device available in the MSX. This page also contains some controls concerning MIDI and PCM wave input. These are only enabled when MIDI ports are available in the currently emulated machine and/or extensions or when the Panasonic FS-A1GT MSXturboR is being emulated, respectively. [details]
This page can be used to 'type' text in openMSX. Any text typed or copied into the text field can be typed into the emulated MSX including newlines. [input]
This page contains the messages Catapult gets from openMSX. This can be informational messages like where the screen shot has been saved, but it can also show warnings or errors that occur. In case of an error, Catapult automatically selects this page. [status]
The global section can be found in the bottom of the Catapult screen. It contains the Start/Stop button to start or stop openMSX. It also contains a representation of the LEDs of the MSX. Not all MSX machines have these LEDs, so don't be alarmed if some LEDs don't appear to be working. At the bottom of this section, you can find the status bar. It displays information about whether or not openMSX is running and the number of frames openMSX displayed per second (fps).
Below, you can see a screen shot of the Session Page. The left side is used to select the hardware of the MSX and the right side specifies which software should be inserted into the MSX. Screen shots in this manual were taken in Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10. So, we're mixing systems here... in general, controls might look a little different but should still be easily recognisable.
In the top-left corner, you can select which machine openMSX should emulate. The fact that a machine is listed, doesn't mean that it actually runs. If a machine needs system ROM images and they are not available, that particular machine just won't run. Catapult won't detect this lack of ROMs. You will see the error message showing up in the Status Page. However, you can let Catapult run a test on all found hardware configurations via the "File - Test MSX Hardware" menu option. After testing, only working configurations will be shown, unless you change this in the "View - Display Broken Configurations" menu option.
More about machines and how to set them up in the openMSX manual.
Below that, you can select one or more extensions. Extensions are simply MSX cartridges (extensions to the MSX system) that you can plug into the emulated MSX. This can be e.g. sound chips, memory mappers or drive controllers. You can select as many extensions as you would like in Catapult, but openMSX might make a problem. Some problems that can occur are:
Note that with Catapult it is not possible to select one extension multiple times. We don't expect this to be a problem, however.
More about extensions in the openMSX manual.
The rest of this page is used for inserting media into your MSX. There are three types of media you can use:
Every media input box is equipped with a history. Just click on the down arrow to open the history. This way you can easily select the most recently used files. Catapult remembers the last 25 items of each media field.
The button groups on the far right are to insert or remove the various types of media. The buttons on the left of these groups present a file selection window, in which you can select which media file should be used. The buttons on the right are to eject media. No conformation is asked for this.
The buttons left of the media field can be used to show a pop-up menu with some extra options. Options shown in these pop-ups are: