Great progress made on Flare One era demos

12th January, 2014:

SavourySnaX has improved the Flare One Blitter performance and it seems he has come very close to decoding at least some of its mysteries.

As you can see from these work-in-progress videos of the Flare One era "3-modes" (AKA Transformers) demo, he has the basic functions of the demo working well and has only to work out some glitches.

This build has seen the Flare One Blitter implementation teased away from the code for the latter implementation of the Konix Multisystem version of the Blitter.

It's great to see this improvement, and as always, well done SavourySnaX!

It is pretty funny that the demo that was used to advertise the Konix Multisystem was written for earlier hardware.

Flare One Anyone?

5th January, 2014:

You never owned this machine, You have never used any of it's software and You have never seen it in real life (unless you're one of just a handful of people), but if you are here you will probably have heard of this machine that went on to be the Konix Multisystem.

Thanks to a HUGE amount of luck, SavourySnaX has been loaned the only existing prototype Flare One Computer and has managed to read the BIOS EPROMS. Thankfully, despite one of the EPROMS not being protected against UV light for all of these years (UV light is used to ERASE the contents of the ROMs!), the contents were still, somehow in-tact and this means that the code has been preserved. The Slipstream emulator has now been updated to include the additional code to allow the system to use it's CPM 2.2 OS and preliminary Floppy Drive support has been added to load programs.

This is a very important development - and with thanks to John Mathieson of Flare, the emulator development was furthered by the provision of some useful archived code which helped improve the accuracy of the emulation and provide some missing information.

It's not ready for public release quite yet, but it's very promising and may (fingers crossed) lead to some further understanding and improvements of the early Flare One Chipset, which in turn may help improve Konix emulation.

MSC Controller Disc and "Game" found

15th December, 2013:

I have found the elusive disk that was bundled with the MSC Game Controller which was based on the Konix Multisystem. Now you can enjoy the simplistic game that was created by the Chinese programmers at MSC. It appears to be modelled on Lotus Turbo Esprit or games of that style.

The disk contains the Game – Race Car and a setup tool for configuring the controller. From what I see, there weren't specific drivers, or maybe they came on a separate disk? However, you can still play this game in DosBox using the PC Keyboard if you can't connect the controller.

Download the zipped contents of the disk – I'm distributing it here as it was free when you bought the controller – therefore, as there are so many disk-less controllers out there, now you can finally try the game.

It's important to add that this IS NOT a Konix Multisystem game, and there is no proof that it was even intended for the Multisystem and later ported to the PC.

More Magazine Scans Added

8th May, 2013:

With thanks to the folks (including The Laird and Michi) on the Retro Video Gamer and Kultboy forums, we have added to the already quite well stocked scans section of the website (confusingly called The Press).

This naming makes perfect sense to me however no-one else seems to think the same way I do...

Konix on the Rocks?

16th April, 2013:

While trawling for some information, I discovered that Konix was a registered trademark of the company "Betterneat" operating from EXACTLY the same address as Konix was registered at.

On another recent trawl, I've discovered that Future Publishing is listed as a Creditor of Betterneat. Maybe it's no surprise that Future Publishing's ACE magazine had such an interest in Konix and the Multi-system?

The magazine seemed to be championing the machine so much that it looks as if Future had a vested interest... This of course only means that Future claim that Betterneat owed them money, but why would a publisher be owed money by a manufacturer unless Future had invested in Betterneat? This is all, of course, an assumption.

As to the origin of the name Betterneat - one can only assume it refers to Whiskey which arguably is better served neat.

Betterneat had also registered a variation of it's KONIX name as KONIK.

References:

London Gazette Betterneat insolvency notice
Konik trademark
Konix trademark

A mini Konix Mystery

9th April, 2013:

In my trawl through the internet I have discovered this image that comes up when you search for Konix.

It looks like it could be an early image from a Konix game with the merest hint of a Multi-system wheel in the bottom left corner? - however the website that contained it had NO reference to what it was and where it came from.

Does anyone have any idea what it is? Is it a work-in-progress Konix game?

If you have any information, please email me.

*UPDATE* Mystery solved - thanks to a kind soul (The Laird) from the

Retro Video Gamer Forum, apparently it's Missile Command 3D on a Jaguar VR system! (not a Konix Multi-system)

Konix Pilgrimage

13th March, 2013:

I'm toying with the idea of going on a Konix Pilgrimage Yes, I know it's Geeky!...

It would, however, be a nice road trip to sunny Wales to get a sense for the hills and valleys that gave birth to the idea of the Konix Multi-system.

And if you follow the link above, you too could go!

Waiting...

12th March, 2013:

There are three potentially very exciting developments that I'm waiting on. One that may lead to a huge haul of Konix items and information being brought back into daylight, another that may lead to more information about post Konix MSU games and developments and another lead that may have a Power Chair that could be dusted off and shared with the world.

However all of this is could, may , might, possibly and it's all taking a painstakingly long time to come to anything. Rest assured, there is a lot of stuff happening in the background - one day it may all come to light.

More Konix documents found and available to download

28th February, 2013:

With thanks to John Matheison (via Lee Hammerton) we now have 3 more revisions of the Konix Slipstream reference guide - including one from the last possible SS4 386sx CDROM based evolution.

And, with thanks to Jason Daniels of Pagoda Software, We also have a beta copy of the PDS development kit's User Manual - guiding those programmers in how to use their shiny new Konix Dev-kits to write games for the wonder console.

Visit the (downloads) section to find them.

Work in progress on emulating the demo used in the Konix Promo Video

29th January, 2013:

As you can see from this carefully chosen image - SavourySnax has been busy over the weekend working on emulating the 3 modes transforming demo (Transformers for want of a better name).

He has managed to get it in a state where it mostly runs, but has a few control issues and some drawing glitches (hence me taking a snapshot when it wasn't glitching!).

Hopefully he'll get to the bottom of the problems and we can all finally play another Konix game after all these years when he feels it it's time to release the next version of the Emulator.

When I say "Game" I mean "interactive demo" ;).