FM CAP
The FM-PAC (FM Pana Amusement Cartridge), reference SW-M004, is a sound cartridge developed by Panasonic for MSX computers. It incorporates the chipset Yamaha YM2413, enabling compatible MSXs to benefit from improved FM sound. Very popular for its role in the audio enrichment of games, it also includes a SRAM memory of 8 Kb to save data directly on the cartridge.
166.17€
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About
The cartridge SW-M004 is called FM-PAC (FM Pana Amusement Cartridge) introduced by Panasonic in 1988. It's the only cartridge extension MSX-MUSIC and it was published under the trade mark Panasoft, used by Panasonic for some software.
The cartridge contains the sound chip Yamaha YM2413 with its specific BIOS (MSX-MUSIC BASIC), and a chip SRAM of the 8 kb for the backup of game data (fully compatible with PAC cartridge).
The 8 KB are arbitrarily divided into 8 pages of 1024 bytes each. A game can use one or more pages to save its data.
Some games allow you to choose which pages to use, others are hardcoded to use specific pages. It is up to the user to ensure that he does not overwrite old game backup states, or other game backup states.
A hardware switch allows the user to choose between three possible output volumes for the MSX-MUSIC sound, which is mono.
The cartridge comes with its original box but the package leaflet is not present. The cartridge works perfectly.
The cartridge is compatible with most MSX2, MSX2+ and MSX Turbo R models. Its simple yet robust design makes it still functional decades after its release, making it an accessory sought by collectors and retro-gaming enthusiasts.
Here you will find an excellent article that describes the cartridge and even explains how to change it to English. All about FM-PAC for MSX
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