The Konix Multi-System is an unreleased British designed games machine from circa 1989-1991.

It (supposedly) had revolutionary controls and both its design and "philosophy" was so amazing that many (including me) spent an awful lot of time tracking down as much info as possible around it on magazines and bbs, dreaming one day to be able to buy it and play the hell out of Attack of the Mutant Camel.. But it never saw the light of day, unfortunately.

For more info:

http://www.konixmultisystem.co.uk/
http://www.konixmultisystem.co.uk/index.php?id=introduction
http://www.konixmultisystem.co.uk/index.php?id=overview
http://www.konixmultisystem.co.uk/index.php?id=games

Fast forward 20 years and it seems a working DevKit has been found, and it's patiently being restored by Mqark from konixmultisystem.co.uk:

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=78064&start=120
http://www.konixmultisystem.co.uk/index.php?id=news

So, is there anyone who can / will / want help on resurrecting the Konix Multi-System in emulator form?

Quote:

If you're a programmer who works for a living and programs things like Emulators for fun, you're probably aware that taking on a project like this is prone to "real life" getting in the way. Unfortunately, that's what's happened to two programmers who were thinking of working on a Konix emulator. If I have any say in it, I think it would be better if it's designed to be as portable as possible to start with. If you'd like to take on the task and are happy for it to be open source (so that other people can pick it up if it has to be put on hold) then please email me: konixmultisystemATgmail.com

Thank for your attention, spread the word if you can

Cheers,
SP

Last edited by Shufflepuck on 07-May-2012 at 09:09 AM.

@Shufflepuck

While this system never quite caught my imagination when I first heard about it many years ago (not sure why, perhaps I had kinda grown out of games by then) but you may find this video about it interesting...

Konix MultiSystem Prototype Footage...

Curious though as to why someone would want to write an emulator for it as if it was never released then what software is there for the emulator to run !!! or am I missing something here...

Anyhoo... best of luck with the project and it'll be interesting to see what happens...

Last edited by Franko on 08-May-2012 at 02:08 AM.

_________________

@Franko

Thanks for the video Franko,
it's curious indeed that an emulator is being planned for a "machine that wasn't", but Mqark has found the source code for the Robocod 2 game, and hopefully Jeff Minter still has its code laying somewhere for the amazing Attack of the Mutant Camels port:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tjk9IR5fIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUy4QMlb790
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPGtap-nF6U

I'll keep an eye on the project as it'd great to have this one running.

Cheers,
SP

@Shufflepuck

Hi, I'm Mark (Mqark) of the Konix website.

I do have in hand the source code and a compiled binary for Robocod 2 for the PC and Konix Multisystem. There is also the code for a test program that checks out most of the hardware within the source that could probably be compiled.

Writing an emulator for 1 game may seem odd, but writing an emulator for a system that doesn't exist in mass production form is a different matter. In the truest possible sense of preserving games for people to experience many years after the hardware is dead or gone is the nature of the MAME project, and this endeavor would mean that anybody would be able to finally see what this machine could do (albeit through emulation).

I've been producing content for this website for many years now. I've talked to almost everyone involved and it was only through perseverance and dogged determination that I managed to find someone with a devkit and someone else with the code for an actual Konix game.
There is probably someone somewhere out there with one or two more bits of game code, but this machine was being developed 20 years ago, so we may only see this one game being emulated.
At the moment there are 3 people I’m trying to make contact with who aren’t replying who potentially have lots of info.
I have not been able to make direct contact with Jeff - Believe me I have tried many many times, he just doesn't want to talk about this period anymore. It is still possible he has the code for AMC somewhere. If there was a working emulator - he may even be tempted to re-write it (to some extent) but this is just wishful thinking.

We do have some form of Konix emulator already - the chipset was sold to BellFruit for the basis of around 5 video SWP pub quiz machines. There is an emulation of that - but the implementation of that system was done with a Z80 and not a 8086 so it's closer to the Flare One system than the Konix Multisystem, but possibly close enough to make a start.

Publicity is the best help in situations like this - we were in the process of pitching the idea of a Konix documentary to the BBC but they didn't go for it. That would have made people who aren't aware of our search who may have been involved in the Multisystem to check their disk boxes, hard drives and lofts for related items and you never know what might have turned up.

Anyway, that's where we are, thanks for the mention here and let's see what turns up.

Cheers,
Mark.

Last edited by mqark on 09-May-2012 at 08:27 AM.