Ask API. GET https://whichemulator.wtf/ask answers questions from the same data as this page, and it is the only place the setup steps are published. It takes the question as q and, optionally, this page's path as page, and returns JSON with answer, sources and follow_ups, or Markdown with Accept: text/markdown. No key needed.
curl -G 'https://whichemulator.wtf/ask' --data-urlencode 'q=Which MSX emulator should I use on a Mac?' --data-urlencode 'page=/msx/'Questions it answers:
MSX home computer standard, Various (MSX standard), 1983. Sony, Panasonic, Philips and others.
whichemulator.wtf calls its recommendation for each system the Gold Cartridge pick. For the MSX, the Gold Cartridge pick is openMSX.
The most accurate MSX emulator and the one still being worked on. It covers MSX1 through turbo R, more than 200 real machines from different makers, and the sound cartridges games used, such as Konami's SCC and FM-PAC. It ships with C-BIOS, so cartridge games run without any system ROMs. Recent versions have a built-in menu for choosing a machine and inserting media, so you no longer need the old Catapult launcher.
Runs on Windows · Mac · Linux. Open source. Download: https://openmsx.org/
C-BIOS: openMSX includes C-BIOS, a free replacement BIOS written from scratch. It runs most MSX1, MSX2 and MSX2+ cartridge games, but has no MSX-BASIC or disk support, so tape and disk games need a real machine's system ROMs. Dump those from your own hardware.
Fine for cartridges. Use openMSX for disk games and turbo R.
MSX wasn’t a single computer. Microsoft and ASCII published a specification in 1983 and companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Yamaha and Sanyo built their own machines to it, so a cartridge from one maker runs on another’s. It sold best in Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, and Konami did some of its best 8-bit work on it.
That is why openMSX asks you to pick a machine. For most games a generic MSX2 is the safe choice, since it runs MSX1 software too. Only switch to an MSX2+ or turbo R when a game asks for one.
C-BIOS is enough for most cartridge games, and most of the best-known MSX games came on cartridge. It can’t run tape or disk software, because it has no BASIC and no disk support. For those, set up a real machine in openMSX using system ROMs dumped from your own hardware.
blueMSX was easier on Windows for a long time, but it hasn’t had a release since 2009 and was never ported to macOS or Linux. openMSX has caught up on usability with its built-in menus and is ahead on accuracy.
Reference: WEM-MSX-MJ63