Spectrum Computing

Next has a native hardware tilemap, with four variants: 40x32, 16 colours per tile, individual tiles can specify one of 16 subpalettes 80x32, 16 colours per tile, individual tiles can specify one of 16 subpalettes 40x32, 2 colours per tile, individual tiles can specify one of 128 subpalettes of pape...

There's an .http dot command written by Remy Sharp that will let you do an HTTP GET or POST on any http address (not https, as the ESP can't do SSL/TLS), and dump the returned results into any consecutive set of 8K RAM banks. It's a bit crude, and only supports a tiny subset of the HTTP protocol, bu...

There is no current SMB client, and scant possibility of somebody writing one in the future. The ESP wifi module doesn't expose any useful low level tcp/ip stuff, it's essentially a very flaky modem, running random versions of bad Chinese firmware, running over a slowish serial connection. And the N...

I'm pretty sure USB keyboards and mice have to support the PS/2 protocol in order to work with those adapters and I doubt a wireless dongle would bother implementing that (not even sure it'd supply sufficient power if one wanted to) Yep, there was a while back in the early 2000s where manufacturers...

If I could figure out a way to map one of the buttons to reset, I'd be laughing. Not possible in the hardware at present, but Allen was thinking of adding a special combination like START+A+B+C for reset. My interim suggestion was to get a smart plug and plug the Next PSU, and hook it up to a smart...

Heh yes, I understand. I was more thinking that you could license the code to the Next Team if you owned it, and it would be quite cool to put it to ongoing use. But it sounds like it that wouldn't really fly if your arrangement was informal. And realistically, Garry is capable of writing his own ta...

I wrote the compression and decompression code for Romantic Robot Oh! I remember reading your thread a while back now! That’s very cool, and I can see why you’re disappointed. As far as I know (have to check) there’s isn’t any tape snapshotting in what Garry wrote, only SD. Do you own the rights to...

So does it still use the Multiface compression/decompression for Spectrum snapshots or has that been replaced by something smarter ? Snapshots are in .Z80 format to SD card. This is a better choice for the Next than the other popular .SNA format esxDOS uses, as the Z80 format spec allows model and ...

I can answer my own question : The ZX Spectrum Next website links to an older version of the Next Distro...The very latest version can be obtained from the Gitlab @ https://gitlab.com/thesmog358/tbblue/ and is available with cores for both KS1 and KS2 boards. Yes. The June 10th commit at gitlab is ...

I did not know this! That's awesome. The yellow NMI button is a multiface "red button". The Next has a fully compatible multiface 1/128/3 built in, and can run with those original Romantic Robot ROMs in the non-Next machine personalities. In the Next, it has a custom Multiface ROM that ca...

I think C.Born means that the name DesktopFontEditorFZX.tap implies there is an inbuilt editor, but it's just a set of fonts with a simple demo program. It's just a naming confusion. A lot of the other points are just observations like that, rather than questions or requests for help.

Is it possible to save a snapshot of a NEXT game? I know you can use the NMI button to save a snapshot of a running Speccy game but I wondered if it's possible for a NEXT game? No, it's not even technically possible in the hardware, as some of the state like sprites is write-only. Well, it's read/w...

Dunno what you mean by that even though I use sjasm lol, can you give an example? Like this. Test label is defined as the address of the 123 operand byte, not the ld a opcode. Test+*: ld a, 123 I don't think it's supported in sjasm, only in sjasmplus. It's in the docs. In zeus it would be this, and...

Now thats really hard stuff to stay on top of and I wouldn't know how to do it in a modern language. There's lots of things that are normal in asm (even more so in the older CPUs without memory execution prevention) but which high level languages can't adequately express in first-class language fea...

Mpk wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 11:51 pm In ZXDB-DL, how can I type [ ] characters in search ?

I'm trying to download my crap games from last year, but they're prefixed with [CSSCGC] so I can't search.

I passed this on and it’s being looked at. Can you give a specific SC link to one of your games so we can test with that, please?

The issue trackers are on gitlab where the hardware and software lives. One tracker for FPGA hardware issues , and another for distro issues , which covers NextBASIC, NextZXOS, the boot firware/updater program, dot commands, and third party software included on the card. It's not reasonable to expec...

Thanks Mark. I'll try to bring this back to how it relates to the Next. Normally you wouldn't call the physical wiring between the stick and the DE-9 socket a protocol, just a wiring. But in the case of Sega MegaDrive/Genesis, it kinda is. In the regular Atari type wiring we're all used to, there's ...

I replied in more detail in your joystick post, and hopefully we will get to the bottom of it there. I agree that section of the FAQ is out of date, and I’ll try to improve it. I’m personally a big proponent of going directly to the port and nextreg docs, as they are guaranteed to be up to date mast...

The boot options settings (which are indeed a UI for config.ini) are now split into two sections. One section that applies everywhere, and the other section that only applies in non-Next boot personalities. (I say now - several years ago it was different, but not everybody wants to update, so the ol...

The Next FAQ is here. It’s part of the public wiki so you can add to it.

https://wiki.specnext.dev/FAQ

Port $38 is an even port, so the ULA will respond even if an addon is plugged in externally. And if the upper address byte is not explicitly put on the bus, it won’t even get a consistent keyboard read. The best you’d get is a sample of the EAR signal.

markusr I'm posting this on behalf of Xalior who doesn't post here. He says he wrote https://github.com/StalePixels/trampoline_examples with examples of how to use "unlimited executable memory" for DOTN and NEX files, building from the same codebase even. If you want more direct 1:1 help,...

Oh lol, I went back and reread your question this morning. You're not trying to make your assembler generate DOTN commands, you're trying to build your assembler as a DOTN command! While my explanation of how they work under the hood might be interesting, it doesn't help answer your question. I'll s...

DOTN is not a separate file type at all, it’s just a dot command. That’s probably why you’re not finding much info. The main thing to know is that, unlike standard esxDOS which only allows dot commands to be max 8KB (filling one page of divMMC RAM mapped between $2000..3FFF), NextZXOS allows them to...

Z80 as in Zilog’s CPU, with X added for the unknown eXciting factor. I read this on an ex-Sinclair Radionics and Science of Cambridge engineer’s history/reminiscence website the other day.