Spectrum Computing

Hi, fairly well known that these are doing the rounds at the moment for not much money, I bought one from Game for 24.99 on Thursday and it came today.

https://www.game.co.uk/en/the-recreated ... um-2050251

I had forgotten how crap rubber keyed speccies are and this feels totally authentic. So it's crap, but great. it doesn't work with my PS3, though which isn't really a pity, I just tried to pair it for something to do this evening.

I am tempted to mod it with a pi and stuff, have it output to the telly via hdmi or something. But I might buy another for that and keep this one as standard.

I bought 2 too. One is mounted on my wall, along with my QL, Atari, Z88 and other things in my personal "museum". The other is on the desk and is used for actual Spectrum duty. i.e. playing games via an emulator.

A Pi running Fuse would make a great mod for it, but you'd need to be clever. I'm not sure the Pi would physically fit inside the case, would it?

A Pi Zero would fit easily, if you want it a bit more flash then the newer Pi Zero W would also do the job.

I've got a Pi Zero and Recreated ZX Spectrum set up, but haven't gone to the bother of installing it in the case, I might do eventually. It boots straight in to Fuse so if you ignore all the Unix gubbins at the start it seems like the real deal,.

The main issue however is that the keyboard doesn't really function when used in basic mode, the key commands don't match up and so it's no use as a fully fledged Spectrum, games tend to be fine however.

qwitch wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:24 am The main issue however is that the keyboard doesn't really function when used in basic mode, the key commands don't match up and so it's no use as a fully fledged Spectrum, games tend to be fine however.

I'm not sure what you mean by "basic mode". Flick the switch on the back of the RZXS and set the RZXS flag in the Fuse config, then it works perfectly as a fully fledged Spectrum.

dfzx wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:40 am

qwitch wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:24 am The main issue however is that the keyboard doesn't really function when used in basic mode, the key commands don't match up and so it's no use as a fully fledged Spectrum, games tend to be fine however.

I'm not sure what you mean by "basic mode". Flick the switch on the back of the RZXS and set the RZXS flag in the Fuse config, then it works perfectly as a fully fledged Spectrum.

I was going to suggest the same. In fact the basic mode seems to be somewhat redundant as a mode anyway doesn't it?

Spud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:20 pm

dfzx wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:40 am I'm not sure what you mean by "basic mode". Flick the switch on the back of the RZXS and set the RZXS flag in the Fuse config, then it works perfectly as a fully fledged Spectrum.

I was going to suggest the same. In fact the basic mode seems to be somewhat redundant as a mode anyway doesn't it?

Assuming by "basic mode" you mean the standard PC keyboard mode, yes, it's redundant IMHO. Much as we all love our 40 rubber keys, it's not really an adequate keyboard for a modern PC. Mine sits connected to the PC via USB cable, permanently in the, er, "other" mode which works perfectly with Fuse.

dfzx wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:35 pm Assuming by "basic mode" you mean the standard PC keyboard mode, yes, it's redundant IMHO. Much as we all love our 40 rubber keys, it's not really an adequate keyboard for a modern PC. Mine sits connected to the PC via USB cable, permanently in the, er, "other" mode which works perfectly with Fuse.

Actually, I completely misread your message! In my parlance basic mode is the other mode.

I know Fuse supports the Recreated ZX Spectrum "weird mode", or what I mean as basic mode, but that seemed a bit redundant to me when the normal fully fledged (well, almost) PC keyboard mode seemed to work absolutely fine in the emulators on the PC I tried. i.e, I could type load "" with it and enter my name in high score tables, etc.

What are the advantages of the Fuse-supported weird mode over PC keyboard mode being interpreted by the emulator?

Spud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:47 pm

dfzx wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:35 pm Assuming by "basic mode" you mean the standard PC keyboard mode, yes, it's redundant IMHO. Much as we all love our 40 rubber keys, it's not really an adequate keyboard for a modern PC. Mine sits connected to the PC via USB cable, permanently in the, er, "other" mode which works perfectly with Fuse.

Actually, I completely misread your message! In my parlance basic mode is the other mode.

I know Fuse supports the Recreated ZX Spectrum "weird mode", or what I mean as basic mode, but that seemed a bit redundant to me when the normal fully fledged (well, almost) PC keyboard mode seemed to work absolutely fine in the emulators on the PC I tried. i.e, I could type load "" with it and enter my name in high score tables, etc.

What are the advantages of the Fuse-supported weird mode over PC keyboard mode being interpreted by the emulator?

Um, it's been a while since I tried it in non-weird mode. But in normal PC keyboard mode can you type, say, "BEEP 1,1"? You need the dual shift keypress to work to get the E entry cursor and hence access the BEEP command. Does it do that in PC keyboard mode? I thought it didn't?

Apologies if I mis-lead anybody.

I suspect there is something up with my one then, I just spent the last hour trying to get it to work but it simply won't play ball. Biggest issue is I can't type " so as I say totally useless.

That's my evening sorted tonight: I'll give it a proper test and try things like BEEP, etc, and also make sure I can do a ". I could be making things up (I hope I am not )

This keyboard can report key presses only. It cannot report key releases. Therefore in normal "QWERTY Mode", a game would know when you pressed a key to go down, but it wouldn't know when you stopped pressing it.

The other "Game Mode" is a hack. For instance, whenever you press key "Z", the keyboard will report that "<" was pressed. And whenever you release key "Z", the keyboard will report that ">" was pressed. For each key in the keyboard, there's a corresponding pair of key codes to indicate when the actual key is pressed and when it's released.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:28 pm This keyboard can report key presses only. It cannot report key releases. Therefore in normal "QWERTY Mode", a game would know when you pressed a key to go down, but it wouldn't know when you stopped pressing it.

The other "Game Mode" is a hack. For instance, whenever you press key "Z", the keyboard will report that "<" was pressed. And whenever you release key "Z", the keyboard will report that ">" was pressed. For each key in the keyboard, there's a corresponding pair of key codes to indicate when the actual key is pressed and when it's released.

I think "hack" is a bit strong. The keyboard generates coded "events", 40 of them to indicate a key going down, and 40 more indicating a key going up. That's always struck me as a perfectly good way for the keyboard to interact with its host. It certainly works, anyway.

If you press "1", the keyboard will say you pressed "A".

If you press "A", the keyboard will say you pressed "O".

If you press "Z", it will say you pressed "<".

It works, but it's a hack!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:24 pm If you press "1", the keyboard will say you pressed "A".

If you press "A", the keyboard will say you pressed "O".

If you press "Z", it will say you pressed "<".

It works, but it's a hack!

If you press "1", the keyboard will generate an event with an encoded 0x41 value... Admittedly it's a keyboard, so the only thing it knows how to "say" is "you pressed..." but that's an overly literal interpretation of the device's communication.

Maybe it's just my UNIX level view of things. In UNIX, as I'm sure you know, everything is either a file or a process. What's coming into the device file which is attached to the USB device is an encoding. I have a USB footpedal device which generates similar events. If you say "it's a keyboard" then yes, I suppose it's saying "you pressed...". My footpedal is therefore a keyboard with 3 keys, none of which are rubber.

the only way to authentically play Manic Miner is with rubber keys

Spud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:59 pm That's my evening sorted tonight: I'll give it a proper test and try things like BEEP, etc, and also make sure I can do a ". I could be making things up (I hope I am not )

What a berk!

I can confirm that with querty mode I can neither get a " character, or toggle extend mode.

In Fuse, using speccy mode I can do both.

I think I must have tested the " character in some other application such as Sim Coupé before as it can produce one using symbol shift and 2. That doesn't work in the proper speccy emulators I tested (specemu, zxspin & spectaculator).