Spectrum Computing

Hi everyone,

I'm in the final stages of preparing a new zx-diagnostics release, so I'm looking for beta testers

You'll need to have a Diagnostic board, Retroleum SMART card, ZXC3/ZXC4 cartridge, Dandanator! Mini or a good old fashioned EPROM blower.

Oh, and preferably one or more broken machines

Standard disclaimer applies, i.e. no responsibility is taken for making your machine more broken

Changelog so far for this release is as follows:

New features:

- New ROM sets: Derby 4.02, TK90x/TK95
- If ROM is not recognised and the user doesn't make a machine selection, after 20 seconds the diagnostics assume 48K mode.
- Beeps to indicate test start are accompanied by cycling through all colours in the border.

Deprecated features:

None

Enhancements:

- Space saving: string compression using tokenisation

Bugfixes:

- Fix broken 48K multiplexer test that treated any addressing failure in any upper memory IC as a failure of the IC25 and IC26 chips (thanks to Paul Monaghan)

Grab it from here: http://www.brendanalford.com/testrom.bin.

You'll need to have a

Diagnostic board - yep, check!
Retroleum SMART card - yep, check!
ZXC3/ZXC4 cartridge - yep, check!
Dandanator! Mini - yep, check (although I have no idea where I have put it )
a good old fashioned EPROM blower - yep, check!

Oh, and preferably one or more broken machines - yep, check {although the two "broken" machines have either parts missing (CPU, ROM) or the status is not known (but I think the DC-DC inverter/converter is toast)}.

What I currently don't have, is time... Maybe in a week or two...

Mark

Well if the ROM's missing, it'll confirm that fact for you

Thanks Mark

I have a Dandanator! Mini and a problematic +3

I have a Retroleum SMART card
My own Cartridge, which would be nice to be supported too.
An Universal EEPROM programmer.

Several broken ZX Spectrums, in queue to be fixed

Wouldn't mind testing a new version of ZX-Diagnostics

Go for it guys, firmware link is in the initial post, and there are instructions on the wiki (link in my sig).