ZX Spectrum Next

For experts to discuss very technical stuff and newbies to ask why the Spectrum they bought off ebay doesn't work.
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jmk
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by jmk »

I'm finding it hard to keep up-to-date with the current hardware specs. Initially it was going to run at 7 Mhz with "everything switched on", then it went up to 14 Mhz, which was really impressive. But now it's gone back to 7 Mhz again... Maybe they shouldn't have told anyone that it might run at 14 Mhz. ;)

Also, I was a bit disappointed to hear that it doesn't support ULAplus anymore. It doesn't handle Radastan mode either. It handles the original Spectrum screen and its own hardware extensions, which are admittedly impressive.

Sometimes the only way to find out these details is to read individual comments on Facebook posts. It's not ideal, but I guess they don't want to publicise specs that are not finalised.

Anyway, I am still looking forward to it, whether I end up doing anything with it or not!
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Blerkotron
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Blerkotron »

Pegaz wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:19 pm btw, does it have any insider information, about release date?
Three months is not a lot of delays if the distribution of the board would start soon.
Email this evening says the 'board only' versions will start shipping November 27th.
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Pegaz
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Pegaz »

Thats good.
We need some positive event, to bring back optimism after Vega+ debacle...
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R-Tape
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by R-Tape »

Is there a list anywhere, or can anyone summarise the likely final features of the Next? (Hardware sprites, SID etc)
Whacker
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Whacker »

Any news on when a 2nd round of orders might start..? or when the next schematic is made available to clones?
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1024MAK
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by 1024MAK »

Whacker wrote: Thu Dec 28, 2017 8:37 pm Any news on when a 2nd round of orders might start..? or when the next schematic is made available to clones?
That I don't know. But hopefully everyone who ordered a PCB only, or a PCB with the rest to follow, should now have their PCB.
I understand that some PCBs have been held up within the various postal systems :-(

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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by namco »

I didn't back it as I had little money at the time but I am looking forward to a retail release.

I have a couple of planned projects for it - one starting fairly soon and the other starting at the end of the year (2018).
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Spud »

I didn't back it either, but wish I had. I'll probably buy one eventually at retail as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive at whatever time that is.
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RMartins
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by RMartins »

I got my PCB two weeks ago, but have not had a chance to power it up yet.

WARNING:
They changed the Power plug polarity !!!
On Next, Center is Positive, and outer is negative.

So DO NOT connect an original Sinclair power supply to it, or you will probably fry the thing.

Go read the FAQ, to prevent burning your board, by assuming things.
I almost did connect it, but I was concerned, so I searched for info about it, and found it on the website.

I won't be surprised, if someone just assumes (logically), that the old bricks should make it work.

I'm not sure, if the power plug polarity change was a good or bad idea:
- Good, because most modern power supplies are reversed when compared with the Spectrum.
- Bad, if the Next is not Protected against reverse polarity, it can be "Magic Smoke" on first try.
NOTE: it doesn't look like it has any reverse polarity protection, at least I have not seen any Input Power Diode in there.

Keeping it as it was, retro compatible, would probably be safer, and would also allow us to use the old power bricks.

It also seems weird that you can plug old interfaces to the thing, but not the power supplies.
This change doesn't make much sense to me, since there is a risk involved, and not much to gain from the change.
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beanz
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by beanz »

Had mine about 3 months now. Pleased with it (housed it in a 48k case). You guys saying you will buy retail, don't think there are any plans for a retail release...at least none have been announced or spoken of.

Cased Nexts are a couple of months behind as were the "just the boards" but I don't doubt they'll be shipping.
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by PeterJ »

Welcome [mention]beanz[/mention] . It's good to have you onboard.

Although I got my hands burnt with the Vega+, I went for the accelerated Next. The general communication from the team seems good, but like others I'm not clear as to the final specification.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by MonkZy »

beanz wrote:don't think there are any plans for a retail release
That is a shame, I guess I will not be getting a Next any time soon. Seems odd to make a brand new Spectrum and then keep it to a very exclusive club of people. I did think the 'accelerated' Next seemed a bit overpriced considering all you get extra is a £15 Pi Zero, I would have happily paid cash for the un-expanded version. Ho hum, tis what it is. As a born-again speccy user I will continue to enjoy coding for the original hardware.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by namco »

Had mine about 3 months now. Pleased with it (housed it in a 48k case). You guys saying you will buy retail, don't think there are any plans for a retail release...at least none have been announced or spoken of.
Let's at least wait until the Kickstarter is finally over and done with before we start consigning this to the exclusive owners only bin!
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beanz
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by beanz »

Well it's going to be open source so nothing stopping others from making boards...ZX renew are already making cases.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by MonkZy »

Is the Kickstarter campaign now closed? At this time, there does seem that there is no way to place an order for a board-only next, Amirite? The more I read about the Next the more I am gutted that I was not on the scene when the kickstarter was fielded. I have no interest in the boxed and cased version at all, but the board looks super.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by llewelyn »

beanz wrote: Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:02 pm Well it's going to be open source so nothing stopping others from making boards...ZX renew are already making cases.
Thanks for that bit of useful info beanz! I didn't know of ZXRenew's existence. Great, now maybe I can finally get my own Next once I can get a board too. I really wanted the whole deal with Rich Dickinsons case design and the manual and the fully expanded version with Wi-Fi and Pi acceleration but at least this is a start.
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beanz
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by beanz »

FYI, if you are relatively handy with a soldering iron it's easy to add the clock, internal speaker and pi board (as well as pop in the extra memory). I've got my board fully populated for about ummm $15-$20, the cost of the components and 30 mins soldering, (which I have basic skill at).

I expect when the full NEXTs ship you'll see a bunch of "boards only" posted on ebay for those that pledged for both the board and the cased units...tip, check EBAY USA as I've seen a couple of boards sell on there for $110 (auction) and $150 (buy it now)...much cheaper than boards go for on UK/European ebay.

Myself I'll be keeping my board and using that primarily with the cased next sitting pretty in it's box.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Nomad »

Bit of a worrying update, would appear that they lost the case/plastic manafacturing & tooling people.
You are likely to have noticed the conspicuous absence of the promised mould pictures of the Next case that would have come in ‘a couple of weeks’ since our last update, allowing you to follow the progress of the plastics production. Well, there has been none -- our plastics manufacturer dropped the project last week (Mar 26th) without much of an explanation (our contact there is also absent from the company), and we’re in talks with a couple new partners with the help of the nice folks at SMS.

Myself, Phil (Rick Dickinson’s partner) and the SMS team are going through diligence since last week to find a replacement plastics company that can hit the ground running, picking up from where we’ve been left. If all goes well, we’ll have someone working on the case soon after the Easter holidays. Failing that, we’ll turn East towards some friends who can speed up things and offset some of the delay we’re caused so far.

We’re deeply sorry for letting the backers down with all this delay on the plastics. We’re as eager as you to put our hands on the cased Next, and it’s very disappointing we’re not there yet. Regardless of the cause for the delay, it’s our (particularly mine) responsibility to get things on time, and we’ve been failing on the plastics. We’re turning the ship around to bring it back on course -- and from this update onwards, we’ll keep you posted every two weeks with whatever news we have on the case production. We’ll get this done, and done well, fear not.
That is a huge issue, as the majority of funds on these types of projects is going to be down to tooling and case design/manufacturing ..
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RMartins
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by RMartins »

Nomad wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:14 pm Bit of a worrying update, would appear that they lost the case/plastic manafacturing & tooling people.

...

That is a huge issue, as the majority of funds on these types of projects is going to be down to tooling and case design/manufacturing ..
Not really, if no funds have been transferred to the guys, that just disappeared.
Better to know now, than after funds had been transferred.

It's uncommon for hardware manufacturers to not be worthy of trust.
They are usually reliable in terms of ensuring the work is done, since without trust clients will go elsewhere.
But they are usually not as good for timings though, specially if you have a small batch compared with other work loads they might have.

The clear thing to notice here, is the transparency, of the Next team, that tells us what is happening, even if it looks a really bad problem.

Hopefully, it will just imply a minor delay.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Alessandro »

I also went for the accelerated Next and I couldn't help feeling a bit worried when I knew of the mishap with the case manufacturer. Anyway, I do hope they find another provider for the plastics soon - and more trustworthy this time. Cased Nexts should have been shipped towards the end of January initially if I remember correctly, and although delays are to be expected in such cases, we are well into April now... At least they are not hiding the problems behind a continuous stream of deadlines, it seems.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Seven.FFF »

No funds were transferred, fortunately.
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by Nomad »

In that case they really dodged a bullet. Good news for the backers.
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beanz
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by beanz »

If they do end up getting the plastics from China that's 6-8weeks just in shipping...unless they fly them which I doubt due to the cost of doing that...Late July/Aug delivery of finished units perhaps.
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RMartins
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by RMartins »

As far as I remember the goal was to build everything in the UK.
But plans might change.

There are quite a few plastic injection molding companies in the UK.
.
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MonkZy
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Re: ZX Spectrum Next

Post by MonkZy »

Taking the manufacturing of the plastics to China is not necessarily cheaper, unless the Next team is planning to produce way more than the pledged 4000 units. For a kickstarter project all the extra travel expenses dealing with a factory in China would eat into the pool of money, I am assuming at least one member of the team would personally oversee the production run. If you could email the supplier an .stl of the case design and wait for the 4000 units to arrive in the post, it would be great. The Next looks a bit beyond that, they were talking of using a complex key design with 'rockers' as opposed to the 'poke a membrane through a hole' of the original. You would need at least one guy to be on site to check everything works right, unless they have found a Chinese firm that can do the entire job i.e assemble the final product and remove any manufacturing glitches pre-run at a fixed fee.

If the Next team say they are going to China you can also assume they wish to make more than the original 4000 units. As a person who missed the kickstarter this would be most excellent. The machine will be able to recreate any 80's machine, it will have a decent keyboard and all the other ancillaries (Sd card, joystick etc.). It's like a super Myst. With the PI attached the machine can utilise the now rapidly growing baremetal emulations. It is a beast.

I remain hopeful.

[edit to avoid double post] The new features added to the Next, extra graphic modes, extra audio channels, copper/sprite support is why I am attracted to the machine. Plus it is the best hardware replacement for original spectrum computers (for this I do not need a cased version). I am but one person who would buy into the project if I could. There are many uses for this great piece of kit.
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