ZXBaremulator 3.2

[MonkZy]

via Imgflip Meme Generator

[PeterJ]

Yes, by the time you have spend £30 on a Toshiba card, then purchased one if these it starts getting expensive.



Does the library recognise USB devices plugged in? As I have one of these?



A slight aside, but look on the price range of this on Amazon via CamelCamelCamel (Great site). I purchased it when it was just over £15.

https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00ZCFYDLA

[PeterJ]

Yes, I know. I have discussed my feelings on this elsewhere [mention]MonkZy[/mention]

[MonkZy]

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] , There is an adapter with a ribbon cable, which can be really useful if you put the PI into a speccy case. I would actually say essential , if you don't want to open up the speccy for an SD card update. They are about a fiver on ebay.

A slightly cheaper wifi option is a wifi enabled microSD card adapter. They are about £17 from China. I cannot find any Raspberry PI projects that have tested them though, so I am less inclined to take a punt.

[PeterJ]

Thank [mention]MonkZy[/mention]. All good advice. Will wait and hear about the wide-screen before I spend anymore. Cheers.

[PeterJ]

@PeterJ , There is an adapter with a ribbon cable, which can be really useful if you put the PI into a speccy case. I would actually say essential , if you don't want to open up the speccy for an SD card update. They are about a fiver on ebay.

A slightly cheaper wifi option is a wifi enabled microSD card adapter. They are about £17 from China. I cannot find any Raspberry PI projects that have tested them though, so I am less inclined to take a punt.

Something like these two?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3273117 ... web201603_

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3283589 ... web201603_

[Pegaz]

Personally, I have no particular need for ssh connectivity, here.
I already have the whole Spectrum collection on my sd card, from time to time I add a some new games, just a few minutes job on pc.

Also, I always like the picture to be as authentic as possible, so the 4:3 aspect ratio is always something I set first with the emulator.
Spectrum with a stretched screen looks really strange to me.

[PeterJ]

It's very much down to personal preference in regard to 4:3 or 16:9 [mention]Pegaz[/mention]. I'm interested to know if it's possible.

[MonkZy]

Something like these two?

Yes, the one extender I have has a longer ribbon tho'. I may take a shot with the chinesium wifi adapter...if it is no good on a PI I can put it in my missus's digital camera.

[MonkZy]

I'm interested to know if it's possible.

You can edit the config.txt on the ZXBME Sd card..

use

Code: Select all

hdmi_mode=6

If you are on hdmi_group=1, mode 6 is a 480i (4:3) mode.

You may find the stretch on your TV will work properly then.

More info of HDMI modes here :

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... t/video.md

[zx81]

Does the library recognise USB devices plugged in? As I have one of these?

I bet not. You you can try...

The USB support is a hard task for a bare-metal program. And without the Broadcom documentation.

[zx81]

I'm interested to know if it's possible.

You can edit the config.txt on the ZXBME Sd card..

use

Code: Select all

hdmi_mode=6

If you are on hdmi_group=1, mode 6 is a 480i (4:3) mode.

You may find the stretch on your TV will work properly then.

More info of HDMI modes here :

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... t/video.md

The TV reports what's his preferred mode. A 480i mode isn't the best, because the PAL system have 576 (interlaced) lines. But I do nothing to get a 16:9 size on my TV. Do you have a TV or a PC monitor?

[PeterJ]

Thank you [mention]MonkZy[/mention].

I had played with the modes, but made the silly mistake of picking the FHD resolutions

The closest I have got in by disabling overscan, and using group 1 and mode 2. Close, but not quite there.

[PeterJ]

The TV reports what's his preferred mode. A 480i mode isn't the best, because the PAL system have 576 (interlaced) lines. But I do nothing to get a 16:9 size on my TV. Do you have a TV or a PC monitor?

It is this one:

https://www.samsung.com/uk/tvs/full-hd- ... 5000AKXXU/

**EDIT** Mode 17 Works - Thank you

17 576p 50Hz 4:3

[MonkZy]

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] All good!

If you add :

Code: Select all

disable_splash=1

to the bottom of config.txt, you get rid of the rainbow square splash screen..the boot up looks more like a speccy and less like a PI then

[MonkZy]

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] , I have been looking in to the Wifi SD cards and am not sure they are useful for ZX Baremulator. It seems the ez-share cards are closed systems and only allow easy transfer of certain media files via an app (.mp3, .jpg etc.). There is many hacks on the net, but for other uses. The Toshiba cards do not enable wifi until a save has been made to the card, as far as I know the baremetal emulator never saves any data to the card. This means the wifi will not turn on. I have seen a hack for use on 3D printers, but it involved changing the firmware to save a single byte of data to the SD card upon insertion. Maybe this hack could be applied to ZXBME, but I doubt if they would work as it stands. Thought I had better clarify as it was me who suggested they may work.

[PeterJ]

Thanks for taking the time to look into this [mention]MonkZy[/mention]. After having read your comments I think I will use my monthly retro-spends budget for something else.

Thanks again.

[cmal]

Maybe someone has run into this. It's a very strange thing that happened today with ZX Baremulator 3.2 running on a Raspberry PI 3 model B, and connected to a recreated ZX Spectrum keyboard (from Elite).

I bought a 3.7 volt battery with an expansion board and connected it up to the RPi. I started it up with Baremulator 3.2 and everything worked fine. Then I powered it off, disconnected the power plug, then turned it on so that the Pi was running solely on the battery. Everything worked as expected.

After a couple of hours I turned it on again and found that the keyboard did not initially respond. I turned it off, plugged it into the power and turned it on again. The keyboard still didn't respond. However, the keyboard did respond when going into "Alternate" mode and I'm able to bring up the tape browser and select a tape. I'm also able to perform all the "Alternate" keyboard functions. I can get out of alternate mode but that's when the keyboard becomes response-less. The screen shows the "@ 1982 Sinclair..." message but none of the keys respond.

I tried connecting a normal USB keyboard, and got the same result. I can go into the tape browser by pressing F1, but the keyboard does not respond in normal mode. I've tested all 4 USB ports and get the same result.
After completely disconnecting the battery expansion board from the GPIO connection, the problem still persists.

I've probably blown something on the Raspberry board or damaged the USB. Has anyone else had this experience and is there a fix for it?

[Pegaz]

Have you tried the keyboard with some other Pi software, eg. the standard raspbian linux image, just to make sure it works.
If it doesn’t work, it’s possible there is some hardware failure.
Does the keyboard work, when you connect it to a PC?

[cmal]

I have not yet tested the Pi with a different image loaded onto it. And yes, the keyboard works perfectly with a PC.
I did connect everything onto a spare Pi 2 which I have lying around and everything worked fine.
So far it's looking like a Pi hardware failure.

[Pegaz]

Try a different image or even better with another Pi if you can.
Then, you will know for sure what is the cause of it.
I have so far connected various keyboards to the Baremulator and there have never been any problems.

[cmal]

Well, I just tested the Pi with the standard 32-bit OS. The OS installed fine, started up and the std USB keyboard works perfectly on the PI.
So I shut it down, powered off, removed the Micro SD card containing the standard OS image and replaced with the Baremulator
Micro SD. Same issue - Keyboard only works when I pull up the tape browser with the F1 key.
Then I re-downloaded the Baremulator image file (kernel8-32.img) and replaced it onto the SD card. This didn't fix it.

In the meantime I ordered another Raspberry Pi 3 and I'm picking it up at Best Buy today. I'll give that a try next.

This is a real head scratcher.

[cmal]

So I just tried reformatting the SD card and reloading it with a fresh Baremulator image, and nothing else.
The problem persists.

Next I found and tested a different USB keyboard, and that didn't work.

So here's the current situation:
Reformatted FAT-32 SD card with only the Baremulator image installed
Raspberry PI 3B, boots up with Baremulator and shows the Sinclair Research copyright message
Two separate USB standard keyboards give the same result:
Able to open the Tape Browser using the F1 key and able to select a tape image. All keys needed in the tape browser work perfectly
Also able to close the Tape Browser with the F1 key
The pause key responds and pauses/unpauses the emulator
The left Alt key, along with the associated key works. So I can pull up the help screen with Alt+K. I can also switch Spectrum models
Pressing F9 also works and brings up the Multiface. However, none of the regular keys work in the Multiface
None of the regular keys respond so I'm stuck with the tape inserted and unable to type load "" or do anything else
I tested the keyboard in all 4 USB ports and get the same result
The same Raspberry Pi has been tested with a standard Raspberry OS and the keyboards works fine. All the keys respond normally.

The only other thing I can think of trying is replacing the Raspberry PI 3, which I'll pick up later this afternoon.
All of this started the day i connected the RPi to a lithium battery using the supplied expansion board.

[cmal]

Just picked up a brand new Raspberry Pi. This one's a slight upgrade: R Pi 3 Model B+ vs the R Pi 3 Model B V1.2 which I'm replacing.

After hooking everything up and turning it on, it worked perfectly! Yay!!!
The keyboard works fine and so does the recreated ZX keyboard. The only thing I didn't connect is that battery pack, which seems to have caused the
keyboard issue with my previous Pi.

It's still a mystery though. Especially since the Alt keyboard emulator functions(F1, F9) worked but the regular keyboard keys didn't work, and the R Pi worked with a regular keyboard when I installed a generic R Pi OS image onto it. I would expect the entire keyboard to stop functioning if it's some sort of hardware issue.

Anyway, I'm a happy camper. ZX Baremulator is an excellent piece of software. Many thanks Jose Luis for your hard work on it! If you're curious about this issue and are up to debugging it, I'd be happy to send the dodgy Raspberry PI your way. Let me know, but no obligation.

[Mbwum73]

I have been running ZXBaremulator 3.2 on my Raspberry Pi 2 for a copuple of days now and I'm impressed!
I switch on my Pi2 and a few seconds later the spectrum screen is there. So far everything I loaded jut works as expected. I haven't found glitches or non working titles. If something doesn;t work it's usually caused by a bad tape.

Next thing I'm going to do is put it inside a nice ZX spectrum case and use the original ZX spetrum rebur keyboard.
Because I really want a zx spectrum with HDMI that boots as fast as the original (or close to it).
I do have an original ZX spectrum with a ZXHD expansion (and divmmc and joystick port) but all that stuff in the back of the spectrum makes it so ugly.
So zxbaremulator is a nice to have too.

There's just a few things I hope that will improve in the future (also did a feature request with the author by the waY).
- The option to choose a default machine it always boots. I prefer to always boot in the Toastrack model first.
- An option to set the default joystick model (although the default seems to be kempston now, which is usually the best option)
- The option to add a keyboard status light. Requires 1 extra gpio (on for special key mode, off for normal key mode)
- A default directory to load the tapes from (so not start from the root making all files visibile, but start from a specific folder)

And some more difficult stuff...

- Adding support for other file formats like Z80 (instant loading)
- Write support to tapes (though not very important)
- Even faster loading.


Unfortunately creating a bare emulator is extremely hard and the author did a great job. I hope he finds time and motivation to continue working on this great emulator. Can't thank him enough for what he achieved already.