Easy Spectranet

[PeterJ]

Hello,

You may be aware that Fuse can emulate the Spectranet network interface. The idea of this little project is to make the set-up a little easier for less experienced users. It's not a great timesaver, but just avoids having to do the initial firmware stuff.

These instructions assumes the use of Windows. If you are using Ubuntu Linux or derivatives please see the post below from [mention]MonkZy[/mention].

What you will need:

• Fuse installed on your computer
• The IP address of your computer: If you are using windows 10 then go to the command line and enter 'ipconfig /all' In the example below we can see that my IPv4 address is 192.168.1.197
• Subnet Mask: In my case as shown below its 255.255.255.0
• Default Gateway (This is your router IP): In my case it is 192.168.1.254

Next download the Snapshot that I created from here and open in with Fuse:

**Being updated - Please PM me if you want a copy**

You should see this screen:



Parts of the following notes are copied from the Fuse Spectranet guide:

https://sourceforge.net/p/fuse-emulator ... Emulation/

You’ll now need to set various options:

Select [A] Configure network settings — this should lead you to another menu, which will scroll of the top of the screen; don’t worry about this for now.

You’ll now need to set various options:

A. Enable/disable DHCP — select N
B. Change IP address — enter the IP address of the machine you are running Fuse on. In my case 192.168.1.197
C. Change netmask — In my case 255.255.255.0
D. Change default gateway — In my case 192.168.1.254
E. Change primary DNS — enter the address of your DNS server. I would choose the Google one which is 8.8.8.8.
H. Change hostname — enter a hostname for the Spectranet-enabled machine. It doesn’t really matter what you enter here — it’s mostly useful just to replace the junk default name so you can see what you’ve entered for the other settings.

The screen should now show the information you entered:

If everything looks correct, select Save changes and exit (you’ll see a brief “Saving configuration...” message) followed by [E] Exit, at which point you’ll be returned to BASIC.

Now type the following three commands:

Code: Select all

%cfgnew
%cfgcommit
%fsconfig

Hopefully now you will have this screen:



Press A to set a filesystem. Type '0' followed by Enter, then 'zx.kupo.be' (without the quotes) and Enter again


Press C to enable autoboot


Press D to save and exit

At this point you should re-save the Snapshot.

Finally go to the machine menu in Fuse, and choose reset. Hopefully after a few seconds you will be connected and see the screen below. Depending on your version of Windows you may be asked to give Fuse access to the internet. There are other servers to connect to, but I find this one the most reliable.



When you have finished using the Spectanet and want to use Fuse as normal you will need to close and re-open Fuse, then go to Options > Peripherals > General and un-tick 'Spectranet', then go to Options > Save. Finally go to the Machine menu, and select reset.

Another good TNFS site to try is 'vexed4.alioth.net'

Any feedback as to how these instructions can be improved would be appreciated.

EDIT - 23/01/2021

I'm told Kupo is currently down. You can try these instead:

tnfs.bytedelight.com
vexed4.alioth.net
tnfs.millhill.org
retrojen.org

[MonkZy]

I ran through this tutorial using Linux - Ubuntu 18.04LTS.

I had to enter the zx.kupo.be URL manually at the last screen. It was <unset> at first. Other than that, it worked as expected. Many thanks for this.

[edit]

To find all of the needed IP addresses i used :

Code: Select all

ifconfig

ifconfig does not yield the gateway address, so also use :

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route -n

both tools are installed with :

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sudo apt install net-tools

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]MonkZy[/mention] for testing. I have updated the tutorial. Thanks also for the Linux tips. I will make sure they go in the updated documentation.

[Guesser]

ifconfig is outdated, the modern way would be

Code: Select all

ip a

[kolbeck]

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] - where did your snapshot go? Just trying to get it up and running on Fuse

/Thomas

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]kolbeck[/mention],

Let me check. I did move some files around.

Peter

[MonkZy]

[mention]kolbeck[/mention], The snapshot for the first step can be recreated fairly easily.

Step 1. Grab a copy of the latest firmware

http://spectrum.alioth.net/doc/index.ph ... ROM_images

Get the latest firmware (installer.tap)

Step 2. Disable the write protect jumper

From the menu, Options->Peripherals->General->Spectranet Disable. Make sure spectranet and spectranet disable are checked.

Step 3. Load the firmware

Insert the tape (installer.tap) into FUSE (menu Media->Tape->Open..)

Type in the following commands.

Code: Select all

CLEAR 26999
LOAD "" CODE
RANDOMIZE USR 27000

The screen should turn blue and white text 'Erasing sector 0' followed by 'Writing page 0' through to 'Writing page 3' and 'Writing jump table' followed by a series of modules and pages should be on the screen with a '0 OK, 0:1' to confirm completion.

[edit] Disable the write protect jumper. (Uncheck Options->Peripherals->General->Spectranet Disable)

Step 4. Press the NMI

From the menu Machine->NMI. Do this twice, on the second press you should see the screen for the next step of Peters tutorial.

[PeterJ]

Thank you [mention]MonkZy[/mention]

[MonkZy]

I have been playing around with Spectranet a lot lately. The Alioth wiki is superb. I am currently trying to code a simple Telnet client in order to get a ZX Spectrum MUD running. I will post here about it soon.

[kolbeck]

[mention]MonkZy[/mention] - thanks, worked !

/Thomas

[Alessandro]

Hi, I followed the instructions in [mention]PeterJ[/mention] 's guide, but upon returning to BASIC, when I enter the "%cfgnew" command, the Spectrum shows the familiar flashing question mark and nothing else happens. I am using Fuse 1.6.0 under Windows 10 by the way.

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]Alessandro[/mention],

I'm working away from home this week and don't have my laptop.

I nobody else can help I will look at the weekend for you.

Peter