NEXT Update

[stupidget]

NEXT Update:



Basically it’s looking like October/November for delivery now.

[flatduckrecords]

I followed about 8*38.875% of the section about HDMI timings but I’m thrilled to hear we’ll be able to correctly experience Aquaplane and SHOCKMEGADEMO via our HDMI tellies.

[Pegaz]

The comments on the last update are definitely the height of idolatry.
Every new delay is followed by messages of endless adoration of the "great leader(s)".
Orwell would be truly proud...

[Quazar]

I'm still somewhat bemused by the Next. I backed the dev board on the first Kickstarter so have had that sitting here since December 2017. It was my initial thinking that I should port across a couple of the unique and unusual games from the SAM Coupe to see how they do with a new audience, choosing a couple titles from both my own releases and others I have the rights to.

The initial delays with the full computers from the first Kickstarter quelled my interest somewhat. The continued delays with KS2 only seems to reinforce that feeling.

[dfzx]

The initial delays with the full computers from the first Kickstarter quelled my interest somewhat. The continued delays with KS2 only seems to reinforce that feeling.

Agreed. Not really their fault, but nevertheless it's faded to all but irrelevance.

Once the KS2 is out of the way they need to get together a huge push of <something> to rescue the machine.

[Joefish]

It's looking less like a 'Kickstarter' and more like one of those frayed cords you wrap around a 2-stroke lawnmower flywheel and tug on over and over again while fiddling with the fuel valve all day with no luck...

[animaal]

I've backed this. I'm not even sure there's anything in particular I want to do with the machine when it arrives. But with Rick Dickinson's involvement I see it as the last machine that has any links to the original Spectrums.

The organisers are enthusiasts rather than experienced manufacturers. They've been remarkably open about the challenges they've faced, and I wouldn't have been too surprised if they'd thrown in the towel by now. In their boots I might have; the fact that they haven't is admirable. I don't know if they had planned to make a profit, but with the setbacks it can't be very lucrative.

I find the a*se kissing a bit much, but I suppose some people are just going a bit too far in their efforts to keep the team's interest in the venture.

I'm also interested in the Mega65, but the price (€800) is probably beyond what I can justify. In that context I think the Next design is very good. It echoes the decision I had back in the 1980s between the Spec 48k and C64.

[stupidget]

I'm with you there 100% @animaal . The machine just looks stunning and having seen one 'in the flesh' at Crash Live last year just made me want on even more. I'm really looking forward to playing all the Magnetic Scrolls games, as the in game images look excellent as well as some of the Sunteam games like Rite of the Druid, Golden Seas and Spooky Tales.

[oO cozy Oo]

I don`t think the Next will ever make a mark in history .. I was playing Baggers in space and It was just like playing on a NES or Megadrive till I looked down Just not feeling it for the Next Im afraid, Its trying to be something else shame really.....I think if people make remakes of games without the colour clash you might still get that Speccy feeling..

[PQR]

I own a Next from the first kickstarter, and also backed the second kickstarter.

The delays have never been any problem to me. I think this is what you can expect if something unique in a small batch is being produced. There's always an element of risk involved with crowdfunded projects and I think that the team did, and is still doing, a good job on most fronts. I see no reason to get wound up about deadlines that are not met, nor do I look down upon fellow backers who are praising the team’s efforts with every new update. I guess everyone has their own way of dealing with the anxiety when you pledge this amount of money. I really see no point in arguing about any of that because it won’t make the delivery faster.

The main reason why l support the Next is to have a machine that can be hooked up to a modern display which genuinely carries the legacy of the original Spectrum. I'm a designer myself and I always admired Rick Dickinson’s designs for Sinclair hardware. The Next fits really nicely within that range of Sinclair products. The fact that the design for the Next is Rick’s swan song makes it even more special to me. I appreciate the build quaility too -- the whole case feels solid, polished and sturdy.

When it comes to software, I have to admit that I'm mostly interested in playing original Spectrum games. I know there is a small community that develops new titles but not too many of those things have sparked my interest. The fact that most of that activitiy is centered around a Facebook page doesn’t help either.

[stupidget]

Maybe if a few of us end up with a shiny new Next in Oct/Nov there'll be more activity on here? I'd much rather use this site as opposed to BaceFook for all things Nexty.

[Alcoholics Anonymous]

The comments on the last update are definitely the height of idolatry.
Every new delay is followed by messages of endless adoration of the "great leader(s)".
Orwell would be truly proud...

Most people are understanding when there is reasonable cause for delay. Communicating what is going on, the obstacles met and how they are resolved is what people who are excited about a project want to know. Voicing encouragement is called participation. It's not against the law to voice dissatisfaction, and people do, but the share of supporting comments at ks is representative. I've tried very hard to get the most vociferous of the dissatisfied to sell their pledges but few do. The reason - they are hoping to flip the machine on ebay for mad profits and are only unhappy about having to wait to do it.

Now a guy who thinks he can increase the importance of his opinion by pre-emptively insulting anyone who disagrees doesn't come across well. It certainly doesn't add gravitas to anything you have to say. But I do wonder what sort of keyboard warrior must be behind the words, especially one who has no skin in the game and no knowledge about the project.

[Pegaz]

@Alcoholics Anonymous

You don't have to remind me, that the SpecNext propaganda machine is very strong.
As an individual, if you try to go up against it, you'll be crushed.

Since you know the project, ask Victor if he took Miguel's code from ZX Uno and used it in ZX Next ?
When Miguel realized, that in each update, Victor incorporated it into Next shortly after, he stopped publishing the source code.
Also, is it true that ZX Next DMA is just a copy of the standard Z80 DMA, taken in its entirety from another FPGA project and whether its properly credited or not ?

btw, did the SpecNext really violate the GPL, by sending hardware without source and failed to provide it on request ?
Maybe these are just rumors, but I have heard more than once...

[R-Tape]

You haven't been crushed yet @Pegaz! You're allowed to speak freely on the subject, but can we keep the thread polite please.

[Alcoholics Anonymous]

You don't have to remind me, that the SpecNext propaganda machine is very strong.
As an individual, if you try to go up against it, you'll be crushed.
Since you know the project, ask Victor if he took Miguel's code from ZX Uno and used it in ZX Next ?

Woe is you. Clearly you must be a martyr. Pretending to be the victim of "the man" whose truth is being crushed is absolutely ridiculous. Is "being crushed" what you call it when people who know something about the subject correct you when you start to spout crap? When you say false stuff and two or three people respond to you, is that what being "crushed" is?

Most of the spectrum community is pretty great. They're enthusiastic and eager to share their hobby. It's why I have stuck with it for around 30 years now, almost since the birth of the online spectrum community, and contributing when I had the time. But like any group there is a small number who are not so good. While working on the spectrum next, I've been threatened with lawsuits, threatened with doxxing and accused of plagiarism. A couple of individuals in this community are consumed with jealousy (not Miguel to make this clear) and spend their time spreading the sort of nonsense that you are repeating here just so they can dump on the project whenever they can and spoil everyone's fun.

I realize you do not have the skills to judge your accusations for yourself. After all, the spectrum next repo has been open for years so you just have to go there and compare to the uno's repo to find out exactly what was "copied". What you do - as in insult the Next users & developers at every opportunity, jump on any perceived shortcoming exaggerating it and being deliberately obtuse to egg on misconceptions - that's something on you.

One of the reasons I joined the Spectrum Next project is that it is a one time opportunity to contribute something significant back to the community. It's fun, it reinvigorates the spectrum platform and has generated a lot of enthusiasm. It's truly unfortunate that some feel the need to try to dampen people's enjoyment by sabotaging it.

I'll introduce myself now. I am a former vlsi engineer (I used to design chips) and I am the person who took over the fpga design of the spectrum next from Victor three to four years ago before the cased KS1 machines shipped. So yes, I am very familiar with the project, I know how everything is implemented and I have been involved long enough to know where a lot of the ideas came from. One thing I want to correct is that your anger seems aimed at one person - Victor - but actually there were two people developing the Next initially - Victor and Fabio. Both names appear in the source code and Fabio contributed a significant portion. Victor was exclusively responsible for the pcb afaik.

ask Victor if he took Miguel's code from ZX Uno and used it in ZX Next ?

I think you'll need to understand a few things first:

(1) The Next goes far beyond the uno. This shouldn't be surprising since the Next is intended as an imagination of a follow up machine in the spectrum line whereas the uno is meant to be an inexpensive re-creation of the original models. Miguel has said "the spectrum community doesn't want an enhanced spectrum" probably because the few things he added for fun didn't really gain traction. So when you say the Next is a copy of the uno, it's kind of like saying this here motorcyle copied your bike because they both have two wheels and a chain.

(2) The Spectrum is a very simple machine. It's a ula and a z80 for the most part and of these only the z80 is complicated. Further, the ula has been thoroughly documented by Chris Smith in his book. It is this book that is used as reference when clones, including the spectrum next, are designed. He gives away all the "secrets". The timing is in there and the circuit Sinclair used is in there. So when spectrum clones are made, it is this book that is used as reference and not the uno repository as you seem to think. Since I wrote the current Spectrum Next ula implementation from scratch, I know it came from between my two ears. Anyone who looks at it will immediately see it's different from any other implementation out there. I also saw Victor's implementation. It followed Chris' book closely with simple changes for supporting Timex video modes added.

Everyone's z80 implementation comes from the T80, an open source Z80 implementation created 20+ years ago. This is the only timing accurate Z80 available as open source. (Actually there is a gate level duplication available too but that is too big and slow in comparison). There are two forks - a verilog version and a vhdl version. Bugs have been fixed over the years by many people and depending on where you got the implementation, you could end up with something with various degrees of buggery. Things are more organized nowadays as both the Mist and Mister projects maintain bugfixed and up to date T80 repositories for cloning. The uno is using the verilog fork and the Next is using the vhdl fork. They have independent histories. I have no doubt Miguel fixed up the verilog fork he has just as the Next has had fixes applied by many over the past 20 years up to and including fixes submitted by people involved with the Next (not just Victor and Fabio). A Mist dev has also submitted patches including a fix for a bug in the im2 interrupt response that we identified. I'm glad he did it because it meant I didn't have to. Open source, sometimes it works.

So the Spectrum part of the Spectrum Next (and therefore most of the uno) is independent with one exception that is detailed below.

When Miguel realized, that in each update, Victor incorporated it into Next shortly after, he stopped publishing the source code.

What he found was the same display bug in the uno implementation showing up in the early spectrum next output. This was because the timing module did come from the uno. The timing module is a counter and some constants that define the screen dimensions. So he was right - the bug he saw was caused by buggy uno code - and that particular file is properly attributed to the uno in the spectrum next repository. That's what happens with open source projects. Sometimes source gets reused from elsewhere. I fixed that bug and that module will be replaced soon by a version that came from between my own two ears. I will be dropping the uno attribution with that version.

Of course he was wrong about victor wanting to copy his dma. We weren't interested in a non-standard dma implementation because one of the goals of the Next is to fully develop the z80 architecture which was not possible in the original machines and that includes using things like standard z80 peripherals. Especially when such peripherals were used in existing spectrum add-ons, in this case the Datagear and the MB02.

We'll make an effort to figure out what else people think might have been copied:

1 - The line interrupt. The line interrupt came about due to a request from a programmer. It's very common in 8-bit machines. The uno had it before the Next did.

2 - The lores mode. This also came from a request from a programmer who wanted to do 3d filled polygons for an Elite type of game. He suggested a low res screen similar to what the uno had and this came from someone who definitely had no idea what an uno was. I did though and recognized what he was asking for but I wasn't in charge of the fpga at that point. Victor may or may not have known about the uno's lores when the 8-bit lores mode was added. This is not identical to the 4-bit lores mode that the uno has. The spectrum next has a larger palette (256 colours) so the 8-bit takes full advantage of that. I added the uno's 4-bit lores later on because I thought it might be a good idea to be able to swap between two lores screens using the timex display files and it would be nice to have compatibility with the uno in that regard. No source code was copied from the uno but there is some idea borrowing there.

I can't really think of anything else in common. The timex video modes? The use of a register space to hold a lot of control bits using only two i/o ports?

Now the spectrum next was originally created on a board with altera fpga. That changed when a good deal was struck with xilinx so that the fpga became an lx9 just like the uno's. At that point, Victor got some help from Antonio to port to the xilinx fpga. There is a certain amount of boiler plate that is different for different fpgas and getting that help definitely accelerated how quickly Victor and Fabio could get up and going on the new fpga. Then a kickstarter goal was reached and the fpga was increased in size to the lx16. That resulted in a new pcb again.

So Antonio from the uno project did help in getting things off and running at the initial stages of the first kickstarter.

Also, is it true that ZX Next DMA is just a copy of the standard Z80 DMA, taken in its entirety from another FPGA project and whether its properly credited or not ?

Really, from where? Surely you're not just tossing about slander are you? Entrenched in the rumours these people pass around is the idea that Victor couldn't possibly do anything so everything must have been copied. That's why the ula "must" come from the uno. Victor couldn't possible do it. The dma must come from somewhere because Victor couldn't possibly do it. It's bloody ridiculous and sick. Hateful people.

The Spectrum Next dma implementation is a partial Z80 DMA implementation. It's missing quite a few minor things and a few major things including the ability to generate interrupts. I would think such a thing taken in its entirety from elsewhere would be a complete implementation. And here's a free bit of info coming from someone who knows hardware to someone who knows nothing about hardware: the implementation reads like it was read out of the Z80 DMA datasheet.

Now it's quite possible that I will be putting some of that missing stuff in and enhancing the dma further, in addition to the enhancements I've already added. I'll just save you the trouble of slandering me in the future by stating ahead of time that such activity will be created between my own two ears and won't be copied from the uno or elsewhere.

btw, did the SpecNext really violate the GPL, by sending hardware without source and failed to provide it on request ?
Maybe these are just rumors, but I have heard more than once...

No it didn't. The source code was made open the day the cased KS1 machines were shipped three years ago. No one had a right to it until the project completed. What we wanted to prevent is others creating Spectrum Next clones and making them available before the people who made the project possible got them. This was a legitimate fear given the very long delays experienced.

I know intellectually why Miguel chose to take the uno project private. This was because he thought there was a great deal of copying going on and this was being egged on by at least one very jealous individual and his own discovery that the Spectrum Next used the timing module that originally came from the uno as evidenced by an identical display bug. But this was a violation of the GPL that should never have happened and this led to at least one individual leaving the uno project as well as attracting negative attention from others in the open source community. He should have remembered that it's impossible to steal open source as the purpose is to share and allow others to reuse your work. If he was concerned about proper attribution he should have waited to see the source when it was promised to be released.

Of course Miguel has now had ample opportunity to see the Spectrum Next source. He knows that there is little of the uno copied in the Spectrum Next repo and that's why you're here repeating the crap and not him.

I have taken some jabs at you here. Normally I don't that kind of thing but honestly I am tired of the actions of a few in the community. There's a right way to go about things if you think something unfair is happening. Ask questions, point out insufficient attribution. It doesn't involve spreading rumours, trying to destroy people's reputations or attempting to discredit a project.

[cha05e90]

Hm - the ZX Spectrum Next *is* the reason I returned to the "ZX Spectrum scene" in 2017!

Meanwhile I have my old Issue 2 48K working again, have a (in Germany more or less in-existent) Toastrack and some more Speccy-related stuff. And I think I'm not the only one who were kickstarted to have a new / re-newed love to our black hardware. This led (because I can) to spending significant money for old and (more important) new hardware (i.e. vDrives et al.) and new wonderful software (Next and classic, who cares?). And give feedback to those talented people who do new hard and software products...

Saying the Next is something to be "amused by" or is "irrelevant" or "doesn't make a mark in history" maybe true for someone personally - for me it's the opposite. To be truthful I'm a littlebit disappointed by parts of this threads course - especially because (before re-entering the ZX Spectrum world) I have another passion called "Amiga" which became forum- and "scene-" wise very, very toxic. In contrast to that the ZX Spectrum fora - especially this one! - were a calm and friendly space. I would advocate that this should be kept that way.

[PeterJ]

In contrast to that the ZX Spectrum fora - especially this one! - were a calm and friendly space. I would advocate that this should be kept that way.

Yes please!

[PQR]

Yes please!

I think this is still 99% a well-spirited place. Thanks in part by the good moderation!

[stupidget]

@PeterJ Happy for you to close this thread if it's going to get all arsey. I simply wanted to post an update showing that the NEXT KS2 project was still going to deliver.