ZEsarUX X

[chernandezba]

Happy to announce that ZEsarUX is 10 years old! Let's celebrate it by downloading the new version, ZEsarUX X !






This new ZEsarUX version, called "ZEsarUX ", is a special edition for the 10th anniversary, so the first ZEsarUX version was born 10 years ago.

There are a lot of new features and bug fixes, but the most important are:


- Improvements in Network Gaming: Allow to connect more than two hosts (up to 16) and the flash state is sync between al instances. Keep in mind that this ZEsarUX feature allows to play any emulated game at the same time with many friends, every one at his house and connected to Internet. It works for all emulated games, you don't have to modify the games
- Amstra PCW improvements: Added PCW colour modes (4 or 16 colours) and added PCW Joysticks support: Kempston, Cascade, DKTronics, OPQASpace
- Text Adventure improvements: Use artificial intelligence (OpenAI) to get realistic images for location description text. Also, added GAC support on Adventure Map and Debug Adventure
- AY Player improvements: Added playlist management, allow shuffle mode, added silence mode so it skips to next track if detected silence
- Better menu management: pressing ESC closes all menus, so you don't have to press ESC multiple times to close all submenus
- Improved Accessibility: Added Sounds for GUI events
- Added new compiled versions: Ubuntu and Fedora
- Added another toy "ZXLife" to a new menu Procrastinate

Full changelog:

* New things added:

Added new compiled versions: Ubuntu and Fedora
Added PCW colour modes
Added PCW Joysticks support: Kempston, Cascade, DKTronics, OPQASpace
Added screen previews of directories and compressed files on File Selector
Added flash support on screen previews on File Selector
Added rom file selection for any machine you select, rom file name is saved on configuration
Added another toy "ZXLife" to a new menu Procrastinate
Added Ascii Table window
Added Creator Info to ZSF snapshots
Added compilation system release to Compile info window
Added Docker support
Added another easter egg

* Improvements:

Improved ZENG:
- Allow to connect more than two hosts (up to 16)
- Hostnames/IPs accept changing port using ":port"
- Allow to disable sending input events (keyboard, joystick)
- Sync flash state between instances
- Added ZENG support for Jupiter Ace

Improved AY Player:
- Added playlist
- Added shuffle mode
- Added silence detection
- Added show current AY Player song playing on console

Improved Text Adventure features:
- Use artificial intelligence to get realistic images for location description text
- Added configuration setting for char filter
- Added configuration settings for Text Adventure Map: follow, show unvisited, show unconnected, show objects, show pictures, zoom level
- Added export draw strings to external file (txt, asm, c or pas)
- Preserve zoom level on Text Adventure Map when loading games
- Added GAC support for Text Adventure Map
- Added GAC support for Debug Adventure (cpu view 8) supporting:
- Connections table
- Dictionary
- Objects
- Verbs
- Adverbs
- Locations
- Messages

Improved ZX Vision:
- New menu behaviour:
- ESC key always closes all menus
- When closing a window that's created from a menu, all menus will be closed
- Cursor left go back to the previous menu, cursor right activates the item (the same as Enter)

- Added action to put windows in cascade
- Allow to use your own charset file on ZX Vision
- Allow to get charset from a game and use as your own charset file on ZX Vision
- Allow to render only changed pixels (so it speeds up render)
- Added support for utf-8 characters "ï" and "Á"
- Process switcher can be set to immutable, so massive actions on menu Windows, like minimize all, cascade, etc, don't affect it
- Allow to press ESC when selecting a line on a history items
- Now the window frame changes colour when you move the mouse over the resize zone (bottom right)
- Improve handling some F-actions/Icons/Redefined buttons: openwindow, linkto-, machineselection

Improved ZX Desktop
- Allow to disable border and footer when switching to full screen
- When switching to full screen and disable ZX Desktop, windows are restored after disabling full screen
- Set machine icon now is dynamic and shows machine icon indicated by parameter + an arrow
- Added ZX Desktop icons for TSConf, Baseconf

Improved ZRCP:
- Allow multiple simultaneous clients
- Important changes on ZRCP:
- Before:
* when a ZRCP connection is broken, cpu-step-mode will be disabled.
* when a ZRCP connection is closed by "quit", "exit" or "logout" command, cpu-step-mode will be disabled
* cpu-step-mode can't be disabled from the menu

- Now:
* when a ZRCP connection is broken, cpu-step-mode is not modified.
* when a ZRCP connection is closed by "quit", "exit" or "logout" command, cpu-step-mode is not modified
* cpu-step-mode can be disabled from the menu, pressing ESC

Improved ZX Spectrum Next emulation: updated machine id list
Improved Process Management: allow to copy any windows contents to internal clipboard
Improved Accessibility: Added Sounds for GUI events
Improved inserting Real Tape: process is faster and part runs on background
Improved Tape browser: allow browsing P and O files
Improve ZX80 Keyboard help to include Integral Functions

* Fixes:

Fixed several memory leaks (thanks to tool valgrind) found on:
- Drawing Text Aventure Map
- Loading .Z80 snapshots
- Using the Speccy online browser
- Running the Hilow Audio Convert
- Enabling ZRCP
- Downloading ZEsarUX extras
- Downloading ZX Spectrum Next MMC image
- Syncing file image from File Utilities
- Copying a folder from File Utilities
- Showing First Aid Windows

Fixed Initialization of Visual memory tables
Fixed ZX Vision windows relocation
Fixed rendering display when CPU is on Top Speed mode
Fixed error when no permissions writing to mmc, ide, trd, dsk, ddh (hilow): disable persistent writes when it happens
Fixed permissions when installing ZEsarUX on Linux: zxuno.flash and tbblue.mmc are now writable by anyone
Fixed Text Adventure Graphics rendering invalid characters
Fixed esxdos handler when using fopen flags: FA_READ + FA_WRITE + FA_OPEN_CREAT
Fixed ZRCP bug when closing connection (socket descriptor was kept open)
Fixed reading ESC key on curses driver
Fixed support for .config files on .dsk
Fixed segfault when: autorewind enabled+insert rwa/smp/wav file as standard tape+end of tape+try to load
Fixed possible segfault when downloading and uncompressing zip files and canceling operation
Fixed compilation when disabling pthreads support
Fixed showing info on Visual Real Tape when inserting a ZX80 audio tape
Fixed segfault on fbdev driver when changing machine
Fixed charset on simulate ZX80/81 Display on Speccy
Fixed simulate real loading when mouse movement
Fixed glitch switching hardware sprites on View Sprites

* Misc Changes:

Changed CPC Copy key assignation: now is the End key on your keyboard

* As always, there are some other minor bugfixes and improvements


You can download the new version from:

https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux ... /ZEsarUX-X

Enjoy!

César

[Pegaz]

Happy tenth anniversary!
I've had my ups and downs with ZesaruX, but I still think it's very special and I like the direction it's going.
One of the few emulators, which supports Sinclair QL.
Keep up with the good job.

[XoRRoX]

Happy 10th anniversary

[chernandezba]

Happy tenth anniversary!
I've had my ups and downs with ZesaruX, but I still think it's very special and I like the direction it's going.
One of the few emulators, which supports Sinclair QL.
Keep up with the good job.

Thank you!

[chernandezba]

Happy 10th anniversary

Thank you!

[Jbizzel]

I will give this another go.

I have tried it a few times, but found the menu system impossible to understand!

But I love it emulates z88 (with sound) and ql

[PeterJ]

Thanks @chernandezba,

Are you following the director of Twitter?

It's great to have another update. Whilst its an excellent emulator, I have to admit that the sheer number of features can often be completely bewildering (maybe it's my age!). I know you provide help files and YouTube videos, but is there any chance of a user manual? I would be very happy to help with this. Readthrough and testing etc. This would perhaps remove the very steep learning curve needed.

I know you don't commit to change requests, but is it possible to update the supplied ESXDOS from 0.85 to 0.89. Also any plans to support later versions of the Dandanator?

Finally, could you let me know what I'm doing wrong when trying to load MSX .CAS files please?



Best wishes

Peter

[chernandezba]

Thanks @chernandezba,

Are you following the director of Twitter?

I don't know what you mean

It's great to have another update. Whilst its an excellent emulator, I have to admit that the sheer number of features can often be completely bewildering (maybe it's my age!). I know you provide help files and YouTube videos, but is there any chance of a user manual?

I'm sorry but no. Making documentation need a lot of hours and I don't have them to waste. I prefer using my free time on coding rather than documenting. There's a simple pdf with info about the user interface, but not more (apart from the FAQ, help and youtube videos, that, indeed , have a lot of info).
Just think this: my old emulator, the ZXSpectr, did have documentation. ZXSpectr maybe have only 1% of the ZEsarUX features, and the documentation was 90 pages long. Can you imagine how long could be the ZEsarUX documentation and how many hours I'd have to spend to write it? I don't want to think it

I would be very happy to help with this.

Thanks for the offer but it's a lot of work

Readthrough and testing etc. This would perhaps remove the very steep learning curve needed.

If some people need help, just ask me. When somebody asks, I always answer, you know that

I know you don't commit to change requests, but is it possible to update the supplied ESXDOS from 0.85 to 0.89. Also any plans to support later versions of the Dandanator?

esxdos Not yet. But it there something interesting on 0.89 that justifies the update?
About dandanator, some time ago I asked Daniel about the changes, I didn't have any answer. I'd have to insist

Finally, could you let me know what I'm doing wrong when trying to load MSX .CAS files please?

I don't know. I've just tested a random game ("Arkanoid (1986)(Taito)[RUN'CAS-'].cas") and it works

Best wishes

Peter

Cheers

[PeterJ]

Thanks for the answers @chernandezba,

Regarding Twitter, it was supposed to be a humorous comment linked to Twitter rebranding to 'X'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ything-app

Edited spelling!

[chernandezba]

Thanks for the answers @chernandezba,

Regarding Twitter, it was supposed to be a humorous comment linked to Twitter rebranding to 'X'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ything-app

Noooooo.... the X on this ZEsarUX version has nothing to do with the last Twitter name change.

The X is for the 10 years of ZEsarUX, also the new and exclusive logo for this version is also an X.
Even more... previous versions were 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3. Internally, this version is 10.10, to give even more importance to the 10 years.

And I decided all this more than one year ago, much before than the Twitter name change

[chernandezba]

This new ZEsarUX version, called "ZEsarUX ",

Sh*t.. obviously the new ZEsarUX version is called "ZEsarUX X" (with the X) not just "ZEsarUX " (and a blank space)

[kilauea]

I'm really liking Zesarux now I've spent a bit of time getting it how I like it. It performs really smooth at 50hz on my monitor like spectaculator does.

One thing I can't do is map a 2nd button on a joystick to a direction - so I can get an 'up' from button 2 on my pad. This makes games with up as jump a lot easier. Is this actually possible? It seems like it's just one event per button.

[chernandezba]

I'm really liking Zesarux now I've spent a bit of time getting it how I like it. It performs really smooth at 50hz on my monitor like spectaculator does.

One thing I can't do is map a 2nd button on a joystick to a direction - so I can get an 'up' from button 2 on my pad. This makes games with up as jump a lot easier. Is this actually possible? It seems like it's just one event per button.

Hi

You can map a joystick button/direction to a key. Go to settings-hardware-real joystick-joystick to keys

Cheers!

[hexaae]

Do you plan to improve audio emulation for ZX Spectrum (48/128K etc.)?
Sound is bad quality and slow (audible delay for example when you collect something in Atic Atac) unfortunately...