toot_toot wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 12:16 pm
Personally, I think ULANext is not the same as ULAPlus as it's just essentially a completely new Video Mode for the Next making Next only games look better, more unique and ultimately less like a Spectrum.
I think you have a misunderstanding of what ULAnext is - it serves the exact same purpose as ULAPlus. Both change the palette of the existing spectrum colours but do nothing to the colour resolution. You can colour existing games using ULAnext just like you can with ULAplus.
There are two things you can do in the next.
One is you can use the spectrum like normal and you can change the palette entries for ink, bright ink, paper, bright paper to different colours (each colour is 9-bit). So you could change ink 2 (red) to something else, eg, brown. Then all red ink pixels will be brown. Bright red ink is different - you could change that independently to orange, eg. This is straight up colour substitution.
ULAnext is a step further. It changes the meaning of an attribute byte by letting you specify how many of the rightmost bits in the attribute byte will be considered the ink colour. The rest are taken as the paper colour. ULAplus does the same thing but the rightmost 3 bits are always ink and the next 3 bits are always paper. This would be equivalent to a ULAnext format byte of 0x07. Where they depart is ULAplus uses the bright and flash bits to select different palette sets whereas ULAnext only uses the flash and paper bits to extend the paper colour selection (or ink selection if the format byte has more bits set).
Yes, 14MHz is still in there - sorry I forgot it was 28 MHz that was dropped. However 28MHz boost was announced as an official update in June 2017 here:
https://www.specnext.com/new-turbo-modes-14-and-28mhz/
(with a retracted update from January 2018 saying 28MHz wouldn't be available).
It crashes the machine. It's not really useful if it's going to do that
Everyone is committed to providing the best machine possible but there's also an eye on what was promised in the kickstarter as that is what people pledged money for. In the kickstarter, 7MHz is what was promised so getting 14MHz is icing.
FM sound was definitely listed in the Campaign (in fact it's still there), but that too seems to have been quietly dropped.
Yes FM has been dropped because it takes up too much space. You'd have to choose other things to remove to make space for it. The SID was being considered as the FM option as was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLFV96Tt7c
Another option being considered is enhancing the AY. But what can be done depends on priorities and available fpga space. The core is not done yet - it's still being developed.
There have been no updates on the status of Rex Next, Dizzy or Nodes of Yesod in months - all three of those games were promised as part of Stretch goals (which were met)
The oliver twins were taking the new dizzy game design + screenshots on tour to many retro events last year. The game will be for both the 128k and the Next with the Next seeing some enhancements (but not too many from what I have seen - multiple AY and clashless sprites are what I noticed. Perhaps they would change the palette too as that's something easy to do). I think the dev is fairly far along.
Rex Next and Nodes are being done by the original programmers. I haven't seen much from them but it is still going. This is dependent on their spare time.
There's a wip video for the 128k version of wonderful dizzy on the specnext games site:
https://www.spectrumnextgames.uk/#Games
But my point is that many features were promised but have been dropped. I'm OK with that as they've made the decision that it would either take up too much time or resources to implement them.
I don't think very much has been dropped.
Processor: Z80 3.5Mhz and 7Mhz modes
Memory: 512Kb RAM (expandable to 1.5Mb internally and 2.5Mb externally)
Video: Hardware sprites, 256 colours mode, Timex 8x1 mode etc.
Video Output: RGB, VGA, HDMI
Storage: SD Card slot, with DivMMC-compatible protocol
Audio: 3x AY-3-8912 audio chips with stereo output + FM sound
Joystick: DB9 compatible with Cursor, Kempston and Interface 2 protocols (selectable)
PS/2 port: Mouse with Kempston mode emulation and an external keyboard
Special: Multiface functionality for memory access, savegames, cheats etc.
Tape support: Mic and Ear ports for tape loading and saving
Expansion: Original external bus expansion port and accelerator expansion port
Accelerator board (optional): GPU / 1Ghz CPU / 512Mb RAM
Network (optional): Wi Fi module
Extras: Real Time Clock (optional), internal speaker (optional)
Everything in this list is in except the FM sound.
The expansion bus and accelerator are still seeing some work.
Stretch goals:
(done) there must be two
(done) box of memories
(active) nodes of yesod
(active) internet toolbox
(active) we play more
(done) holy manual
(done) never forget
(active) make me dizzy
(active) rex next
(done) expand me easy
(done) stronger zx next
Let's not forget that there have been additions way beyond these lists in both the software and hardware. As just one example, neither Sinclair nor Amstrad ever contributed as much to the operating system as what is in NextZXOS.