ZXBaremulator 3.2

[Bernie]

Morning

In addition to my joystick question above, I have run into another issue and would be grateful for some guidance with.

I am in the process of wiring my old plus keyboard to the GPIO pins of a pi 2 (I fried my 3a+ yesterday due to some lousy soldering...).

Anyway, I have got it working but when the baremulator boots up it says ‘you need a gpio keyboard connected’. Does anyone know how I stop this from being displayed?

Cheers

[zx81]

Anyway, I have got it working but when the baremulator boots up it says ‘you need a gpio keyboard connected’. Does anyone know how I stop this from being displayed?

The emulator can't detect when a GPIO keyboard is connected, so when don't find any USB keyboard, warns about that. No, the message isn't configurable.

[Bernie]

Anyway, I have got it working but when the baremulator boots up it says ‘you need a gpio keyboard connected’. Does anyone know how I stop this from being displayed?

The emulator can't detect when a GPIO keyboard is connected, so when don't find any USB keyboard, warns about that. No, the message isn't configurable.

Ok, thanks. I’ll close my eyes when it boots up from now on.

[J2112Z]

Anyway, the development is stopped and will be no more public updates. Be warned.

[mention]zx81[/mention]

Have you considered using ZXBaremulator as a basis for a Kickstarter project? I'm sure you'd get a lot of backers, including many from here, myself included!

Just a suggestion. Kind regards.

[zx81]

Anyway, the development is stopped and will be no more public updates. Be warned.

@zx81

Have you considered using ZXBaremulator as a basis for a Kickstarter project? I'm sure you'd get a lot of backers, including many from here, myself included!

Just a suggestion. Kind regards.

No really, I don't want to convert a hobby in another form of work. I have a sincerely appreciation by the Spectrum and I'm not keen to get any money from it. Fortunately, I have a work to get money for my family, so I prefer to have the Spectrum as a hobby. No quickstarters, no patreons.

Thanks for your offer.

[Bernie]

Evening

I have ANOTHER question. Apologies for spamming...

I have got my 48k plus keyboard working beautifully via the GPIO pins. I have also, separately, got a joystick hard wired & working (interface2 it seems).

Has anyone successfully managed to run both a keyboard and a Joystick from the pins at the same time? I have tried it, without solder, but it just makes the screen go momentarily black when the joystick is actioned.

I don’t want to unnecessarily damage my current setup nor kill another pi.

Thanks

[MonkZy]

Hi Bernie,

I have made an 'interface 2/Sinclair' joystick port using the GPIO keyboard interface. It worked well with the keyboard ribbons plugged in at the same time, I had no black screens. I also made a 'cursor joystick' (5,6,7,8 and 0) port using opto-couplers which also worked fine in older games such as Atic-Atac.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2488&p=34499&hilit ... ard#p34499

My knowledge of electronics is poor though and I have noticed the cursor joystick sort of pulses when you hold a direction or fire, I do not know why. It works fine in use however, your mileage may vary.

Make sure the joystick is connected to the diodes not directly to the GPIO pins.

Good luck.

[Bernie]

Thanks for the reply. I had seen your cursor post and considered having a go, but it’s beyond my abilities. Looks great though.

Perhaps you are onto something with the diodes.
By my reckoning, the joystick has to connect to KB1, but I don’t have any diodes on that part of my circuit, only KB2.

[MonkZy]

The common/ground pin of the joystick connects to one of the KB2 lines (1 or 4) and the directions/fire-button connect to each of the five KB1 lines. When i soldered my circuit i left two extra rows of holes before the ribbon connectors on the stripboard so i could solder the wires going to the d-sub sockets. I believe the diodes protect short circuits when more than one key is pressed simultaneously.

[Jbizzel]

This is a brilliant emulator.

I'm using it on my original rpi from 2011 with a 64meg!! SD card.

And I'm doing that through composite and the audio jack.

Amazing work - thank you for creating this.

With my set up, I don't seem to be able to get 128k games to work. They cash after loading or else load in 48k mode. I have the emulator set to 128k obviously.

Wonder if the slow and tiny SD card a problem, or the limitations of the original pi. Or should I use tzx rather that tap file? Where am I going wrong?

Chucky egg is so smooth on this thing, 48k seems to work great!

[zx81]

This is a brilliant emulator.

I'm using it on my original rpi from 2011 with a 64meg!! SD card.

And I'm doing that through composite and the audio jack.

Amazing work - thank you for creating this.

With my set up, I don't seem to be able to get 128k games to work. They cash after loading or else load in 48k mode. I have the emulator set to 128k obviously.

Wonder if the slow and tiny SD card a problem, or the limitations of the original pi. Or should I use tzx rather that tap file? Where am I going wrong?

Chucky egg is so smooth on this thing, 48k seems to work great!

Hi Jbizzel,

ZXBaremulator should work on the original PI correctly with the three Spectrum models. The first PI only have 256 MB RAM, but is enough for the emulator.

Try to put in config.txt:

gpu_mem=16M

and copy the files fixup_cd.dat and start_cd.elf to your SD card. I have a B+ model with 512MB RAM and works well, but I don't have the first model, so I can't test it by myself.

[Bernie]

The common/ground pin of the joystick connects to one of the KB2 lines (1 or 4) and the directions/fire-button connect to each of the five KB1 lines. When i soldered my circuit i left two extra rows of holes before the ribbon connectors on the stripboard so i could solder the wires going to the d-sub sockets. I believe the diodes protect short circuits when more than one key is pressed simultaneously.

Monkzy

You cracked it. Reworked my KB1 circuit this morning with the diodes, as you suggest, and it works. Absolutely delighted.



Once I have butchered the case I will have the spectrum I had in my head when I first found about about the raspberry pi.

Thanks to all involved.

[Jbizzel]

Hi Jbizzel,

ZXBaremulator should work on the original PI correctly with the three Spectrum models. The first PI only have 256 MB RAM, but is enough for the emulator.

Try to put in config.txt:

gpu_mem=16M

and copy the files fixup_cd.dat and start_cd.elf to your SD card. I have a B+ model with 512MB RAM and works well, but I don't have the first model, so I can't test it by myself.

Thank you, I have just checked and I have the 1B model. Not the 1b+ I will try your suggestion and report back.

[Jbizzel]

well I tried it again and it started working fine! Its a brilliant emulator. I tried fuse on my Pi and I couldn't get it to run well after many hours of messing with settings.

ZXBM could not be simpler!

I think last night when I was having problems I may have tried quite a few tapes with speed loaders that it doesn't seem to like maybe?

4k race glitches badly on the game play screen - although it does that on my real +2

Castelvainia didn't load for me,
nor does Auf Wiedersehen Monty - which gives a 128k error.

Id be interested to hear other peoples experiences.

Great work!!!

[Pegaz]

I have been following the development of Baremulator from the very beginning and I know it works well on Pi Zero, Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi3B+ and Pi 3A+.
I tested it myself and everything I tried on supported 48/128/+2A models worked and I tried a lot!
Its very precise, but it is not completely finished, it lacks Save support and a few more things.
I have a small problem with buzzing sound in the latest version on my LCD TV, but the problem does not occur with everyone, so its very difficult to locate and fix it.
Fuse is a great emulator and works perfectly on all the models I mentioned above.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses, so I use both on Pi, plus UnrealSpeccy Portable for Russian Spectrum clones with TRDos software.
These are the three by far the best Spectrum emulators on the Raspberry Pi.
I've never had the first Pi model, I don't know how it works with Spectrum emulators and I honestly don't see much point in using it, if the Pi Zero is $5 and the Pi 3A+ $25
And last but not least, as far as I understand, there will be no new Baremulator versions.
Its not entirely clear to me, whether the development has been abandoned or there will be at least some bug fixes, but [mention]zx81[/mention] is here and may be able to clarify the current situation.

btw, 4K Race doesnt flicker on standard 128k models.
Theres a TS2068 version of this game, slightly different and is not compatible with standard 128k Spectrums.

[Jbizzel]

I I honestly don't see much point in using it, if the Pi Zero is $5 and the Pi 3A+ $

I am using a pi 1 because that is what I have. It's been gathering dust in a draw for 10 years. Zxbm has given it a new lease of life as it works very well for me. Much better that the version of fuse I had, which ran slow in my experience.

btw, 4K Race doesnt flicker on standard 128k models.
Theres a TS2068 version of this game, slightly different and is not compatible with standard 128k Spectrums.

You're right about 4k race. I just tested it on zxbm. It's fine on 128 standard, put not on the plus 2 - I wonder why?

Maybe I need to try a different version of castlevania then, if you are saying it works fine?

Thanks for the input

[zx81]

And last but not least, as far as I understand, there will be no new Baremulator versions.
Its not entirely clear to me, whether the development has been abandoned or there will be at least some bug fixes, but @zx81 is here and may be able to clarify the current situation.

ZXBaremulator is a failed project and doomed from the start. I don't touch his source code anymore, no new versions or bugfixes, neither. When I need any bugfix or feature, I don't release it.

For me, ZXBaremulator is dead.

[Jbizzel]

And last but not least, as far as I understand, there will be no new Baremulator versions.
Its not entirely clear to me, whether the development has been abandoned or there will be at least some bug fixes, but @zx81 is here and may be able to clarify the current situation.

ZXBaremulator is a failed project and doomed from the start. I don't touch his source code anymore, no new versions or bugfixes, neither. When I need any bugfix or feature, I don't release it.

For me, ZXBaremulator is dead.

I completely understand. It's great as it is. Thank you for making it.

The king is dead, long live the king!

[Pegaz]

[mention]zx81[/mention]

Fair enough, although I don't understand where that bitterness comes from.
Your emulator is everything, but not a failed project to me.
I was happy to use it and I will use it in the future, as well as various other emulators that I like.
Thanks for the effort and see you around here.
Cheers.

[cmal]

@zx81

Fair enough, although I don't understand where that bitterness comes from.
Your emulator is everything, but not a failed project to me.
I was happy to use it and I will use it in the future, as well as various other emulators that I like.
Thanks for the effort and see you around here.
Cheers.

I agree with Pegaz. I wouldn't say it is a failed project. I'm still happily using it on my Pi 3B and so far is my most accurate emulator, even though it lacks some of the features that other emulators have.

[cmal]

well I tried it again and it started working fine! Its a brilliant emulator. I tried fuse on my Pi and I couldn't get it to run well after many hours of messing with settings.

ZXBM could not be simpler!

I think last night when I was having problems I may have tried quite a few tapes with speed loaders that it doesn't seem to like maybe?

4k race glitches badly on the game play screen - although it does that on my real +2

Castelvainia didn't load for me,
nor does Auf Wiedersehen Monty - which gives a 128k error.

Id be interested to hear other peoples experiences.

Great work!!!

So far the only 128k game that hasn't worked for me on ZXB is the recent Wonderful Dizzy game that got released.

[zx81]

well I tried it again and it started working fine! Its a brilliant emulator. I tried fuse on my Pi and I couldn't get it to run well after many hours of messing with settings.

ZXBM could not be simpler!

I think last night when I was having problems I may have tried quite a few tapes with speed loaders that it doesn't seem to like maybe?

4k race glitches badly on the game play screen - although it does that on my real +2

Castelvainia didn't load for me,
nor does Auf Wiedersehen Monty - which gives a 128k error.

Id be interested to hear other peoples experiences.

Great work!!!

So far the only 128k game that hasn't worked for me on ZXB is the recent Wonderful Dizzy game that got released.

After the first screen, press F8 to start the tape...

[cmal]

So far the only 128k game that hasn't worked for me on ZXB is the recent Wonderful Dizzy game that got released.

After the first screen, press F8 to start the tape...

Yup, that worked! My Bad! Thanks

[Gooeyblob]

Feliz cuarto aniversario José

[zx81]

Feliz cuarto aniversario José

Thanks GooeyBlob, and happy 39th birthday to our lovely Spectrum!.