Spectrum Computing

We are very pleased to announce the implementation of the JSSpeccy emulator on our site. We are most grateful to [mention]pavero[/mention] who carried out this work for us. Thanks also to Ricardo (4thRock) who added additional css styling for us.

You can test it with Apulija-13.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=27997

Peter

Tested in Google Chrome and it works. A cool feature to the database ('a cherry on top')

By the way, cool game to play!

Fantastic!

I presume this is desktop only at present. There is no virtual keyboard on mobile. Any plans to add mobile support?

Rorthron wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:37 am Fantastic!

I presume this is desktop only at present. There is no virtual keyboard on mobile. Any plans to add mobile support?

Hi, I asked the same question. JSSpeccy does not provide a virtual keyboard, so unless the author decides to implement this, then yes it will remain desktop only.

Nice move! I would have preferred Qaop/JS which is faster and actively developed. I think, the author Jan B. who is very approachable was looking to support Pentagon.
I think JSSpeccy is not maintained anymore, a good point though is that it's opensource. This is unusable on my Ipad2 unlike Qaop which runs smooth. As for my old desktop PCs any emulator based on Javascript won't run so I resort to a fork of Qaop Java applet which works great.

We did look at QAOP and as you say it is not opensource so we would need to redirect to the authors site. I have spoken with the author a number of times over the years and I agree he his most helpful. If you know him and can convince him to share the source that would be great.

I have never talked to him about releasing the source code though I can understand his reasons (some emulators using his work without giving credit, javascript can be used to make app games..). He may get to release it some day as his old java applet emulator is GPL licensed.

Thanks for using Apulija-13 for testing

Will the on-line emulated game be updated to the newest 2.01 version with the next update of ZXDB?

Also, I experienced some lag and sound stuttering. I am writing from my Lenovo Ideapad 310 with Windows 10 Home and using Slimjet as a browser. With Microsoft Edge it's more like swimming in a jar full of jam

Seems to work well in Firefox. Thanks for adding this, it is an amazing feature that will make my lunch times at work much more, er, productive.

Alessandro wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:53 am Thanks for using Apulija-13 for testing

Will the on-line emulated game be updated to the newest 2.01 version with the next update of ZXDB?

I'm sure [mention]R-Tape[/mention] is on the case with this one.

As for the performance of JSSpeccy I'm afraid until there is a viable alternative this seems the only opensource solution.

PeterJ wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 12:25 pm I'm sure @R-Tape is on the case with this one.

Aye Ale's stuff is all collated and waiting for the next site update. I presume the emulator files will automatically be updated in line with the regular files?

R-Tape wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:45 pm

PeterJ wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 12:25 pm I'm sure @R-Tape is on the case with this one.

Aye Ale's stuff is all collated and waiting for the next site update. I presume the emulator files will automatically be updated in line with the regular files?

Thanks, yes it's all very cleverly handled automatically.

The sound glitches out at irregular intervals, and the scaling needs to be fixed at 2x or 3x or it doesn’t look right. Other than that, JSSpeccy is quite a decent online emulator for quick try-outs of unfamiliar titles.

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:32 pm The sound glitches out at irregular intervals, and the scaling needs to be fixed at 2x or 3x or it doesn’t look right. Other than that, JSSpeccy is quite a decent online emulator for quick try-outs of unfamiliar titles.

I'm afraid we can't do much with the sound (There are no user options for this as far as I'm aware), but we can check the scaling. Thanks

I have JSSpeccy on my site, and had problems with the scaling too. This, for example.

I have JSSpeccy zoom to be contained by the body, and it looks particularly bad in Chrome. The default Chrome makes it antialias and very fuzzy. I got it displaying cleanly with the css below, but the pixels were scaled unevenly, and IMO looks even worse. Fixed multiples of the screen size might be the way to go.
QAOP is supposed to be better at handling sound, I heard.

Thanks for the CSS [mention]Seven.FFF[/mention]

QAOP does look better and has a virtual keyboard, but the source is not available. You can only run it from the author's site.

Jari K. the author of Mucho has got also implemented JSSpeccy on his site if that's of help : http://sol.gfxile.net/speccy/
May I ask why you want an opensource emulator? Qaop can be used embedded on your site, the author is an old trustworthy spec-chum and dilligent to help if you contact him asking which is the best way to use his software, the emu is updated and so far the best one.

This thread makes me think about if we listen to streaming music, watch streaming videos or even read streaming comics... will it be different as to play Spectrum games?

Personally I prefer play in the classic way, in a emulator installed in my computer, opening files installed in my computer too, but maybe the future is very different...

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 11:46 am This thread makes me think about if we listen to streaming music, watch streaming videos or even read streaming comics... will it be different as to play Spectrum games?

Personally I prefer play in the classic way, in a emulator installed in my computer, opening files installed in my computer too, but maybe the future is very different...

I would agree, but its a feature that is much asked for. I think its great if you want to quickly see what a title offers, but I agree that a desktop emulator or the real hardware will always give the best results. On-line emulators do serve a very useful purpose though.

I thought I would have a look at QAOP again tonight and compare it against JSSpeccy. I noticed that QAOP does not seem to support NIRVANA+ ENGINE games, but JSSpeccy does.

I tested with this:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=32231

Can other users confirm my findings?

http://torinak.com/qaop#l=https://spect ... f 1_03.tap

To test is JSSpeccy go to:

http://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/

Click on the 'folder icon' and choose open from URL and paste in

Gandalf works in 128K mode. Not sure why it doesn't in 48K mode, as that tap definitely does in other emulators. NIRVANA and NIRVANA+ autoadjusts for 48/128K timings, so you should be ok to force every NIRVANA game to 128K.

http://torinak.com/qaop#128#l=https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/taps/Gandalf%201_03.tap

Great!!!

Maybe a search option can be added to the 'advanced search' to browse for games that can be played in the online emulator?

Can an online preview be added similar to the RZX Youtube still? I scrolled over the contents of Apulija various times trying to find the online links.

[mention]Stefan[/mention] I'm glad you like it. [mention]pavero[/mention] did a great job. When we press the go live button (Its a big red button on my desk!) all titles on the database which have a .tap file or one of the other supported formats will be listed. So this will include 100s of titles. I agree it would be nice to have a 'Advanced Search' or similar (we can add it to the long list).

Games will always be playable from the 'Play-Online' panel if it's available.

Do you know this javascript emulator? Scroll the page down to read in english.
https://github.com/XMypuK/zx-dream
Perhaps JSSpeccy's author can find its source useful to run Eastern software. Besides it has a virtual keyboard.
It does not seem to work on ios devices though.

[mention]hikoki[/mention] this looks promising, but does not seem to have been touched for five years. It seems impossible to find something that ticks all the boxes that we can install locally. I appreciate you bringing it to our attention though.