Spectrum Computing

I have just been speaking with a user on Facebook called Matt Davies and he told me about his new ZX Spectrum & Next Emulator / Debugger / Assembler and Disassembler.

Matt was OK with me posting about it but has asked that I make it clear that the emulator is still in early development. All feature requests and bug reports are very welcome (via GitHub). The priority is to get the Next emulated ASAP and the integrated assembler finished. After that he will consider all feature requests.


The main GitHub page is here:

https://github.com/next-dev/nx

Binary releases can be found at: https://github.com/next-dev/nx/releases

There is a Facebook group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/543621686004820/

That's excellent. I had completely forgotten about Matt's tools, this was a timely reminder. Thanks!

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:27 pm That's excellent. I had completely forgotten about Matt's tools, this was a timely reminder. Thanks!

Same here. I'm still in testing phase for some of the routines but when finished I'll be putting it together for a game.

Excellent. Really looking forward to the Next and all that follows it.
My cased edition should be coming soon (fingers crossed).
Some of the games look brilliant.
Not sure if I should cover them in The Spectrum Show... some may say it's not a 'real' Spectrum - opinions?

I think it would be great to cover it on the Spectrum Show [mention]PaulJ[/mention]

Looking forward to my cased edition too.

Matt's a great guy and his emulator looks really promising.

[mention]PaulJ[/mention] of course TSS should include the Next. There’s lots of us who have back the Next and would love to see if being explored in the show.

For an end user I suspect it feels very much like a Spectrum, because the OS is based on Garry Lancaster's +3e ROMs. The Next-specific features have been deeply integrated into the BASIC, but the BASIC still feels distinctly Spectrum. And many people will already be familiar with exsDOS and the Multiface.

As a coder, it does too. Although there are extra screen modes, the way they're layered on top of each other with transparency and uniform 256x192 resolution keeps the classic ULA screen at the heart of it. The extended paging model comes from the Timex Spectrum models, as do the Timex screen modes. The colour palettes have evolved from Timex via ULA+ into their own thing. The sound is AY, evolved from TurboSound, and covox/8-bit DAC. This is Spectrum-related stuff that's gestated over years.

The least Spectrummy parts are the copper and DMA (standard Zilog Z84C10 implementation). The copper and 512 colours invites natural comparisons with those. I was never an Amiga or ST dev, but I'm thinking it feels a lot more like a Spectrum than one of those.

For a gamer who only uses BASIC to type LOAD "" or a walk-in punter that hasn't used a Spectrum since 1987, I dunno. Maybe it will feel more like an Amiga, ST or SNES. I'm not entirely sure what the kickstarter demographic is, split between those four kinds of users!