Xberry Pi : ZX Spectrum Next Clone

[PeterJ]

Found via Facebook:

https://github.com/DonSuperfo/Xberry-Pi

[Nitrowing]

looks good, no pricing?

[oO cozy Oo]

New video on this little gem :From youtube Spectrum next stuff

[PeterJ]

No available for just under £100

https://zxrenew.co.uk/Xberry-Pi-p596973674

[oO cozy Oo]

I wonder if you can fit this in a Spectrum case and use the real keyboard? the N-go is £104 for the motherboard...........

[PeterJ]

@oO cozy Oo

Where are you seeing it for £104? Cheapest I can see is £140;

https://store.activeconsult.co.uk/shop/ ... ories/n-go

Was it a typo?

Cheers

[Seven.FFF]

I’m not sure anybody is price gouging on these hobby design boards. The FPGA chip alone currently has a list price of £55 and a lead time of 12 weeks, so people still using Spartan-6 designs are mostly hunting around for small batches of reclaimed or resold chips at whatever the cheapest spot price is. With all the uncertainty and possibility of fakes/unusable chips that implies.

The XberryPi design is open source, so if it’s possible to undercut that pricing and still be worth the maker’s time, I’m sure it will happen.

[oO cozy Oo]

https://manuferhi.com/p/n-go-board

But its out of stock you have to look weekly.

[PeterJ]

Thanks, that's still 145 Euros / £126 UK + postage and import fees if you are based in the UK.

Peter

[Seven.FFF]

You should check Manuferhi stock several times a week. He lists new units as he completes each tiny batch, and they sell out pretty quick.

Richard Spencer has been ill and is currently in hospital, so you probably shouldn’t expect much new stock or orders to be fulfilled at Active Consult for a while. I hope is is better soon.

[Twig]

Very cool looking project. I guess the easiest way to hook up any Spectrum type keyboard would be through the GPIO?

[StanVanman]

This looks a really good way to effectively get a cheap Next, but I'm a bit confused as to how it can be a Raspberry Pi when the Pi isn't normally capable of emulating the Next at anything like full speed. What's different here?

[PeterJ]

@StanVanman

It's the same form factor of a Raspberry Pi, rather than actually being a Raspberry Pi.

PCB is the same size as Raspberry Pi Board, can be fitted in a Raspberry Pi 3+ case with small modification.

[Seven.FFF]

The Xberry Pi is a Spartan 6 FPGA clone of the ks1 Next issue 2B board, but sized and laid out to fit a Pi case. The extreme shrinking means some of the connectors and buttons are not present, or only present on pin header pads you can break out to connectors and buttons yourself.

But because it can use unmodified official Next builds of the FPGA it counts as a true clone, unlike some of the other systems who did one-off ports of the core with features missing or altered to fit the hardware spec of those other systems.

There’s definitely not a Raspberry Pi board in an Xberry Pi, although it does have the 2x20 header present to fit a Pi Zero Next Accelerator.

[8BitSC]

A new revision. Rev 4G.

Anyone who bought one recently is gonna feel a bit peeved. The previous revision has only been available for about 2 months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHDU8WNwL-8

I think I'll sit this one out. I already own a cased N-Go I bought directly from manuferhi.

[PeterJ]

The version that zxrenew has been selling is listed as 4G.

[moochris]

I have one on preorder now from ZX Renew - it's my xmas present, so hopefully the new batch arrives in time

It looks great value for money, even ignoring the fact it's a Next clone - I'll probably spend more time with the 128 and BBC cores.

[Seven.FFF]

I'll probably spend more time with the 128 and BBC cores.

Yes, and it should be possible to put PiTubeDirect on a Pi Zero, attach it to the 2x20 header on the Xberry Pi, and use it with Hoglet’s BeebFPGA Next core.

Just remember that Pi Zeros on Nexts/N-Gos/Xberry Pis have a 2x20 female header attached to the reverse of the Pi Zero, so the SD card and other components are on the upper side when it’s all plugged in. This is the opposite way round from how it normally is (male header attached to the upper side).

[PeterJ]

This is the opposite way round from how it normally is

When I had an N-Go I made the mistake of not reading the instructions before soldering!

[Seven.FFF]

Yep it’s bitten a few people. The reason it’s like that, btw, is because the Pi is conceptually a hat for the Next rather than the other way round. And it lets you use stacked headers like this, and add further hats to the Pi as well.

[8BitSC]

I made the mistake of not RTFM'ing when I got my N-Go and assumed ANY PI Zero would work.

Ended up with a later revision Pi, sporting an un-required female header soldered to its back.

[Twig]

Has anyone managed to get a ZX or ZX-style keyboard working with this one?

[PeterJ]

I'm definitely going to buy one from ZXRenew but it seems odd that money is taken at time of order, even though they are on pre-order (with no indication of when they will be in stock). The website says no refunds, so what happens if they go under before they are dispatched. I did contact the shop owner, but got a very underwhelming short reply.

Maybe I'm to used to dealing with larger companies but this seems odd to me. I'm going to wait until they are in stock.

[PeterJ]

If anyone is interested, there is a used one on eBay. I checked and it's the latest revision board.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176083550443

[Twig]

Unsurprisingly, the Recreated keyboard doesn't work with a PS/2 adapter! Not the biggest shock in the world.

Making do with a generic PS/2 keyboard until there's an easy adapter for existing Speccys to connect to it as a keyboard.