Update ZEsarUX 7.1

[chernandezba]

They don't talk about ZEsarUX, but about ZXUNO.


I did a search and found the homepage, that's were i saw a link to your emulator.

Great! Thanks! But the screen seems enlarged horizontally...

I will try to solve this with other scaling method.

Ah ok, I see. ZEsarUX is the only one that emulates ZX-Uno
I see you have released a new version with fixed aspect ratio. Great!


Thanks,


Cesar

 

[chernandezba]

Hi

 

I have uploaded a new version of my emulator ZEsarUX on

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/zesarux

 

I have improved accessibility support, now all the menu texts and the texts generated on Spectrum are sent to a text to speech programs, on all operating systems supported by the emulator. It permits to blind people to use the emulator and play for example text adventures. I had the help of some people at CAAD forums, specially Sukil Etxenike, who even created an audio guide to use the emulator and scripts to interact with screen readers.

 

I also have added SD/MMC emulation: on Spectrum and ZX-Uno, ZXMMC and DivMMC. And for ZX-81, ZXPand interface

 

And I also have added Spectra and Timex video modes emulation

 

I have to remember that apart from the binary versions I compile: Linux Debian, Windows, Mac and Raspbian, there are also ports made by other people for Arch Linux, Retropie and Open Pandora.

 

I hope you like it. The complete Changelog is:

 

Version 3.1. 2nd October 2015 - Jetpac edition  

Accessibility support (Print char traps and Text to Speech program) are available for all video drivers, not only stdout. It makes possible for blind people to use text to speech programs to play text adventures. Available on all operating systems: Linux, Mac, Windows, Raspberry, etc. 

 

Added ZXMMC emulation 

 

Added DivMMC emulation. Supporting DivMMC on Spectrum and ZX-Uno 

 

Added ZXPand ZX81 MMC Emulation 

 

Added Spectra Video modes 

 

Added Timex Video modes (Mode 0 standard, 1 dual screen, 2 hires colour 8x1). Mode 6 (512x192 monochrome) is not emulated yet (doing 256x192 monochrome) 

 

Added loading pokes from .POK files 

 

Added Pokeing to 128k machine (bank, address, value) 

 

Added configuration option to set path to external tools: sox, unzip, gunzip, tar, unrar 

 

Added commandline setting to quick exit emulator --quickexit 

 

Fixed Inves ULA Colour Delay. It only affects bright 

 

Fixed blank directory listing error on some Windows machines 

 

Improved ULAplus. Now supports HAM modes (ULAplus palette change every scanline) 

 

Improved loader detection. Now a custom loader routine is detected and reinserted the tape as Real Tape 

 

Improved Print char traps functions and filters 

 

Improved Snow Effect Improved listing on --experthelp 

 

Improved SDL audio (affects Windows & other O.S.): reduced audio latency and add a configurable parameter 

 

Some other minor bugfixes and improvements

 

 

Cheers

Cesar

 

 

[LTStone]

I actually just downloaded this emulator a week ago just for the text adventures, it has alot!

 

[canseco]

Changelog

3.1.0.0
- Latest stable release. 
- Updated sources.

I tried Aquanoids and it works fine, but i need to do more tests or more people testing.

I will try to integrate festival and sox in next version.

 

[subone]

Hi,
thanks Canseco for that nice release.
Find some usefull command line options like --smartloadpath to point my roms or --joystickemulated for Kempston.

Is it possible to browse files faster ... it's only one by one with Dpad or maybe remap PgUp/PgDn on keyboard ?

Subone

 

[canseco]

Inside appdata/zesarux folder, there's omapsdl.cfg.
The last 2 lines are the quick bindings i did, you just need to comment that line or change it.

X button should work again as PgDn.

The emulator file browser supports searching with filter too. Type 's' and all files starting with that character will show up.

 

[subone]

Inside appdata/zesarux folder, there's omapsdl.cfg.
The last 2 lines are the quick bindings i did, you just need to comment that line or change it.

X button should work again as PgDn.

The emulator file browser supports searching with filter too. Type 's' and all files starting with that character will show up.

That works, commenting the 2 last lines made the X button as PgDn.
Thanx for your fast answer.

 

[chernandezba]

Changelog

3.1.0.0
- Latest stable release. 
- Updated sources.

I tried Aquanoids and it works fine, but i need to do more tests or more people testing.

I will try to integrate festival and sox in next version.

Hi Canseco.
Thanks for the new openpandora release! 
Tell me if you need help using festival, sox, or anything else.

Cheers
Cesar

 

[canseco]

3.1.0.1
- Added Festival-lite, female english voice and sox. 
- Changed Default configuration, delete .zesarux and omapsdl.cfg files on appdata/zesarux folder, for new changes to take effect. 
- Updated sources and libs.

I ended up using Festival-lite because Festival was too slow and heavy on resources.
I did also make flite_filter.sh script with this line: "cat | sed 's/=//g' | sed 's/*//g' | flite" to avoid the voice to repeat equals 42 times,

Text to speech works with sdl, not via alsa (unable to open dmix), but there are still some pops and cracks, and alsa complains with a few overruns. I tried to change sdl and alsa settings but it doesn't change too much the outcome.

Another problem is Z88 crashing with this error: "scrsdl_init could not set video mode", and then segfaults.

I still need to test sox, but the rest is working very well, keep up the good work,

 

[chernandezba]

When is generated this equal symbol?
About festival... I Think espeak has better voices, is there any espeak version for openpandora?
About Z88... Window size is 640x192 with zoom 1, and I think you set zoom 2 on .zesaruxrc, so window size is 1280x384. Can openpandora have this window size? If not, it will probably segfault...

 

[canseco]

Here's an example. As you can see there's a line of equal characters. With the trick i did, it doesn't read the anymore,

I was using zoom 3, our hacked SDL was trying to downscale a pretty big resolution... I will change default to 1 or 2.

I will try to fiddle with espeak, as it's not avalaible on default repo, flite is working fine, but i miss a spanish voice.

 

[chernandezba]

I see... On Print char traps menu there are some text filters for different games or parsers for similar cases... But I think there is no filter for this case with repeated equal signs. I think your solution with sed is very smart
Have you tried the print char trap detection routines for games that don't use standard rom calls to print text? With this routine almost any text printed on text adventure will be trapped by the emulator and sent to text-to-speech program.
I don't remember if espeak have Spanish voices... Festival has Spanish voices.
Does Z88 emulation work with zoom 1?
Cheers

 

[canseco]

I already played a bit with print char trap, and it works very well.
Z88 works with zoom 1 and 2, not 3.

 

[chernandezba]

I will check video driver, it should not generate a segmentation fault when window size is not big enough. It should generate an error.

 

 

[canseco]

Changelog

3.1.0.2: 
- Changed default zoom to 2. 
- Cleanup lib folder.

 

[canseco]

Changelog

4.0.0.0
- Latest stable release. Updated sources.

 

[levi]

Nice, tested it out with a quick Spectrum SNA and that works fine, thanks!

I can't figure out how to run Amstrad games though. Most of mine seem to be in .dsk format, but that doesn't get picked up by the autoloader. Also, setting the machine mode to Amstrad CPC replaces the menu with a black screen, and neither F5 or F10 respond, so after about five minutes I killed it. There's not much beyond what looks to me like startup logs in the pndrun.out file.

 

[chernandezba]

Changelog

4.0.0.0
- Latest stable release. Updated sources.

Great! Thanks
[doublepost=1457250211,1457249873][/doublepost]

Nice, tested it out with a quick Spectrum SNA and that works fine, thanks!

I can't figure out how to run Amstrad games though. Most of mine seem to be in .dsk format, but that doesn't get picked up by the autoloader. Also, setting the machine mode to Amstrad CPC replaces the menu with a black screen, and neither F5 or F10 respond, so after about five minutes I killed it. There's not much beyond what looks to me like startup logs in the pndrun.out file.

Hi
ZEsarUX only emulates a CPC 464, and only have tape file support. So no .dsk files support..
To load a tape you must use .cdt files, the smart load menu will recognize them. After that you must press ctrl+enter to load (as on a real cpc), I don't know how to send that key combinations on pyra..
About black screen.. I don't know why it happens, my tests on Linux/Mac/Win/Rpi ran well, so you should get a blue display with yellow letters, the copyright and the basic prompt .
One of the main differences between spectrum and cpc is that the last one needs a larger display, 640x200 (without border) if I remember well...
Maybe the pyra is not handling well the display size change?

Cheers
Cesar

 

[canseco]

Maybe zoom is set to 3 on default config.
Check appdata/zesarux/.zesaruxrc, search for "--zoom 3" and replace that number with 1.

Ctrl+Enter can be done on OpenPandora pressing Select/Ctrl+Enter or R1 button+Enter.

 

[levi]

My .zesuaruxrc had a -zoom setting of 2. Still, I tried changing that to 1, and now the Amstrad machine boots! The F5 menu in that mode is so small as to actually be close to unreadable on my poor TV-out only unit, but I guess I can live with that. Now just to find some tape files to test.

Thanks for your help, canseco and Cesar!