ZX Spectrum Next

[Ian J]

£99 for the basic board is very reasonable, especially as you can just drop it into a standard rubber key or + case with a few modifications.

 

[levi]

Yes, indeed. That depends on the project getting funded. That said, it's made almost three quarters of its target with only slightly more than half the number of people I suggested, meaning they've pledged a lot more than the base 175GBP for those without a spectum case they want to mod. I may have to eat my words about the target being pretty unachievable if it keeps up this rate!

 

[erico]

The product is good, the people behind also. They will get there.
I´d support the campaign if I wasn´t in a financial wreck.

 

[Stainy]

This is going up at a phenomenal rate. Backed the board only

 

[Gren]

I pledged for the Plus. Wanted the accelerator version, but they were gone in no time

Hopefully Victor will get some more Pi zeros and extend the accelerator pledge numbers. I have no soldering tools or skills!

 

[erico]

He will.

 

[Ian J]

I think it would have smashed it's target today if more of the lower tier pledges had been available.

We've been out for the day today (nice weather for a change at the weekend in the UK) and when we got back all the the pledges I would have picked had already gone.

I really wanted the Next Accelerated bundle.

 

[levi]

So is the accelerator a Pi Zero which is also elsewhere described as a coprocessor? I guess the two terms are closely related, with 'coprocessor' being the much older term, at least in this context. But the specs for the accelerator do look rather like a Pi Zero rev 3.

 

[pmprog]

It says this on the campaign:

We added the option to add a Raspberry Pi Zero as a slave co-accelerator board, taking the Spectrum Next to a whole new level. In other words, with a Raspberry Pi Zero slotted into its place, the Spectrum Next can use the RPi memory, CPU and GPU to do its bidding. Imagine what demosceners can do with this… An OpenGL ZX Spectrum? Who knows!

It also (probably) sets the world-record of cheapest accelerator in the world, as the incredible Raspberry Pi can be bought by £5 or less. It doesn’t get any better than this…

 

[levi]

Ah, looks like I'd misread co-accelerator as 'coprocessor'. Carry on then.

 

[Ian J]

Funded

 

[Stainy]

damn! I woke up to 103% funded.. roll on the stretches

 

[directive0]

Sooooo tempted.

 

[pmprog]

I does sound pretty good, though I'd prefer a C64 core for it

I do like the idea of using a Pi as a support board. This was something I was planning in a project of mine

 

[JonnyH]

I do like the idea of using a Pi as a support board. This was something I was planning in a project of mine

I'm not sure I see the point of this being attached to a "faithful" zx clone - it'll be "so" overpowered that you may as well do everything on the PI. Then I wonder what the point of having the attached zx would be? It feels kinda cheating

 

[pmprog]

I'm not sure I see the point of this being attached to a "faithful" zx clone - it'll be "so" overpowered that you may as well do everything on the PI. Then I wonder what the point of having the attached zx would be? It feels kinda cheating

Well, did you see the guy who put Wol3D on gameboy? He added a chip into the cart to do all the complex maths, whilst using the rest of the gameboy for rendering the screen. I get your point though.

In my case, my plan was to use it to expose tcp/udp support to my custom platform without having to write ethernet drivers, tcp stack etc.

 

[Ian J]

I does sound pretty good, though I'd prefer a C64 core for it

From the ZX Spectrum Next site:

Q. Can the Next board support more cores on FPGA, like C64/Apple II/BBC/whatever?

Extras cores are not the main focus of the Next, but the board is FPGA based, so you can upload anything you want. There are many cores with similar specifications of the Next and would be easily adapted to run on board.
[doublepost=1493069220,1493054605][/doublepost]

I does sound pretty good, though I'd prefer a C64 core for it

I'd love a C64 or Amiga similar to this with enhanced features.

 

[pmprog]

Extras cores are not the main focus of the Next, but the board is FPGA based, so you can upload anything you want. There are many cores with similar specifications of the Next and would be easily adapted to run on board.

Yeah, I figured that from the FPGA, but you'd need somebody to port the core, and I'm not quite at that level with FPGA/VHDL yet. The other downside to using the ZX Next is that the keyboard is (obviously) based on the ZX rather than PETSCII

I'd love a C64 or Amiga similar to this with enhanced features.

Then you'll probably want to join me on keeping an eye on THE64, the MEGA65, and icomp.de Or wait, because I'll probably post something on this board when something lands.
I'm a bit skeptical of THE64, just by some of what they're doing (like pissing around with their "third" varient, which didn't exist at the time of the IndieGoGo. You'd think they'd try and finish what they started first)
The MEGA65 now has a prototype mainboard (though you can run the firmware off a Digilent Nexys4DDR board), I bought one of those boards, but haven't got it running because they're got a crazy resolution requirement of 1200p. I don't have any monitors that support that resolution. So unless they decide to alter their video output to support 1080p they might write themselves out of a few sales.

Anyway...

 

[vcoleiro1]

I'm a bit skeptical of THE64, just by some of what they're doing (like pissing around with their "third" varient, which didn't exist at the time of the IndieGoGo. You'd think they'd try and finish what they started first)

That and who actually started The 64 campaign. ie Paul Andrews along with Darren Melbourne. Paul (and also to a degree Darren) have been in major disputes with RCL who are behind the disaster which is the ZX Spectrum Vega +.

Paul being the guy who was a director of RCL and left, since then being in major and public disputes and mud slinging with the remaining RCL members. Paul is still a part owner of RCL. I think he also left the company behind The 64 after that campaoign started

 

[Ian J]

ZX Spectrum Next “stretch goals” announced

£350,000 – A Better, Stronger Next
We expand the SLX9 FPGA to its bigger brother, the SLX16. What does it do? Glad you asked: we can add much more hardware features into the Next (60% more room), making it a better computer than it already is!

£450,000 – Expand Me Easy
The Next gets sockets for the extra memory, making it as easy as slotting in a memory chip in order to expand its RAM, no more soldering involved. The WiFi also gets a slot, removing the need for soldering too.

£550,000 – The Holy Manual
A wire bound printed manual upgrade, with a sci-fi cover to invoke warm feelings on those in the know.

£650,000 – Secret
We’ll unwrap this one soon!

£750,000 – Mega Secret
Will we ever unwrap this?