ZX Spectrum Next

[torpor]

That looks amazing .. I want one! I wonder if I could put an Oric-1/Atmos emu on it though ..

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I never had a ZX Spectrum but I want that laptop.

 

[levi]

That looks amazing .. I want one! I wonder if I could put an Oric-1/Atmos emu on it though ..

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought this was an FPGA-based board. What you actually want is a 6502A core on that FPGA and the Oric OS and you're probably most of the way there. It may even be more efficient to put a RISC core on the FPGA and emulate the 6502 using that, but that's a much more involved discussion.

 

[pmprog]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought this was an FPGA-based board. What you actually want is a 6502A core on that FPGA and the Oric OS and you're probably most of the way there. It may even be more efficient to put a RISC core on the FPGA and emulate the 6502 using that, but that's a much more involved discussion.

Well, it's not just the CPU you need to encode in the FPGA, you also need to implement all the other circuits and chips (such as video signal generation etc.).

Here's an Oric/Atmos FPGA core though, it'd probably need tweaking to be implemented in the Next board, but should be possible
https://github.com/laurentd75/oric-in-fpga

 

[Ian J]

Now testing dual boot, ZX Spectrum & MSX (I think) don't speak Portuguese so had to use YT's built in translator.

 

[levi]

Yes, that's MSX and MSX2, both of which share the same CPU as the Spectrum machines (and the Oric fwiw), but have a programmable sound chip so they can do better sound than the 48k spectrum (although the Spectrum 128 and later also had a PSG). The MSX2 has better graphics, and there was an expansion module for the MSX series that gave you FM synthesis in your audio chipset, but I don't know if any games were developed for the MSX that made use of this.

I'm not sure what Spectrum variant that video was showing though. I didn't bother to translate the speech, so I probably missed quite a lot.

 

[ZXDunny]

I'm not sure what Spectrum variant that video was showing though. I didn't bother to translate the speech, so I probably missed quite a lot.

I don't think he emulated any speccy at all in that video.

 

[levi]

Ah yeah, .a26 extension indicates Atari VCS, and all of those games were released on that platform. Now I look at the still of River Raid on wikipedia, it looks very like it looks in that video.

 

[ZXDunny]

This is river raid on the Speccy:

It's not a bad game, but not great. A chap in the speccy community wrote a nice tech demo though:

Which really looks the business, but is sadly just a vertical scroll and no player control.

 

[Ian J]

Posting this from my phone so apologies if the link doesn't work.

 

[levi]

That looks better. Slight shame this isn't being used to show off spectrum style software any more though.

 

[pmprog]

That doesn't look like a Spectrum Next board, and the video doesn't seem to make any references as such (though I don't understand what he's saying). Are you sure that's a Next?

 

[Ian J]

Are you sure that's a Next?

Sadly no I thought it may be some kind of development board for the FPGA but now I'm back at my desktop and can do a proper search I found this:

https://www.victortrucco.com/Multicore/Multicore

It does look like a stand alone unit.

 

[levi]

Okay, that's still pretty cool. Just probably deserves its own thread.

 

[pmprog]

Interesting demo released for the Next

Also, the Zesarux emulator actually supports emulation of the Next
https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux

 

[levi]

Rick Dickson is no more

Damn cancer (

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/26/rick_dickinson_dies/

 

[Ian J]

Yeah saw that, such iconic designs.

I really liked the "dead flesh" Speccy keyboard, so many hours spent gaming on those keys before I could afford a joystick and adaptor.

Can't wait to get my hands on the Next which as far as I know was his last project.

 

[pmprog]

New Kickstarter for the next batch


Did anyone here get one from the first batch?

 

[levi]

New Kickstarter for the next batch


Did anyone here get one from the first batch?

I see they're already out of stretch goals:

I didn't get one of the first batch. I'm a little concerned about the lack of news from all of these reboot projects once they launch, which out to be the fun part really. From the Mega64 through adding a rPi to a BBC micro to this, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough community around it, although maybe they're just not on these boards and are posting elsewhere.

 

[pmprog]

I didn't get one of the first batch. I'm a little concerned about the lack of news from all of these reboot projects once they launch, which out to be the fun part really. From the Mega64 through adding a rPi to a BBC micro to this, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough community around it, although maybe they're just not on these boards and are posting elsewhere

I must admit, that is one of my biggest concerns too. I've tried to look up ZX Next games and demos, but they seem rather thin on the ground. Combined with the requirement for an old-school joystick, which I'm not sure quite how good a condition they are in any more.

I think with a lot of these retro machines, you find that a £9 Raspberry Pi Zero W can do everything that can do... and more. So it almost seems daft to spend £300 on a device that can be done on a 10th of that price.

MEGA65 are embedding an updated GeOS into the Firmware IIRC, but as it won't support USB printers, it almost seems pointless to do any word processing on it, as I'll guarantee 99% of people won't have a compatible printer any more; and depending on the storage format, you probably won't be able to transfer it to a PC for printing either.