Zx Spectrum Divmmc
Aide Broeckel
I am planning for a small interfaced that disables and enables ESXDOS by the push of a button.
That could help with transferring to e.g. Microdrive, but you still need some unwritten software tools to actually transfer.
Without modifications a game in a .TAP archive will not load from Microdrive.
It should be no problem at all, since the ZX-HD just probes if there are video memory changes, which is independent of the ROM inside the ZX Spectrum.
So the ULAplus commands in the SE BASIC ROM should work fine!
Great to see an option to purchase this in already assembled form. I wonder if the coloured LEDs can be re-oriented so instead of one colour per row, they are more like the spectrum logo, vertically slanted.
Will this work with a Gotek style USB drive that emulates a floppy disk drive. I believe they are effectively Shugart interfaces. I am probably going to buy one to work with my BBC just wondering if it would double up.
Ho comprato..anzi per essere precisi mio figlio mi ha regalato per il mio compleanno questa meravigliosa interfaccia ma chiedo come posso collegare un floppy goldex usb? Perch non ci sono istruzioni per poterli usare? Aiuto!!!! Aspetto vs istruzioni grazie Carlo dc...@libero.it
Proper YM2149 chips (and the related family of similar sound chips) were manufactured by or on behalf of Yamaha. The Atari ST range uses a Yamaha YM2149F. In many respects the Yamaha version is a bit better.
The manufacturer that developed and produced the AY-3-8910 range of sound chips was bought my Microchip a long time ago. Not long after, production of these chips was discontinued. So there are no new AY-3-8910, no new AY-3-8912 or any other new chips in the same range.
There is no guarantee that what you get will even be a working chip. Some EEPROM chips have been found to be un-programmable and some so called new CMOS Z80 and CMOS 65C02 processors have found to be slower older NMOS processors!
This was a lot of fun! Everything was perfectly packaged and easy to assemble. The instructions were amazing, to the last detail. I even got use the diagnostic cart once I failed to completely solder one of the IC sockets ? Overall A+++ Thanks very much Ben.
Feeling great! My Harlequin 128K burst into life on the first test this evening ?
Obviously, this is due to the excellent kit of parts and detailed instructions provided by you guys.
I just followed the instructions in the recommended order. I went slow, going one device at a time, it took over 10 hrs. What a great feeling to see it working so well.
Thank you!
Not yet, and most probably not with the current Raspberry Pi Zero board on it, since it is not fast enough to also process audio.
There was a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 released a couple of weeks ago, and my developer has spent some time looking into that as a successor to the Zero (1) for more features like audio.
The kit was put together so nicely and carefully. The difficult SMD parts are already presoldered, the other parts are easy to solder in. Even the legs of the resistors were pre-bent and only needed to be put into the holes. It was fun to build this cartridge.
Bought it to replace my old Disciple disk interface and it is a huge improvement.
Arrived (with a SD card) fully configured and worked straight from the box. The build quality is excellent! The usage is simple and clear!
Just a small comment: took me a while to understand that making a snapshot takes a while so first tries I thought it was stuck.
Works fantastic on my Spectrum 128 +2 (Grey).
Support from ByteDelight is beyond fantastic!
I gave myself a month to complete this board and completed in a week spending about 1 hour a day and was great building and learning to solder at the same time. I know it may not be as good as a seasoned person that can solder but it works and as I progressed, my soldering improved and is now my daily ZX Spectrum. For anyone new or seasoned to soldering, it is a great kit and easy to follow.
Have loaded up the included SD card and now loading games with zero wait time, so much better. And been able to save snapshots with the press of a button makes games much easier to play, especially adventure games and such.
I bought one of these kits a (long) while ago. As soon as I took it out of the box I was intimidated by the sheer amount of soldering to be done, as I am not super experienced with soldering. However, I recently started putting it together. I went slowly, step by step, and today I finished the soldering.
Just bought the 9V 2A PSU from you. It works perfectly on the ZX Spectrum 48K. Still using the old cassette tapes with the old Slipstream Data Recorder. But the problem with the PSU there is no cable with a switch. Always have to unplug the PSU to play another cassette tape (game). Is there a cable with a switch somewhere that can use on the 9V 2A PSU. Only see a 12V variant.
Netjes binnen gekomen samen met de andere bestellingen. Is een mooie aanwinst voor mijn Toastrack. En werkt perfect met de ZX-HD. Is veel beter, dan mij vorige simpele Smart Card v2. Mij oude Suzo The Arcade Joysticks van Rotterdam werken er ook perfect op. Ben voorlopig zoet wat allemaal erop kan verwezenlijken.
Just make sure to disable the joystick interface on one of the interfaces, when combined.
Or you could select e.g. Kempston joystick on one, and Sinclair joystick on the other, if you wish to play with 2 people.
The PlusDlite is a fairly large interface, and from experience I know that adding a throughput can result in some instability issues, for example a clock signal that will start behaving as an antenna.
I have already done a simple composite mod and hooked it up to my Apple Color Composite Monitor (//c style if that matters), adjusted the vertical hold, so the image is stable. I still haven't loaded any games yet, so I don't know if the color will work on an American monitor or not.
Now the for fun stuff! What games should I be looking for? And where do I find them? What are the best archives? And if they are cassette based, what tools will I need to convert them to wave? Or is there an app that will play was/tap/whatever directly from my tablet (ie: TapDancer a la Android)?
Add-ons: Perhaps the latest version of DivIDE which I believe comes with a built-in joystick interface. There are a number of other IDE or memory card based solutions too, so you're far from limited to one choice. Some kind of joystick interface definitely is recommended in the long run.
Regarding floppy drives, the short answer is No. There were a few 3rd party interfaces for using a 5.25" floppy drive but those were margin products and obviously no software was distributed as such. The Speccy was based on tape, microdrive, eventually 3" disks on the +3 and a handful ROM modules which you use together with Interface 2 but is more of a collector's item than practically useful today. Joystick interfaces are plenty.
You can find most ZX Spectrum software at World of Spectrum. Here is also a top 100 list. Note that the files offered by this site are obtained through licenses with original publishers, and they actively avoid posting files from publishers who denied distribution. Those you can find elsewhere...
WoS also has various utilities for converting TAP/TZX to other formats, though if you get a memory card based solution you don't need WAV. For hardware, I think the CASduino supports the ZX Spectrum, and the TapDancer might very well also do it, though I haven't checked.
As for video, it is PAL, so no, you will not get color out of it unless you use some type of adapter. I used the RetroTink which supports PAL signals in color to HDMI provided your TV supports 50Hz (my cheap Polaroid flat screen does):
as most of the games are on nice affordable Tape.
The best games on the Spectrum ? Um, Head Over Heels, The Dizzy Games, Midnight Resistance, R-Type, Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg, Rainbow Islands and Boulder Dash are some really great games to start with.
In fact, the +2a sucked as well. The best thing about it was the RGB-Scart support that gave a fantastic picture but that was offset by the high failure rate of the power supply (went through at least two) and tape game compatibility was practically a lottery - in the end, I gave up and stuck to emulation for the Speccy (which is the only time I've done that with a system).
Fortunately, I found a workaround for this, even if it's not perfect: adding the filter "release country: Spain", none of these "fake masterepieces" appear anymore, because you mostly see titles that were released both in the UK and in Spain and none of them are minor.
I picked up a ZXHD from ByteDelight a few months ago and I think it's brilliant. It works with any ZX spectrum from 16kb to 128KB +3 models and reads the video ram and outputs to HDMI. you can also daisy chain a DIVMMC future out the back of it.
TapDancer does work, but my Spectrum appears to be a little hard of hearing, so I had to rout the signal through a set of speakers to boost the volume from my tablet and use a cable that joined the stereo signal to mono.
All joking aside, I did try emulation on a retro pie, but could never get the hang of it. The Spectrum keyboard is just so far off the standard that it was driving me nuts (heck, even Commodore emulators bug me for this reason).
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