ZX Spectrum Next – Issue 2 | Hacker News Reader

ZX Spectrum Next – Issue 2

kickstarter.com

75 pointsibobev61 comments

Whilst I have fond memories of playing Sabre Wolf on my spectrum (Ultimate - Play The Game!)

That is marred by the memory of having to reload the assembler program from cassette every time I made a mistake in the machine code I was trying to learn.

That feeling of despair has stayed with me a long time

Try doing that with a dodgy jack socket that meant you had to apply precisely the right pressure to the plug for the entire loading process, otherwise it would crash when it was done and you couldn't tell until it was finished. You had to breathe really gently so as not to move it for however many minutes it took.

From memory I could successfully load from and use about half the tapes I ever bought for my speccy, and I still don't know whether it was me or them.

Worth it, though.

I remember one of my friends would make us wait outside his bedroom whilst loading "Daley Thompson's Supertest" .. if his picture on the loading screen was to see us the load would fail. Good times.

I never had to do that, but fine tuning the tape recorder head was a regular activity.

Then there was those tapes where that alone wasn't enough due to how much the head would move as per screw position, so in addition I might need to use a screwdriver to move the tape holder just a couple of millimeter more on top.

From the email they sent this afternoon:

The past 24 hours have been a rollercoaster. The crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter was successfully funded in less than five minutes after going live (some sort of record, for sure) and it’s already larger than the original ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter.

This means we’ve now unlocked three stretch goals already, doubling the Next’s memory to 2Mb, turning its manual into full colour, and ensuring every backer gets a copy of a new version of Baggers in Space. And this is just the beginning.

No need for ZX Spectrum :-)

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/252067-manic-miner-release...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOhLU2YIsSQ

I'm kidding, but this is a really excellent port. A friend of mine is loaning me his TS2068 and I'm trying to change the ROM to make it into a ZX Spectrum.

Seriously looking forward to receiving this .. one thing everyone should understand is that the reason to have it based on FPGA tech is that there are other cores in the pipeline - so its not inconceivable that this could be not just the ZX Spectrum Next, but also the Commodore C64 Next, or Oric Atmos Next, and so on ..

You might also like the Mister FPGA project. Lots of fpga cores for classic computers, home game consoles, and arcade games.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

It'd be nice to have it in a more "finished product" format.

Another thing I'd love to see (I know, open source, I should do it myself or pay someone to do it) some odder machines, such as Tektronix terminals, Xerox Mesa-based machines, LMI/Symbolics Lisp Machines... I get it. I should do it.

Looks like it uses the T80 soft core to emulate the Z80.

Might be interesting to see if it could run one of the Z80 soft cores that improves on the per-cycle performance for a Z80. Like the wishbone z80, or the coincidentally named nextz80 core. The nextz80 is reportedly 4x faster at the same clock speed.

That'd be an issue with games. In those days, games had tight timing loops that were very CPU and clock dependent. Only very rarely people did things that tied to interrupts generated in timers or hsync/vsync.

I assume that, if you want your text editor or spreadsheet to run faster, these FPGA implementations allow for very fast clocks in 1980's terms.

Sure. I have seen projects that allow you to select the fpga core at boot time. Also, the ZX Spectrum Next already seems to support clock speeds that would be an issue for games, so they must already have some "boot in compat mode" feature.

Would it make a difference if the maximum clock you can drive the cycle-accurate Z-80 is hundreds of times higher than actual hardware?

IIRC $30 RaspberryPi can emulate it well enough to run even the gnarliest games. I see no need for the FPGA there at all. I'd pay for the case / keyboard like that to put a RasbperryPi into, as well as for firmware to make it boot directly into emulation, though.

Almost nobody buys this to actually use as a game computer. Same as Amiga accelerator boards - the most expensive ones have only one purpose, longest red SysInfo bar. Its all nostalgia.

Sure, but would you rather spend $300 on nostalgia or, say $150, if it can run the same software, and looks similar? If I were to buy one, $150 is doable, $300 is GTFO. I do have "nostalgia" - I learned Assembly on a Soviet ZX Spectrum clone.

I think these users just want a physical product that looks and feels like an actual next generation ZX Spectrum. Part of a fulfilling a feeling of “what if”.

It's "same software, looks similar, plus some really interesting extra features". I'm sat here wondering whether that FPGA is going to be programmable from the Pi daughter-board, cos that would be a lot of fun.

I low volume keyboard alone costs in the range of $100. Custom keycaps cost another $100. Not saying it can't be made cheaper, but it'll need more volume for that.

I’ll buy it so that my kids can grow up learning basic in the old school way. The Spectrum basic was one of the best back in the day. I’ve been teaching them using a C64 emulator but that Basic is pretty lacking.

There is a group of enthusiasts who are interested in something other than playing old games. Some are interested in exploring the unusual hardware, while others are interested in hardware or software development. Unfortunately, functional original hardware is becoming more difficult to find and some modern peripherals are desirable (e.g. storage) so something like this ends up being the next best thing.

While we now have the Arduino and RPi with convenient GPIO and other inputs and outputs readily available, you can do an awful lot with the edge connector on the speccy. You used to get books full of projects you could make. At the time, I couldn't afford all the components and tools to do this, so I missed out on that side of things. Today, I'm not sure what benefits it would have--no SPI, I2C, ADC or PWM. But you do have effectively direct access to the bus, so maybe there are interesting expansion projects you could work on, though the new hardware itself does a lot of the traditional expansion options like more memory, networking, storage and the like.

The storage factor is huge. Absolutely no one is going to miss the cassette tape. Or (worse) the microdrive. I wonder if any of those remain, or if they all got "eaten"! Likewise the 3" floppy on the +3. While a big step up from tapes, the media is simply obsolete and impractical. And the CP/M-inspired +3DOS is also quite primitive and obsolete.

Even if something like this popped up in my preferred 80's platform, I doubt that I would jump at it precisely because of the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and other platforms that provide convenient I/O. I ditched my vintage hardware a long time ago simple because I decided that these microcontrollers provided most of the benefits and were more forward looking. Something like the ESP8266 running MicroPython even offers a similar feel to an 80's PC running BASIC. That being said, I can understand the appeal of vintage machines. I can understand why the developers wanted to create such a machine. (How many technically inclined youth from the 80's didn't want to create their own computer?) I am also saddened when I see people who think the only reason to be interested in this hardware are classic games!

As for storage, reliability is a huge even if someone was interested in the archaic media. Dealing with impractical and obsolete is only possible if you can obtain functional media in the first place.

As we progress (and have 4K capable $30 computers) some of the things an FPGA does will become less important. It's now much easier to replicate the appearance of the PDP-1's P7 screen on a modern HDR monitor than it was just a few years ago. Another thing you won't get from a software emulator is (usually) support for real physical hardware (let's say you want to read a Spectrum cassette tape or an IBM DisplayWriter 8" floppy). I think that no emulator of the time could run the 8088MPH demo, for instance, because of the way it relied on NTSC artifacts.

Emulation is fine (and even better, arguably) if what you want to do is to write software for an ancient platform (because you'll have debugging capabilities well beyond our wildest dreams of the day) and much powerful tools. You'll also have fully decked systems with then prohibitively large amounts of memory, and ridiculously fast storage and processors that you can slow down to original metal speeds, but don't limit you to those.

Having a full size C64 that’s based on emulation I would respectfully like to disagree. First of all the emulations all end up with minor glitches. Second, a machine like the Spectrum Next outclasses most emulator based machines by running all sorts of peripherals from the old days. So this is a huge upgrade from simpler boxes.

As a ZX spectrum fan, I love the idea but at £300? That's way too rich for my blood.

I also think it is over board. Besides, you can get ZXEvo board http://nedopc.com/zxevo/zxevo_eng.php for about 150$. Hardware wise, mostly, it is even more advanced.

You are paying for fulfilling your childhood dreams (of not owning the worst home computer on the market). This alone is priceless. ZX Spectrum Next piles a ton of features from good computers back to the Spectrum. Storage, sound, sprites, no color clash, real keyboard, things owners used to vigorously argue were not important back in the day on the playground. Now is your chance to experience alternate universe where Spectrum actually was that good home computer, the best actually for ~1982-87.

Product itself is fantastic, you can clearly see a lot of love went into polishing the old .. erm computer.

If you buy a e.g. 2+ plus some mods you can attach it to a modern TV and use SDs or even harddisks to load roms in a jiffy, which exeeds, at least my, childhood dreams. That you get for half the price imho.

And still cheaper in real terms than a 16k Spectrum in 1982!

I love the QL-esque keyboard and the case design is a thing of beauty.

The extra capabilities remind me of the SAM Coupé which was a similarly "enhanced" ZX spectrum compatible, albeit still limited compared with this product.

Honestly, if it's not restricted to an enthusiastically awful colour palette, what's the point?

I am somehow lost given that C64 wasn't even considered good enough for most shops on Iberia Peninsula to sell it. :)

The only playground discussions were feeling a bit sorry for those that made the mistake of buying MSX clone, or Timex compatibles vs the real Species.

What's wrong with Timex? IIRC it was almost a perfect clone.

Me as well, proud Timex 2068 owner.

However that 48KB compatibility cartridge wasn't 100% perfect.

On the other hand we had our sound chip already without getting into the +2/+3 variants.

But getting back to my point, I even saw SAM Coupé on sale on my small town, which I cannot say for the C64.

Did you read the specs? This model has 1 Mb of RAM!! Take my money I say

Inflation-adjusted, it's cheaper than the original.

It's not a mass produced device; it can probably be made cheaper but it would have to be produced in 1-2 orders of magnitude more. Plus it's a kickstarter donation, not a retail price.

£100 in 1982 have inflated to roughly £305 today:

https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1982-to-present-...

The original 16K Speccy launched for £125, worth a whisker under £350 in 2019 (per wikipedia). So the Spectrum Next with Raspberry Pi Zero preinstalled is actually cheaper than the original entry-level Spectrum.

It's not just a Spectrum remake though, it's an actual "Spectrum Next" with new graphics and sound capabilities, but still following the "home computer spirit". It's a perfect retro-hacking machine. 300 pounds is a bargain IMHO, especially when it's a professionally designed and manufactured ready-to-use system, not a soldering kit ;)

Well I see ZX Spectrum Next (issue 1 guess) for ~$1200 on eBay...

Can I program assembly and basic on this model? It seems like the Kickstarter confirms basic prompt, but not sure about assembly. Does the user manual help for someone with very minimal assembly knowledge?

I'm not authoritative, but have been following this and many other similar retro computing devices.

As far as I'm aware the FPGA onboard does brutally accurate emulation of the original Z80 hardware, so you should be able to write assembly and basic (and I believe it boots to a BASIC kernal yeah, that's how they spell it back in the 8 bit days :) )

The device can run in many different modes, but I've seen nothing that indicates a limitation to BASIC.

The only device I've seen lately that is pure BASIC, is the Colour Maximite 2 - but it does BASIC so darn fast, it's almost a feature :)

If you're interested in other things I've dug up while in my retro computing phase, check out the Turbo Chameleon 64. Lots of neat FPGA and emulation hardware out there these days.

Colour Maximite 2: https://geoffg.net/maximite.html Turbo Chameleon 64: https://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php?title=Turbo_Chameleon_64 and https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Turbo_Chameleon_...

Neat. Thanks for the response and links!

Something similar but for the MSX computer. https://msxvr.com/. It is also a FPGA, it emulates Z80 and R800 cpus.

Using an fpga is strange IMO when you can still just buy z80 chips. I made a pretty simple home brew computer in college this way.

You need it for graphics (and the ulas).

For the Z80 alone, this is true. But it also needs the Ferranti ULA which is no longer manufactured, and was kind of an early FPGA, or the Amstrad 40077 for the +2A/+3, which is an actual gate array. I can imagine to get output for current display devices, an FPGA makes perfect sense as a current replacement part for these obsolete and unattainable parts.

You can do some interesting things, like a 100MHz+ Z80. Also, the fpga emulates not just the z80, but pio, sio, banked memory, CRTC or similar graphics with a modern vga output, etc.

I like the looks and the form factor. But what I would want to insert a Raspberry Pi in it and get a Linux computer.

https://retropicases.com/products/zx-spectrum-48k-raspberry-...

The accelerated version of the Spectrum Next has a Pi Zero inside

As the GPU!

Can it run Crysis?

It might

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=31032

Computer in keyboard is not a good form factor. It is always too high and often hot.

Have you ever used a laptop?

I've used Atari 800, it was good 4cm tall. I've used laptops, they were too hot.

There will always be a difference of opinion. My experience was with a Spectrum toastrack, which I love to this day, with the exception of the mushy keyboard.

Ever used a laptop?

I doubt the Spartan 6 fpga is throwing a lot of heat emulating a Z80. I don't even see a heat sink.

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