SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Quote from: Xerra on August 29, 2024, 20:39:58I'd prefer an actual A1200 size Amiga, when they do the full size variant, but they'll probably adopt the A600 size but it will be a retro A1200 inside. The A500 was way too big of a beast to be practical now, so I think that's definitely out of the window.

Whatever it is, I'm in. I loved my Vic20, my C64, and all the Amiga's I ever ended up owning. Take my money.

The A1200 is what my heart wants but being sensible an A600 is the perfect size and I'd be happy with that. They could easily have it emulate an A1200 and more. I've the full sized Vic20 which looks fantastic on my desk I can happily just stare at the boot screen for nostalgia  

my biggest nostalgia is elite 2 frontiers on my A500, i still load the emulator and watch the intro with the great music, its absolutly the best feeling, the music is just.....

Quote from: Qube on August 30, 2024, 06:11:53

Quote from: Xerra on August 29, 2024, 20:39:58I'd prefer an actual A1200 size Amiga, when they do the full size variant, but they'll probably adopt the A600 size but it will be a retro A1200 inside. The A500 was way too big of a beast to be practical now, so I think that's definitely out of the window.

Whatever it is, I'm in. I loved my Vic20, my C64, and all the Amiga's I ever ended up owning. Take my money.

The A1200 is what my heart wants but being sensible an A600 is the perfect size and I'd be happy with that. They could easily have it emulate an A1200 and more. I've the full sized Vic20 which looks fantastic on my desk I can happily just stare at the boot screen for nostalgia  

If I ever get around to a 'man-cave', I'll have my A1200 gracing my desk next to my PC. Some of the capacitors on my A1200 might get jealous of my turn-coat to some Windows Silicon based circuitry, so I might google how to 're-cap' my A1200 before much longer. Coded on the original Speccy, made battleships in ZXBasic - quite good it was to - but I've no longing to go back to that though.

Quote from: 3DzForMe on September 29, 2024, 05:53:45

Quote from: Qube on August 30, 2024, 06:11:53

Quote from: Xerra on August 29, 2024, 20:39:58I'd prefer an actual A1200 size Amiga, when they do the full size variant, but they'll probably adopt the A600 size but it will be a retro A1200 inside. The A500 was way too big of a beast to be practical now, so I think that's definitely out of the window.

Whatever it is, I'm in. I loved my Vic20, my C64, and all the Amiga's I ever ended up owning. Take my money.

The A1200 is what my heart wants but being sensible an A600 is the perfect size and I'd be happy with that. They could easily have it emulate an A1200 and more. I've the full sized Vic20 which looks fantastic on my desk I can happily just stare at the boot screen for nostalgia  

If I ever get around to a 'man-cave', I'll have my A1200 gracing my desk next to my PC. Some of the capacitors on my A1200 might get jealous of my turn-coat to some Windows Silicon based circuitry, so I might google how to 're-cap' my A1200 before much longer. Coded on the original Speccy, made battleships in ZXBasic - quite good it was to - but I've no longing to go back to that though.

https://www.syntaxbomb.com/8-bit-16-bit-retro-world/a500-mini/15/ Baggey

ok just ordered theSpectrum on amazon, because the price is right! this is so important to get a big user base and I want to dev for it rather than PCs, at this price deving for it is really meaning full, the more people have it the better your projects reach, just grabbed some books

I think the price over the Next is the diff, and available retail on amazom, means everybody can get one. I am now chaanging my dev machine to Spectrum, and Im not looking back, expect to play my games on it in the future.

do you guys have any basic tools made for it? I want the editor that allowed you to create the user defined 8x8 grids on keys!

this is our time guys, lets bring back the 80s, a magzine springs to mind wink wink Adam, and id like to see a proper webiste selling specy games, if new games are made this would be a great idea

I think if people get into this spectrum, forums like this one will be more popular, I like the fact the specy is retro we cant compete with big bussness on a PC anymore, retro is where we are all able to produce a bestseller, plus the sheer enjoyment

just found the online archive of magazines https://www.crashonline.org.uk/

the problem with the Next it was niche only the few had it because it wasnt available from proper mainstream retail stores, now thespectrum is the Next now becomes mainstream too. WE NEED A USER BASE TO MAKE IT usable or were in a box no one can get in.

not sure if you can run machine code, but you can run basic data blocks i think so machine code is still runable i remember typing the data in from the magzines in basic, so there should be possible to run machine code, Im asuming the CPU is running inside a bigger CPU that is invisible, its all to learn, does anybody know how dev will work in it, does it save files we can use? basic is included and to be honest i like basic My fav game colditz is on it wow.

you can use it on knee or floor as it has no mouse

There are many programs written to do that. Google is your friend here.

As Dawlane mentioned doing it the old way will suit when getting the data needed for your said Sprite.

Idea create a 16 x 16 array print it on the screen. As you hover over said box/pixel with Mouse, Complement the bit or NOT it.

The Byte is calculated from Left to Right as 7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0  ie, ( 2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^4 + 2^ 3 + 2^2 + 2^1 + 2^0 ) = Byte Data

so if your Box of 8 Pixels has a pixel on left and pixel on right it would be 1000001 binary therefore, ( 2^7 + 2^0 ) = 129 decimal or 1000001 binary or $81 hex ie, 1000.....0001

So you could right your own and tailor it for your needs?

Do you have a link for it?

Baggey

Not sure if I should buy myself one of these. Not with me having at least eight of real ones in storage.
My be worth it so as not to put any strain on old hardware.

Quote from: mainsworthy on October 30, 2024, 23:06:40ok just ordered theSpectrum on amazon, because the price is right! this is so important to get a big user base and I want to dev for it rather than PCs, at this price deving for it is really meaning full, the more people have it the better your projects reach, just grabbed some books

I think the price over the Next is the diff, and available retail on amazom, means everybody can get one. I am now chaanging my dev machine to Spectrum, and Im not looking back, expect to play my games on it in the future.

do you guys have any basic tools made for it? I want the editor that allowed you to create the user defined 8x8 grids on keys!

this is our time guys, lets bring back the 80s, a magzine springs to mind wink wink Adam, and id like to see a proper webiste selling specy games, if new games are made this would be a great idea

I think if people get into this spectrum, forums like this one will be more popular, I like the fact the specy is retro we cant compete with big bussness on a PC anymore, retro is where we are all able to produce a bestseller, plus the sheer enjoyment

just found the online archive of magazines https://www.crashonline.org.uk/

the problem with the Next it was niche only the few had it because it wasnt available from proper mainstream retail stores, now thespectrum is the Next now becomes mainstream too. WE NEED A USER BASE TO MAKE IT usable or were in a box no one can get in.

not sure if you can run machine code, but you can run basic data blocks i think so machine code is still runable i remember typing the data in from the magzines in basic, so there should be possible to run machine code, Im asuming the CPU is running inside a bigger CPU that is invisible, its all to learn, does anybody know how dev will work in it, does it save files we can use? basic is included and to be honest i like basic My fav game colditz is on it wow.

you can use it on knee or floor as it has no mouse

I think you are being a bit overly ambitious. This new machine would be nothing but a toy or a bit of a nostalgia for us old farts wanting to relive our misguided youth and don't want to have to go through the hassle of dealing with maintaining real hardware. And just to clarify,  this new machine will be just like the others from this company: An ARM based CPU running a custom operating system that runs an emulator, similar to RetroPI.
A ZX Spectrum Next is an FPGA device where the electronic gates in the FPGA are configured to emulate real hardware.
SIDE NOTE: The Ferranti ULA chips ( in the older Sinclair machines and older 8 bit Acorn machines) were actually a hardware form of today's FPGA chips. You can find the ULA chips in a number of 1980s period hardware. The big difference between FPGA and ULA chips is that the ULA chips were hardwired to the specifications of the custom. This was original done via the customer using Feranti's services, until Ferranti released design software where the custom designed the connections and sent them to Feranti to be manufactured.

Now if there is a market, it wouldn't be big or profitable, unless you intend to write any game to work on the new machine and Android. The latter is possible, but requires a bit of work, alot of knowledge and a cross platform C compiler.

Now as for programming on a ZX Spectrum, be it a real or replicated one. You will find the work flow very tedious, error prone and slow. A lot of the professional software houses would have used something that would have had fast floppy disk access and their own customised development platform tools. The story goes that Mathew Smith wrote most of the core routines for Manic Miner on a Z80 based TRS-80 (model 3 if I remember) and managed to score some time on Sinclair's own ZX Spectrum development hardware to do the final touches.

If you want to do retro programing, then to save your sanity. I would suggest that using a modern PC with a target specific assembler and compilers would be the way to proceed.
If you want more help or information on the ZX Spectrum and development using real/emulated, or a PC. Then I would suggest starting a new thread.

QuoteI would suggest that using a modern PC with a target specific assembler and compilers would be the way to proceed.

@mainsworthy Ive sent you a PM

Okay. Decided to take the plunge. Just ordered one. According to Amazon. Around 900+ have been sold so far in the last month.

I better remember to get an extra USB-C power charger. Any ideas on a suitable cheap USB joysticks.

QuoteAny ideas on a suitable cheap USB joysticks.

Be wary as ive noticed some chepo chinesse one's which have USB plugs on them aren't!

The Speed Link Competition Pro that comes with the mini Amiga is nice. But a little bit noisy.

Depending on what your playing i still love the good old keyboard

Baggey

Quote from: Baggey on November 02, 2024, 15:34:02e wary as ive noticed some chepo chinesse one's which have USB plugs on them aren't!

The Speed Link Competition Pro that comes with the mini Amiga is nice. But a little bit noisy.

Depending on what your playing i still love the good old keyboard

The Speed Link looks like it would be a bit hard to source, unless I pay to get it imported.

As for keyboard playing. I would do the same, but there a some game that I remember where you had to be an octopus, and made more sense to use a Quickshot Pro. Plus with the soon to be new toy arriving. I'll be letting my nieces kids having a playing on it, so keys would be a bit of a problem for them. I wouldn't let them loose with any vintage computer that I have. It's not as though I can go to Mouser and buy a couple of ZX8401 ICUs. I'd be lucky if I could get them from a retro component specialist that deals with the later 48K ZX Spectrum.

after some research, I have gone with the pasmo assembler, and got the spectaculator emulator, which have tapre and disc drives to save diff things like UDG area.

Quote from: dawlane on November 02, 2024, 16:50:13

Quote from: Baggey on November 02, 2024, 15:34:02e wary as ive noticed some chepo chinesse one's which have USB plugs on them aren't!

The Speed Link Competition Pro that comes with the mini Amiga is nice. But a little bit noisy.

Depending on what your playing i still love the good old keyboard

The Speed Link looks like it would be a bit hard to source, unless I pay to get it imported.

As for keyboard playing. I would do the same, but there a some game that I remember where you had to be an octopus, and made more sense to use a Quickshot Pro. Plus with the soon to be new toy arriving. I'll be letting my nieces kids having a playing on it, so keys would be a bit of a problem for them. I wouldn't let them loose with any vintage computer that I have. It's not as though I can go to Mouser and buy a couple of ZX8401 ICUs. I'd be lucky if I could get them from a retro component specialist that deals with the later 48K ZX Spectrum.

That might of been Exploding fist Me and my mate used to use a rubber keyed speecy keyboard! and get 18 keys at the same time

Im glad you've gone with pasmo, Don't forget context.

Get yourself "Machinecode applications for the ZX Spectrum" and "Machine Code Shiva's friendly micro series"

These two books have very good technical in depth on how the Screen works from a programmers point of view 

Baggey