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Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:16 am
by metalh4mster
Hi there, how are you?
I've been a ZXBlast-powered ZX81 owner for a while, and a ZX Spectrum+ user since 1984
.
During these days I'm trying to reach PokeMon for some questions about how the ZXBlast CPLD might be upgraded in place (I believe there's a JTAG socket in the board itself for that, that might require an Altera USB Blaster as well).
On the meantime I also use to organise some free, non-profit and non-commercial retrocomputing events in my country since 2015.
The next one will be held in Granada next October the 30th (Run ZX 2021)
For further details you might find my alternate profile at speccy.org there:
https://foro.speccy.org/memberlist.php? ... ile&u=2757
Cheers and Regards!
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:55 pm
by mrtinb
Hi.
The firmware for ZXblast can be quite faulty. My ZXblast crashes often in the ZXblast menus trying to load.
However. Erik Olofsen has made a version of the fast Big Bang ROM with support for ZXmore and ZXblast. I have saved this ROM in instance 1 of my ZXblast. Now LOAD and SAVE loads from ZXblast, and not from tape. So now I can load, without needing to go to the menu with DS-L (double Shift-L).
(There is no DIR/CAT implemented, so you need to remember what is on your USB-stick, or look via the DS-L menu.)
Give it a try. It improved my ZXblast experience a lot.
Download from this post:
https://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/view ... 706#p37706
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:20 pm
by PokeMon
Yes - there might be problems with ZXblast.
Hope to give a new version during this winter.
Planned to revive the ZXblast.
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 6:35 pm
by salvacam
metalh4mster wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:16 am
Hi there, how are you?
I've been a ZXBlast-powered ZX81 owner for a while, and a ZX Spectrum+ user since 1984
.
During these days I'm trying to reach PokeMon for some questions about how the ZXBlast CPLD might be upgraded in place (I believe there's a JTAG socket in the board itself for that, that might require an Altera USB Blaster as well).
On the meantime I also use to organise some free, non-profit and non-commercial retrocomputing events in my country since 2015.
The next one will be held in Granada next October the 30th (Run ZX 2021)
For further details you might find my alternate profile at speccy.org there:
https://foro.speccy.org/memberlist.php? ... ile&u=2757
Cheers and Regards!
Welcome, I hope none of my games have spoiled the ZX81 for you
If it doesn't work, nothing happens, I'll take the raspberry pi
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:28 am
by metalh4mster
PokeMon wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:20 pm
Yes - there might be problems with ZXblast.
Hope to give a new version during this winter.
Planned to revive the ZXblast.
Thank you PokeMon, the ZXblast is a great project! We will talk about it during our next sinclair meetup at the end of this month, and showcase some homebrew software.
salvacam wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 6:35 pm
Welcome, I hope none of my games have spoiled the ZX81 for you
If it doesn't work, nothing happens, I'll take the raspberry pi
Don't worry Salva, the ZXBlast is fully working but it doesn't have the latest features of 2017 (an improvement on the firmware self-upgrade process, as well as a nice file browser/selector for any program to be loaded, among other details). It will be as easy as uploading your games to a USB stick, plug the ZXBlast along with it, and powering on the ZX81
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:48 am
by metalh4mster
mrtinb wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:55 pm
Hi.
The firmware for ZXblast can be quite faulty. My ZXblast crashes often in the ZXblast menus trying to load.
However. Erik Olofsen has made a version of the fast Big Bang ROM with support for ZXmore and ZXblast. I have saved this ROM in instance 1 of my ZXblast. Now LOAD and SAVE loads from ZXblast, and not from tape. So now I can load, without needing to go to the menu with DS-L (double Shift-L).
(There is no DIR/CAT implemented, so you need to remember what is on your USB-stick, or look via the DS-L menu.)
Give it a try. It improved my ZXblast experience a lot.
Download from this post:
https://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/view ... 706#p37706
Thank you Martin, I will give it a try to see how it works even though I could just stay at the 1.0 version by the time (until PokeMon releases the latest update for the board). I will try to make some photos of our meeting and share some here and around
Re: Greetings from Madrid, Spain
Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:29 pm
by salvacam
metalh4mster wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:28 am
Don't worry Salva, the ZXBlast is fully working but it doesn't have the latest features of 2017 (an improvement on the firmware self-upgrade process, as well as a nice file browser/selector for any program to be loaded, among other details). It will be as easy as uploading your games to a USB stick, plug the ZXBlast along with it, and powering on the ZX81
I hope to have a surprise ready to present it at the RunZX, when I have progress I will show you