ZX Spectrum Next

Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next

The first ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter was launched in 2017. Back then I felt the ZX Evolution was enough for me. When I learned of the second Kickstarter, promising improvements over the first one, I had to jump in.

The board is a continuation of the TBBlue, where an FPGA drives the entire thing. So it's not a software emulator but there's no factory-made bona fide Z80 chip inside. In fact they call it the Z80N because it has a few extra instructions. If the magical aura of a genuine 8-bit CPU is absolutely necessary, then steer elsewhere...  

But let's not forget the original Spectrum ULA video chip was a kind of proto-FPGA chip too. It's just nowadays more realistic to have everything in the "ULA".

256 colour graphics with support for scrolling and sprites, multi-channel sound, SD card storage media, 2MB memory. For programming this means a memory paging system, because the Z80 cannot address more then 64 kilobytes of memory directly.

The computer can also work as ZX80, ZX81, 48K, 128K, through either emulating or switching the ROM and capabilities.

Instead of listing everything the computer does (and it does a lot) I'll just relate my initial observations and things I have found interesting after week and a half.

First Impressions

The Next comes packaged with the appropriate PSU and a printed booklet in the tradition of the original Sinclair manuals. It's crammed with information and tables. In addition there's also a quick start sheet.

The great thing here is that I don't need to buy anything extra to get it up and running. Ok, a video cable is necessary but who doesn't have a HDMI or a VGA lying around?

The case is physically very impressive, a proper industrially molded case and keyboard. In size and appearance it is quite close to the Spectrum Plus, although not nearly as tall. Rick Dickinson, the original designer of many Sinclair products, was still involved with the design before his passing.

In the correct order

I'm not a big fan of rounded corners in tech, but I have to admit the rounding and the rainbow plastics gives the box a lot of character. It's also a tribute to the original rubber-keyed Spectrum.

The keyboard appearance and feel exceeded my expectations. It mostly follows the Spectrum Plus layout, the main difference being the cursor keys have been positioned more reasonably. 

The layout difference makes it hard to compare the Next with modern keyboards. It feels right but I tend to mistype because my fingers are one key off, typing LIAR instead of LIST and so on.

Occasionally I lapse into Speccy-thinking, using shift+P to create " and even searching the cursor keys from both sides of the space bar! My brain hasn't really decided yet what to do with the keyboard.

The lack of explicit CTRL and ALT keys also affects the way software deals with keyboard shortcuts.

Instead we have True Video and Inverse Video

Connectors

There's a bunch of modern and less modern connectors at the backside. In the great Sinclair tradition, there is no power switch on the computer itself and you can just "pull the plug". 

Fortunately, the package includes a separate power switch cable extension. Together with the modular adapter there's quite many parts to fiddle with, which makes me worry a little.

If you have the additional Raspberry board (I don't) the USB and digital video debug ports are available. You cannot use them as conventional USBs for keyboards and controllers.

I tried to load Horace Goes Skiing from tape using my Sanyo Data Recorder, but got no reaction. Possibly the cable was bad, I wasn't that motivated to find out the problem.

Edit: I was too lazy to check the connector, it's a split EAR/MIC, so it makes sense that a mono cable doesn't work.

I've yet to test the RGB connector, not sure if I should try to make the cable myself or just order one.  Big plus for the Next people for including the RGB.

You can attach a PS/2 mouse or a keyboard to the PS/2 connector. It's worth noting any external keyboard will still follow the Spectrum layout rather than its own.

The mouse needs to be supported by the software. The Next menus, file browsers and editors do not directly make use of it.

Power connector excluded

The left side of the computer hosts the Reset, Drive and NMI buttons, with the SD card "drive".

The NMI button accesses the "freezer" menu, there I can change the CPU speed (3.5/7/14/28MHz), enter POKEs, save Spectrum snapshots and screenshots. These save features won't work as well with the Next software, if at all.

For the sake Sinclair QL nostalgia, the SD card slot really ought to be at the front, near the right side of the computer, but it's fine as it is and certainly not in the way.

Without a spring ejector, it's a little tricky to remove cards from the slot. But with some preparation and use of the wi-fi, I don't need to swap the card that much.

It's recommended to backup the card on a PC before doing anything further.

Standardizing two joystick ports is a good thing. If you intend to use the Next mostly as a game console, the front positioning might be good. Again, hot-swapping joysticks is not recommended. 

For other activities the joysticks might be in the way. Although the ports are supposed to double as serial ports, I don't feel too good about connecting peripherals from the front side. 

I tried a Megadrive pad and it accepts a second fire button too. Nice. Turn off any autofires or other exotic features before plugging in...

Extra buttons

Modern video cables such as HDMI are not physically very flexible, something I noted with the similarly tiny Raspberry Pi 400. The Next at least has some size and weight to it, so it's not like a flap of plastic dangling at the end of its cables.

A cable mess was a fact of life with the integrated keyboard computers, and it can't be helped much. It is fortunate you can get away with only two cables, the PSU and display.

Booting up

At first I was a smidge doubtful about the Next booting from a SD card, but it looks to be fast enough. Resetting isn't exactly as instant as it used to be in the 8-bit era, but the few seconds are not too bothersome.

But as reset is often the default "exit" from a program, these seconds can begin to matter...

The main choices

(The screenshots are from the Zesarux emulator and can look different to the software in the Kickstarter 2 Next.)

There's a wealth of options in already in this menu, and the SD card has a plethora of apps, demos and games to keep one exploring for days. 

For the occasional games player, the main environment is likely to be the Browser. Here you can navigate the SD card folder structure and select any of the files there. These can be ZX Spectrum TAP tape files, or SNA/Z80 snapshot files.

Basic programs also launch happily from the browser, and autorun if they have been saved with SAVE "filename" LINE 10 or something similar.

The Browser

Apart from the Browser there are many ways to operate and do things with the Next.

A number of Basic environments are available, 48K, 128K and Next Basic.

The Command Line supports alternate browsing through commands such as CD, LS and also the running of "dot" commands.

The Command Line also doubles as a Basic environment, and the dot commands can be used from within NextBASIC listings.

One interesting dot command is the .HTTP, which allows fetching of files over the internet. There's also a software for searching and downloading Spectrum snapshots from a database. After installing Getit and NextSync, there's little need for juggling SD cards.

I never really liked the Sinclair 128 Basic editor, it's a weird compromise between a line and full screen editor. At first the Command Line looked like a better starting point for Basic, but I grudgingly accepted the 128-style editor.

Command Line

TXT2BAS and BAS2TXT are also worth checking out, as they can translate between tokenized basic and ASCII text files.

The neat thing is that using #autoline 10 in the text file, the TXT2BAS can fill in the line numbers. The NextBASIC has REPEAT...UNTIL and procedures, so you don't need to explicitly refer to line numbers with GO TO and GO SUB.

It's possible to use a text editor on Next (or PC) to write Basic and then turn it into a runnable program using TXT2BAS.

As the computer is capable of a high resolution text display, a full screen text editor or notepad would have been nice. At least you can view text files through the browser in a higher resolution.

A command-line assembler would have been nice too, there's something called Odin in development but I'm unsure if it's exactly what I would have hoped.

(Edit: The Sol assembler looks quite nice)

Of older scene demos, Aeon was supplied on the card and it looked fine. There are also technical demos of Next capabilities, like the Rusty Pixels' Scrollnutter, a throwback to the Amiga era of multiple-speed big-font scrollers. There's not that much Next activity on the demoscene, though.

Lords of Midnight

There's plenty of games or at least game demos already on the card. Next War is a surprisingly addictive tower defense type game and Night Knight is a fun-looking conversion of an MSX effort. Warhawk is quite impressive scrolling shooter with lots and lots of sprites. There's also a 256-color version of Mike Singleton's classic Lords of Midnight.

HDMI Update

It's worth applying the FPGA core update as soon as possible. I found some timing problems, flickering and music tempo fluctuation in a program where it wouldn't really happen on a 48/128 machine.

I guess it could also affect game experience even in cases where nothing is visibly or audibly wrong.

By now you should have your SD card contents backed up.

Make sure Next is turned off, take the SD card out of and use your PC to access it.

Download the file TBBLUE.TBU from Phoebus Dokos' Gitlab site.

Direct download link:

https://www.gitlab.com/thesmog358/tbblue/-/raw/master/TBBLUE.TBU

Copy this one over the one on the SD card root.

Insert the SDcard back into the Next, and press U while powering up the computer.

Go through the flashing process (it takes a while), then switch off and on again as instructed. The new version number should be indicated in the boot screen.

50/60 display refresh rates

Talking of display, the 50Hz legacy of 8-bit computers can be a potential source of woes.

The ZX Spectrum was 50Hz, and so was Commodore 64 and everything else in Europe. But many computer displays today can't work with 50Hz, you'll likely have better luck with a TV than a dedicated computer display.

My HP Elite display seems to be happy with the 50/60 changes and any experiments with scrolling resulted in no glitches.

Just be aware that from an European point of view 50hz was really the more "authentic" display refresh rate, and all games and demos might not function correctly in the 60hz refresh rate.

For completeness, Next can adopt different timings and the Russian Pentagon timings are also included.

By the way, PAUSE 1 is a simple way of invoking "Wait Vertical Blank" in Sinclair Basic. I believe it just invokes the HALT Z80 command which stops the CPU until the ULA is ready to redraw a new display frame.

It works in NextBASIC too, so, adding these lines to the basicTiles/smoothTileScroll.bas source...

5 RUN AT 3

165 PAUSE 1

205 PAUSE 1

...makes that demo genuinely smooth scrolling.

smoothTileScroll.bas

The PAUSE/HALT method is not very sophisticated. The Spectrum Next has a proper line interrupt, I should check how to make better use of that, or if it can be easily used from Basic at all.

New graphics

Somewhat controversially, the Next heavily expands the graphics capabilities of the Spectrum. This reminds me a little of the TS-Conf setup which brought Amiga-esque capabilities to the ZX Evolution board.

The Next's additions are more closely integrated with the Spectrum-like ROM, NextBASIC and other features.

The hardware supports a 256 color mode, tile maps and a large number of sprites. There are so many modes I can't really examine all of them here. For example, there's a 128x96 16/256 color mode, Timex hires and Timex 8x1 color modes are also possible.

All in the best possible taste

Note that 256x192 with 256 colors takes 8 times more memory than the original 1-bit 256x192 Spectrum display file (excluding the attributes), resulting in 48K image files. That 2MB doesn't sound so huge after all.

Conveniently, 28MHz is also 8 times faster than the original Spectrum processor speed, and the graphics are also banked. What I'm saying a filled vector flight simulator or a Doom-style routine is unlikely to turn out super-fast on the 256 color bitmap. Although there's a Wolfenstein raycaster demo that seems to prove me wrong. Well.

What really helps here are the scrolling tiled modes and sprites, making the hardware closer to 1990s consoles such as Super Nintendo or Sega Megadrive.

The new modes work cleverly as layers on top of (or under) the classic graphic mode. So you could in principle have 1-bit bitmap elements on the Spectrum attribute layer, and then sprites on top of that.

256 colors through NextBASIC. One line is transparency, letting the background through.

Here's a little NextBASIC program to show 256 colors:

10 RUN AT 3
20 LAYER 2,1
30 BORDER 0 : CLS
40 FOR N=0 TO 255
50 INK N
60 PLOT N,0
70 DRAW 0,191
80 NEXT N
90 INK 0 : PAUSE 0

Line 10 activates the 28MHz processor speed.

Line 20 switches on the layer 2 (256x192 x 256 colors) and selects it.

The further INK, PLOT and DRAW commands play out on the selected layer.

Note that the LAYER 2 considers the top left corner as the 0,0 point, and the bottom right corner is 255,191. The old Spectrum graphics has bottom left corner as 0,0. This was more correct for plotting mathematics, but extremely confusing nonetheless.

You can have either 8-bit or a 9-bit color palette.

The 8-bit palette has only 2 bits for Blue, but simulates the third bit by performing an OR 1 with the most significant of the two bits.

So,

RRRGGGBB b

00000000 0

BB b

00 0 =   0

01 0 =  73

10 1 = 182

11 1 = 255

The outcome values are how to represent the blue value on PC, these seem to agree with Zesarux emulator and other sources I could find. Red and Green ramps would have values 0,36,73,109,146,182,219,255.

To be honest, the 9-bit RGB seems to be used all over. 256 colors can be freely chosen from a total of 512, much like in the original Atari ST.

As 320x256 is also possible, it shouldn't be difficult to display ST images on the Next. It takes a whopping 80K of bank memory, though.

The 256 color default palette is already well thought-out, and it can be a good idea to explore its possibilities before even trying to change it.

Next Ninja, courtesy of Bing create, conversion and some adjustments by hand.

Manual etc.

The book has a lot of information in it, replicating in parts the nostalgic experience of wading through the original ZX Spectrum manuals.

It is, however, not a book that explains in a simple way how to start using the Next features in your Basic or Assembler programs. There's no alphabetically ordered explanation of what each Basic command does. It might no make sense anyway, as some of the keywords are used in very different roles. For example, the old keyword ERASE on its own simply wipes out the current program, used to terminate an autoexec.bas.

The book is not very visual at explaining the computer capabilities, and some of the few diagrams are printed in small size. I kept scratching my head about the layer, sprite, palette and color specifications, trying to find out concise information from the internet.

Still, having the book is far, far better than no book at all, and especially at times when I can't be bothered to open a browser on another computer while working on the Next, it's a valuable reference.

It's worth looking at the Basic listings included in the SDCard, if only to see how sprites are loaded and displayed on screen, how the mouse driver is invoked etc.

Utilizing the extra power requires some study of the memory banking and examining what the various commands and registers do. Remember that even at 28MHz, the Spectrum Basic isn't really all that fast.

End notes

It's a ZX Spectrum to end all ZX Spectrums, all right, but how do I feel about the "extra" dimension? Perhaps the computer could be seen as a Spectrum with a somewhat more modern retro games console tacked on as a compromise?

Or perhaps not, as the new features are also part of the NextBASIC and the generally Spectrum-like environment.

Almost needless to say the Spectrum Next is far above simple products such as TheC64 maxi/mini and especially the ZX Spectrum Vega. Those mostly worked as game platforms and rather poorly as computers. The MEGA65 is probably a comparable project.

It's early days for me, so I don't have a final verdict. But I feel the Next, with all its additions, is still somehow respectful to the original ZX Spectrum experience. The extra features could make it interesting for those looking for "new" 8-bit computers.

The primary use after all?

What makes this kind of computer fresh and attractive is the anarchy made possible by not having to care about security, localization, multi-user log in, accessibility and whatever else is taken granted in mainstream computing. Just some core functionality and a bunch of software written in very different, individualistic ways.

It looks like the Spectrum Next has generated enthusiasm. Hopefully there will be enough momentum to keep new software appearing for years to come. The hardware and the system is of course interesting in its own right. 

I left out the productivity software side. Although any serious developers are likely to use cross-development tools, there are still the obligatory character, sprite, tile and map editors, suggesting you could use Next directly for creative purposes. Maybe they are enough for small Basic programs, but better tools could inspire more software and content.

I had some minor success in compiling assembler, turning on layer 2 and displaying some extra colors. It looks like understanding the .nex package format would be very useful. I'll come back to this if I learn the ropes.

Cambridge Computer Z88

Cambridge Z88

The mid-1980s: After the QL computer and the C5 electric vehicle debacle, the world waited with bated breath. What would Sir Clive Sinclair do next? Would a portable Super-Spectrum emerge? As it turned out, Sinclair and the brand was sold to Amstrad and any interesting developments got the axe. Or did they...

Cambridge Z88 from 1987 was Sir Clive's last hurrah in the computer markets. Well, obviously Clive had little to do with the functionalities of the computer, here credited to Protechnic Ltd., Colton Software Ltd., and Operating Systems Ltd. BBC Basic is courtesy of R.T. Russell (Originally by Sophie Wilson). 

Still, the computer continues Clive's focus towards smaller and portable computers and is supposed to have its roots in the Sinclair Pandora laptop concept.

For a short while, Z88 might have been a success in its own niche, but far from the kind of hit Clive would have needed at that point. What might have been game changing in 1984, was less so in 1988. At least Amstrad came up with their Z80-based NC100 as late as 1992!

Perhaps not the strongest slogan...

I saw pictures of the Z88 in the computer magazines around 1987–1988 and would have been excited to have a go at it.

Cambridge Computer's friendly approach to the Speccy press invited a curious kind of brand loyalty. This might have backfired a little, as the magazines were showing healthy scepticism towards the usual Sinclair hype and promises. Still, the most loyal Z88 fans were likely to be Spectrum aficionados.

By the way, magazines had apparently received a note from Amstrad dictating that this new machine from Clive should not be referred as a "Sinclair", a matter cheekily addressed in Sinclair User #61.

The Finnish press was positive. At least MikroBITTI 11/1988 described it as a "dream micro" and felt a Z80 chip was sufficient for typing on the go. It's interesting that the importer was PCI-Data (Commodore), not Hedengren (Sinclair).

Now, the definitely Sinclair-style appearance and the self-contained nature of Z88 makes it attractive to me. BASIC, spreadsheets and word processing, what else do you need in 2023?

Swedish version.

First impressions

Physically the computer fits into an A4 footprint. It is reminiscent of some of the sketches from Alan Kay's Dynabook concept, except the screen is not nearly as tall. I know a plastic protective cover exists, it would have been nice to have.

Overall, there's a little nod to the QL styling, it's a Rick Dickinson design again and as a physical object it is very attractive. All the flaps, buttons and openings are precise, meticulously placed. Because of the lightness it does give a somewhat flimsy impression, I wouldn't bend the plastic case too much.

The transparent, numbered door over the card slots is an especially juicy little design detail, hidden at a corner where it's barely visible.

The keyboard was at first a cause for alarm, as it harks back to Sinclair's rubbery explorations. Worry not, typing is much better than on the Spectrum, perhaps even better than the QL. The keys are extremely silent and responsive enough, a tad too sensitive though.

The RS-232 port, fortunately not telephone-style

The space key feels a little weird, as it does not depress entirely but just squishes down at the spot you touch. Instead of Control and Alt keys, there are the original Diamond and Square keys.

The power is turned on and off by pressing both the SHIFT keys. And it's not a hard power on/off, the computer goes into standby and you can continue working from the same spot after turning it on.

A few times I was able to accidentally press both SHIFTs when trying to get my fingers around typing those silly :RAM.1/ device identifiers. Remember to set the default device from Control Panel.

The four AA batteries supposedly give 20 hours active use, or about a year in standby. This was one of the most doubted specs in the contemporary press, and Rakewell's site lists more accurate numbers. The real standby battery life is more like few months, depending on the battery type and RAM configuration. 

It's sensible to use the PSU and when the batteries need changing it better be connected. There's a small window of time in which the batteries can be changed without a PSU, but who knows the state of the capacitor after 35 years.

PSU connector, tiny reset switch and the contrast adjuster

The display is a surprisingly okay LCD-type screen, but without a backlight it's rather sensitive to lighting conditions. The resolution is 640*64, which is good enough for editing 8 lines of text.

But thinking about it, the display has less pixels than a ZX Spectrum! (256*192=49152 versus 640*64=40960) The pixels come in three intensities, though.

The CPU is a low-power Z80 variant, which at 3.2768 MHz should be a tiny bit slower than the Speccy.

There are three slots for RAM/ROM/EPROM cards. My Z88 fortunately came with three 128K RAM expansions. This gives a decent 384K extra memory on top of the measly 32K built-in, although one extra 128K might have been enough for me. Apparently the computer is really crippled if there's no extra memory present.

Two ROM/RAM slots and the EPROM/ROM/RAM slot, behind a transparent door.

Obviously the Z80 chip can't handle more than 64K directly, so there's a memory manager that seamlessly banks in memory.

The RAM has to be powered, which is a potential problem. If you remove one of the cards, the Z88 will become unresponsive and needs to be soft reset. Doing this will obviously empty the current memory and any suspended applications.

However, when removing card 3 the files "saved" in card 1 were still preserved. Using the reset key with the card door open will hard reset the computer and all the RAM card contents.

One of the ports takes in an EPROM cartridge, which can be used for storing data more permanently. Technically, only ROM cards can be used to add new applications, but later developments have made it possible to run apps from RAM. From around 2000–2010 there have been Flash memory cartridges for permanent storage instead of the EPROM solution.

A 128K RAM Cartridge

The cards are cute and remind me of Microdrive cassettes, although bigger and with no tape at sight. From the other end you can see an edge connector.

There's a fold-out stand in the bottom of the Z88, something I didn't discover until few hours of use.

OZ, PipeDream, BBC BASIC, apps

There's a plethora of tiny functions and apps built inside the 128K ROM. The computer has BASIC and PipeDream, a hybrid word processing/spreadsheet/database package. There's a calculator, diary, VT-52 terminal and a serial importer/exporter app. The Filer can be used for managing stored files and provides an interesting way of executing text files as key-command scripts.

Using INDEX key you can enter the app menu at any time and choose an app. If there are already instances of apps launched, they will be listed at the right side of the menu as "suspended activities". So I can continue a BASIC project or text editing exactly from where I left it the last time.

Some of the built-in apps

The system is not as graphical as the menus would make it appear at first. Some of the option and control panel screens are messy, but fortunately don't have many items in them anyway. When selecting files within apps, you may be prompted to type in the filename, with no assists provided. 

There's a HELP key, but apart from PipeDream it doesn't provide much information. Removing programs from the suspended activities list is fun: You have to type KILL after pressing the diamond key.

The Z80 chip chugs along slowly, so the menus aren't especially fast and neither is PipeDream the main software package. In QL style, the font is 6x8 rather than 8x8 to make more text fit.

I was tempted to write this blog post using PipeDream, but after sketching some paragraphs I gave up. I found I could type in fast enough, but making any changes to the existing text is a little too cumbersome. Maybe another time.

The peculiarities and compromises of the editor often arise from the needs of the integrated spreadsheet functionality, line splitting and moving between lines doesn't work exactly like in a modern text editor. Still, for a 1987 tiny portable computer it is quite an impressive package.

The software suite and the OS become better the more keyboard shortcuts you learn. Just as I've saved a text file, I can jump over to the RS-232, transmit it, and then press ESC to get back. Most of the important shortcuts for text editing are listed below the screen and this really is helpful. 

The lack of rows on screen is slightly alleviated by the overview map at the right side of the screen with one character represented by one pixel. This is the earliest editor where I've seen this, it's quite common in modern code editors like Sublime Text.

PipeDream's handy map

Moving around using TAB and shift-TAB, you can insert "expressions" into the positions and have the software calculate sums etc. Elsewhere you can just continue typing text without being limited to the cells.

The calculator is the most visual function in the device. It's clumsy and simple, but does have the virtue of being available even if you are in another program, by using [SQUARE]R. The clock and calendar can be invoked in a similar manner. Together with the suspended task switching, it gives a tiny sliver of sophistication without multi-tasking.

Instead of Sinclair BASIC, there's the BBC Basic, which seems a little funny considering how Sinclair and Acorn used to be in competition. The BBC dialect is pretty famous for its structuring and it even has an inline assembler. 

The manual also provides an interesting hack to use the Filer "CLI execute" function to tokenize ASCII files by first opening the BASIC and then virtually typing rest of the plain text file contents in as keypresses. Put AUTO as part of the macro and it doesn't even need line numbers. Ingenious or kludgy? At least this means PipeDream can be used for writing program listings, as BBC Basic can use named procedures.

The "CLI execute" can also be invoked through Basic, so a command can launch another app and type in commands there. The freedom given to the user is really mind-boggling, and even if you don't want BASIC or assembler, PipeDream is quite versatile in itself.

A BOOT.CLI can be used but on the non-upgraded Z88, this sadly only works from an EPROM. This could, for example, make the computer boot into BASIC after reset. However, seeing as the computer is either on or in standby, the most sensible use for the boot file is to manage preferences after reset.

I experienced a considerable slowdown at one time, especially after playing with these CLI execute functions. Typing with PipeDream was no longer comfortable, even if I had cleared all internal RAM of files and KILLed all unnecessary apps. I reset the computer and all was fine again. Perhaps there was some garbage management problem.

The BASIC has no graphics commands, I guess because it would be wasteful to hold a pixel buffer. I see the author of BBC Basic has created a patch that adds the graphics commands, though.

There are more recent versions of the operating system, done by enthusiasts after Cambridge Computer shut down. Some of the tiny problems I encountered might be fixed by upgrading the Z88.

Colton Software still makes PipeDream, not for the Z88 mind you!

A few thoughts at this point

Much like with the Sinclair QL, the Z88 felt a little iffy at first but I became more and more intrigued with the platform. The computer invites learning to use it better, finding shortcuts and tricks as you go along.

The Sinclair QL already provided a word processing and spreadsheet suite, but the execution was marred by hardware decisions. In a way Z88 continues this fixation but doesn't have similar problems.

This focus on business productivity means that many cool things are left out, such as graphics or sound. There's no mouse, but a computer like this does not really need one.

There's an estimate of some 60000+ units made.

One can't really blame Cambridge Computer for not succeeding, as far as I know no-one really scored it big with these small form factor computers in the 1980s. Typing on the go was a niche thing and buyers more likely put their money into more powerful computers, rather than tinier computers. Although 6 million TRS-80 Model 100 units sold, if true, is impressive. 

I could compare my tiny 8-bit computers Canon X-07, Atari Portfolio and the Z88. It's possible that because of the huge keyboard and the comprehensive feature list, the Z88 beats the others in terms of usefulness and features for the 2020s. Obviously Atari is the smallest of the trio, but without any programming language built-in, the fun factor is lower. I guess without extra memory Z88 would be limping too, so the comparison is not so straightforward.

Traveling silently

I might eventually look inside, if only to peep at the capacitors and any signs of dust or grime. I postponed this as it looks like a couple of screws are under the rubber feet and one is under the serial number label. The LCD and its ribbon are also notoriously fickle.

Serial transfer

I quickly built an RS-232 adapter cable for my USB-COM device, and it worked well enough. One brainfart had to happen though, using the wrong gender at the Z88 end of the cable. Well, gender-changer to the rescue. 

I can already say that sending data from Z88 at 9600 rate is ok, but it is hopeless at receiving at this speed.

Beam me up

Minicom was sufficient to test the connection.

If the device is called ttyUSB0 on Linux, then:

minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0

I then set minicom to 9600, 8N1 (Parity none).

At the Z88 end, I launch the Control Panel (Square+S), set Parity None and Xon/Xoff to No.

Then I can use the VT-52 terminal in Z88 to send and receive characters and the Import/Export app to transmit and receive files.

With some more work I was able to store some of my first PipeDream jottings for historical purposes. I already feel more safe about resetting the Z88.

Some links:

Crash! magazine and Simon Goodwin on Z88: https://www.crashonline.org.uk/39/z88.htm

Rakewell has kept the name alive over the years: http://www.rakewell.com/z88/z88.shtml

More resources: https://cambridgez88.jira.com/wiki/spaces/welcome/overview?mode=global

Pictures of the insides at Old Crap: https://oldcrap.org/2019/10/28/cambridge-z88/

Orion Millennium chess computer 6 in 1

From 2004, the box has a still young-ish Karpov's face on it. I'm wondering if he is recommending the product or the game of chess in general!

As far as actual chess-playing goes, this kind of cheap chess computer is now mostly superseded by mobile phones at the low end, and digital boards towards the higher end. As a design object, a more vintage device would have been prettier, but it's not the ugliest I've seen.

It's not just a chess computer, the featured six games are Chess, Checkers, Othello/Reversi, 4-in-a-row, Halma and Nim. Incidentally, Nim was probably one of the first electronically implemented "digital" games. I'm only looking at the chess variant here.

The machine operates with 4 AA batteries, and there is no connector for a power supply.

First a small disappointment: The chessmen were missing from the box, only the generic button-like pieces for the other games were left. As this cost me only 4 euros I don't mind that much. The instructions were in place. Even in good complete condition, I'm not seeing people asking more than 20 euros for this.

I used my magnetic pieces from a tiny travel set. They are a bit too small and a bit hard to tell apart, but at least I could test the board.

The board feel is sturdy and weighty enough, the footprint is less than A4, squares are 21mm giving about 168mm board size. Given the chessmen are not large to begin with, it's a pity there is no storage for them in the case itself, it wouldn't have made the computer much larger.

After inserting the batteries, the computer gave a friendly beep. It works!

The moves are activated by pushing the board at the starting position and then the ending position. This can be done with the pieces. It's not highly convenient but at least simple to understand. I felt I had to press the squares quite hard. Typing in the moves might have been more effective, but there's no option for that.

At the start it felt needlessly complicated that I had to perform the pushing of opponent's moves too. But it is understandable, as it prevents mistakes from happening.

In castling, you need to perform both the king and the rook moves.

As the computer is initially in a tutor mode, some moves were greeted with 'bad move' sounds. The step has to be passed with 'next move' key. I felt sometimes pressing this also switched the player sides. Hmm. Well, the tutor can be turned off by pressing first what looks like the "Cancer" horoscope symbol, and then the tutor key.


Playing

I played one game from start to finish against the computer, at the default level, which must be really easy. In this opening (Ruy Lopez), it seems the opening library ended after 4 moves (4 white, 4 black pieces moved) as then the computer started using time for thinking. Thinking took about 10 seconds on this default level.

Me vs. Millennium Orion 1-0:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4
5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. Nxe5 Be6 7. h3 Bc5 8. d3 Nf6
9. Bg5 O-O 10. Nd2 Qd4 11. Bxf6 gxf6 12. Nef3 Qxb2
13. Nh4 Bxa2 14. Qg4+ Kh8 15. Rfc1 a5 16. Ne4 Bd4
17. Nf5 Qxa1 18. Qg7#

My move 15. Rfc1 was made by the computer too, as I had managed to mess the turn order because of the tutor mode. After that, I turned off the tutor.

Looking at the game in Stockfish, I made a mess out of it at the very start but the computer did not follow through in this level. (That 15. Rfc1 move was a mistake, too).

It does look like two noobs playing. The game ended with the computer allowing me to checkmate even though it could have been prevented.

The manual indicates there are many combinations of difficulty/time options to make the computer play a harder game. It's just not easy to figure out what the levels are and what level of human play they might correspond to. But I suspect the thinking time will increase drastically on the higher levels.

It's also possible to adjust the play style between passive and aggressive (5 levels, normal giving the best play). Perhaps I'll try to challenge a more difficult level some time.

The computer includes a library of "classic" chess games, including Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and the Kasparov/Deep Blue games, a total of 320 games. These are listed in the manual but they are not dated. It is unclear if the AI is able to draw any wisdom out of these games, probably not.

(This also means there are more Kasparov than Karpov games stored inside!)

The C64 Microcomputer (revised post)

The C64 Microcomputer! I didn't get it for Christmas, but it's close enough...

The first physical impressions are good: it weighs more than you'd expect for something that is basically an empty box. The keyboard has a nice enough feel although it is a bit clunky and gives a somewhat "hollow" sound. I wouldn't know how pristine C64 keyboard might have felt straight out of factory gates, though.

Connect it to the wall with Micro-USB style power connector, connect to TV via HDMI. Insert the included joystick using one of the four USB connectors and you can go. The cables are all included.

(The box I think will be used for storing a real C64. A plastic dust cover is included.)

A few seconds after turning the power on, the computer boots into the games carousel mode. So it should be very easy to use. Select a game and play your emulated C64 classics.

Your own software? Simply insert a USB memory stick and if it has d64 files in it, it will be listed in the media menu. Then run the first file on the disk by using one button, or do the LOAD "*",8,1 manually from BASIC in the "Classic" mode. So it couldn't really be much easier.

All the menus are accessible from the one special button on the joystick, which is a surprisingly handy addition to the emulation environment. Whether this means you need to have the joystick connected all the time I'm not yet sure. (Edit: No, you don't)

The menus are clear and have pretty much all the options you'd expect from a consumer-oriented box, but not much more.

The computer can be made to boot directly to BASIC ("Classic Mode"). From the power on it takes roughly 15-20 seconds. But the subsequent resetting & loading new games etc. does not need this time at all. Games when launched from the carousel take only seconds.

The games and music run too fast, and this was NOT fixed by just changing the PAL/NTSC mode. I am guessing that the television goes to 60Hz mode and it is not for some reason able to use 50Hz, as The C64 gave no boot option for it, as stated in the manual.

Edit: Turns out The C64 decides this for itself, if the TV video mode has not been yet initialized. I did a factory reset, turned the TV on properly before The C64, and I got the 50hz/60hz question after boot.

This is a pity as the very same TV is able to show a real C64 image via SVideo! I tried to fiddle the crappy menus of this fairly old Philips flatscreen TV but to no avail. Although the image appears to be 720p video format and the TV should be able to handle in 50hz, it doesn't do it.

So I am still somewhat willing to blame the TV instead of The C64 here.

Which brings me to the slight real omissions. There's no Composite connection so I'm stuck with the HDMI. Also no separate audio jack. For someone else these might not be a problem at all, but the composite video would have been a really, really good feature.

Scrolling seemed to be smooth and tearless whenever needed, but I'd have to make some more definite tests before giving my final verdict on that. I had no problems with the games included. Edit: I tried the Giana Sisters attract mode scroll and it seemed to give no tear or hiccups.

With the Competition Prof-esque joystick I could not really experience much lag with the games, until I really focused on the issue.

Oh, by the way the software offers a variety of aspect ratio/display blur modes so you can get the screen look correct on a widescreen TV.

The keyboard was good enough for typing the above small code snippet, even in the somewhat cramped conditions I had. The shift lock key does not lock physically, but the state is visually indicated in the screen corner. The run/stop + restore combo works.

The keyboard and the PETSCII markings on it are things that clearly elevate this product above a common emulator. The keyboard responsiveness is maybe not as immediate as one could hope, in terms of time between keypresses and the characters appearing on the screen. But at least no typing got lost in the process.

There are two extra fire buttons on the joystick and the 4 extra control buttons. As mentioned, one of them accesses the emulator menu. Funnily, two of them map to Y and N keys and the third to return. Possibly these can be remapped.

My immediate verdict is on the positive side, even if I had some hiccups here. Unlike with some retro products, I don't get the impression this is a cash-grab. It's within a reasonable price and tries to cater to the slightly more advanced users and not just games players.

Yes, for the price you could get a second-hand real C64, but getting all the needed peripherals would likely make it more expensive.

I might get back later with more detailed examination of the features, such as the VIC-20 mode, cartridge files, different displays and the more advanced file-naming and setting options.


Deltaco HDMI -> VGA with audio split (22.1.2020)

The HDMI turned out to be a bit limiting, so I wondered if a conversion could help here.

I bought a cheap Deltaco brand HDMI->VGA converter with separate 3.5mm audio out. I used the VGA to connect it to a Dell display and the audio to a small JBL chargeable loudspeaker.

The Deltaco thing is the black box connected to the blue VGA connector.

I am somehow suspicious of HDMI and especially HDMI conversions, but I was initially pleased that this worked at all.

I also got the speed to 50hz, judging from music playback speed. However, testing the scroll with Giana Sisters it is no longer smooth but a bit jittery and tearing. Sad but perhaps I should not have expected that much from this.

EDIT 24.1.2020:Another edit! So of course the jitteriness is because the display does not handle 50hz, but it attempts to conform to it anyways. However, if I again do the factory reset, connect THEC64 to the VGA display with the Deltaco cable, I get to choose 60hz. Yes, this is "wrong" speed for C64 but at least it was again smooth. Some games might even benefit from it a bit :)

So, it goes to reason if another similar display could handle 50hz the adapter might work fine, so perhaps I should not blame the Deltaco adapter.

*end of edit (goes to show I should have waited a bit before writing the whole post)

Scaling is not that bad, but I had to turn off the CRT scanline emulation as it produced a kind of mild screening artefacts when scrolling vertically.

The picture was not initially centred but this could be adjusted from the monitor settings.

It only now occurred to me to ask, where is the SID selection?

Now with bunch of cables, added visual artefacts and jitteriness, I'm not sure if this setup is so handy after all, compared to the HDMI TV. But, it has to do in a situation where nothing else is available.


Deltaco HDMI -> DVI adapter

This 4€ adapter did not result in an image at all. Firstly, it barely fits with the power cable and the memory stick at the back, and secondly... well, as I said no picture. So I guess even though THE C64 might be based on a 'reduced PC' it can't handle this. The adapter does not have the sound splitter so even if it did work here it would not be that useful to me.

Atari Falcon 030

As an Atari STE owner back in the day, I was one of those people who drooled at the Atari Falcon before and around the time of its release in 1992. I read ST Format reports and snippets of information from Atari newsletters with great interest. The Falcon was promoted as a really bad-ass multimedia computer, beating Amiga at its own game.

When the computer finally came out, I had little chance of acquiring one, and already the magazine reports made it sound a little less than it ought have been.

Now, finally, I have some first-person experiences of this rarity.

The first physical impressions are that it weighs a ton, doesn't look that different from an ST, there's a noisy, monotonous fan inside, the keyboard is not that great and the port for the bad mouse is still below the computer (and upside down).

It also turned out that 16Mhz is not a huge leap when the new graphics modes would have needed some more heavy lifting. This is already something I recall from using a plain Amiga 1200: "Is this really it?"

Plain ST games would not demonstrate a monstrous speed increase, Frontier is now about bearable but that's it.

Frontier, one of the go-to games for testing Ataris.

The Digital Signal Processor was a saving grace for direct-to-disk recording, and with the already-established in-built MIDI ports the Falcon became a bit of a cult among musicians.

The DSP could deliver the needed punch for many kinds of games and applications, but it was not very simple to program and apart from the audio applications there was not much productivity software or games for it anyway.

More recently, skilled people have showed what can be done and there's a rather wicked-looking engine for displaying Quake 2 and Half-Life 1 levels, utilizing the DSP.

When the Landmine tried to play a sound the MP3 player messed up and did not recover.

Also, mp3 songs can be played in the background while still using the desktop. How's that for a 1992 computer?!

Theoretically, for a fleeting period in time, all the power for an Amiga-beater was inside that casing, but nothing helped people exploit the better parts of it around 1992. Then Atari computer division went down and adios, Falcon.

Oh, about the crappy photographs: I could have used a desktop accessory for making snapshot images out of the desktop at least... but I was not prepared to move and convert them around for the time being.


First things firST

Nice that I can use the VGA monitor adapter block to connect the Falcon to a modern display. The picture is not especially sharp on my display but I can live with it.

I got rid of the Atari mouse and connected a PS/2 optical mouse through a micromys adapter. (One that has C64, Amiga and Atari ST modes)

This Falcon came with IDE harddisk and 4MB of memory. I intend to look into using a Compact Flash/SD-IDE adapter but it'll have to wait a bit. Doing that and swapping the 1.44Mb disk drive to a Gotek might not only improve the computer but help reduce the weight somewhat... not that it's meant to be moved a lot.

Which brings me to a point. These days I'm a bit frightful about a computer that has physical hard drives but no "software shut down" to ensure the drives are stopped! (Ok some drivers come with head park software).

Universe-on-a-floppy

Luckily the Falcon floppy drive was in working order. After formatting a HD disk on Falcon I could copy files to it on the floppy-drive equipped Linux Mint.

I could also copy the aforementioned Frontier over to the Falcon. It didn't run just like that, I had to CONTROL-ALT-DEL from the desktop with holding CONTROL down.

Then, if you're lucky the Falcon will boot without any drivers and there will be sufficient "low" memory for running Frontier.


TOS, utter tosh?

Looking at GEM/TOS I am surprised how little has changed from the Atari STE days.

As I had a "bundle" of software ready on the IDE drive, I could have a head-start in exploring different kind of programs without having to install much.

The first impression is that the GEM/TOS is perhaps even slower than before and not that much has been done to improve it. Switch on the software-based MultiTOS and it'll get even slower.

The early-to-mid 1990s desktop experience, complete with a modplayer.

I could get the modplayers and mp3 player up an running, trying out some utility software in the meantime. It was a nice moment, but the environment did also crash and glitch a lot. The sound tended to conflict between applications like the FalconAMP and Landmine (minesweeper clone), keyboard clicks got stuck in a loop one time and so on and on.

But I have to recall that using the Workbench of the Amiga was a long process of weeding out software that didn't work, and learning my way around situations that could potentially crash the computer. So the same likely applies here: if I really had a motivation to use the Falcon for months and months the software collection and my practices of using it could develop and I wouldn't encounter these problems.

The 4MB of memory is not luxurious when it comes to using the multiTOS, I saw that at times much less than 2MB was left available when trying to run a couple of apps together.

Turning off the new-fangled GEM options using the CONTROL reset trick does show the desktop can be faster compared to an Atari STE.

Apparently more flexible video modes are possible but the desktop allows only a few combinations. Note that the Falcon modes easily eat up far more memory and speed than the 32k of ST modes. The difference between a 256-colour 640x480 and 16-color mode was about 300 kilobytes.

Instead of descriptive or explicit resolutions a somewhat confusing "40 columns/80 columns" and "double line" terms are now in use:

40 columns: 320 pixel wide
80 columns: 640 pixel wide
Double lines on: 240 pixel height
Double lines off: 480 pixel height

The higher resolutions are available as 2 or 16 colour modes, whereas the lower resolutions support 256 or even 65536 ("true") colour modes.

I recall the day when the prospect of having such a luxurious amount of colours in an image was in itself fascinating and something to be desired!

The ST-compatible legacy modes are Low resolution (320x200x16), Medium resolution (640x200x4) and High Resolution (640x400x2).


Yet...

It may sound I'm very negative about the Falcon, but in truth it's kind of growing on me.

The computer has that Atari ST feeling, a kind of simplicity and straightforwardness. Bit like when you look at MS-DOS and think "why wasn't this enough?" except it's graphical.

What I am glad about is the amount of options for connecting and transferring files. PC-compatible HD floppy, RS-232, IDE...  I'm thinking about the Apple Macintosh where you have a quite closed system and very limited choices for transferring data into it.

I also got over the somewhat clunky-looking and slow desktop, especially when I noted that using the ST compatibility modes makes it faster.

Amiga 500

Ah, the Amiga. What can I say? Amiga 1000 may have been the first, but it's the relatively affordable Amiga 500 that won over people's hearts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Yes, it's easy to get emotional about the Amiga. Somehow it was possible just to stick in floppies, play games, watch demos, draw with Deluxe Paint, and not care too much about the world. With A500, Workbench appeared great but unnecessary, Amiga BASIC was laughable, Assembler simply could not be learned by mortals.

The software sometimes crashed too easily, with that immortal line "Guru Meditation - Software Failure". But you could play minesweeper while your file downloaded from a BBS. There was a speech synthesizer that could be made to utter truths about your brothers. A clockface that could be displayed while there was another window open. Directory Opus. CygnusEd. Multitasking.

Amiga was the games machine. Interceptor, Time Bandit, Pandora, Wild Streets, Sky Chase, Firepower, Sword of Sodan, Cosmic Pirate. Crazy PD games like the Egyptian Run, Zerg and Top Hat Willy. Workbench games, Unix conversions, PC conversions, 8-bit conversions.

I hope he got that extra ram.

It's been said the demoscene was properly born on Amiga. But from the periphery, we'd happily watch any old presentation in early 1990s, whether from "legit" sceners or not. Gaudy copper bars, spherical bobs, wireframe vector graphics, ripped game graphics, glenz vectors, silvery metallic logos, tracked music with Italo disco samples, Garfield scans co-existing with Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Axel F, Miami Vice theme, Acid House, digitized Star Trek, copies or tributes of Larry Elmore, Hajime Sorayama and Boris Vallejo.

Long sinewave scrollers, multiple scrollers, circular scrollers, stretching scrollers, unreadable scrollers, copper-colored scrollers, endless scrollers, vector scrollers, star wars scrollers, scrollers that start with "yyeeaaaoooooaaaahh!!!", scrollers with accusations of lamery and calling your arch-enemy a "faggot" (an unfortunate aspect of the early demoscene).

Time's not been kind, but at the time it was better than TV.

Megalo from Wild Copper, and the Deathstar Megademo were some of the earliest material I saw. For me the first demo that showed some kind of consistent styling was Universal Pictures from Unique. Clearly it's not aged that well, and neither has that Miami Vice remix from HCC.

As the 1990s progressed, I learned about demoparties (but did not attend), Scoopex: Mental Hangover, Enigma from Phenomena, Spaceballs: State of the Art and 9 Fingers, 242, Kefrens: Desert Dream and so on and on, and although it was all very grand something had already vanished. Suddenly it was all techno/breakbeat/funk and "design" and by the way aren't the best demos always something you had seen back in the day?

Naturally, with blitter filling.

Having an Amiga was like enrolling into a media school: I'd learn first hand about graphic design, composing music, sampling sounds, creating animations, 3D-modelling, programming. AMOS Basic teached me something about planning larger programs and writing games but maybe also prevented from learning other languages sooner. I tried my hand in assembler but could only write small subroutines to support the BASIC code.

Emulation really started with Amiga and emulators like ZXAM showed that simpler computers like the ZX Spectrum could run games, although you'd need A1200 speeds to do that. Many hours were spent with revisiting ZX Spectrum classics and also the ones I thought I'd never see in my life.

Many times seeing this, too

I'm wondering if the later developments did Amiga much good. Sure it was great to have a hard disk and a faster processor, but PC envy started to hit hard, and the main concern now was trying to better the PC in its own game.

PC games like Ultima Underworld and Falcon 3.0 were pretty worrying, but especially Doom seemed like a watershed moment, Amiga had lost the (bouncing) ball. At the same time console games appeared to do that other thing better, too. Doom was eventually ported to Amiga, but then 3D cards entered the scene and eventually homogenized graphics across all platforms.

Yes, a TRS-80 conversion. Why not?

And that brings me to a difficult point. Although one hears rumors of Amiga's comeback over the years, something about the idea of an Amiga revival seems a bit off. Can the new Amiga now do WWW properly? Javascript and HTML5? Can it play HD video? Can you plug a GPU to it? Can you stick USB devices to it? If not, then it's too off mainstream to gain any real traction. If yes, then it would be similar to any current computer.

Perhaps a well thought-out decidedly hobbyist computer built around a specific genealogy of a GPU might represent an "Amiga" these days but don't expect many to buy it.

Thinking it now, the Amiga happened in such a short time. Generously, one could say the overall Amiga phenomenon was relevant for about a decade. But that intense time with the A500, a few summers, really. Maybe it really does get emotional here.