Excellent!
The return of proper games...
How things progress. I note that it supports SD cards, for storage. The micro controller in an SD card that does all the Flash wear levelling will have more grunt than the original Spectrum, probably.
Sinclair fans rejoice: ZX Spectrum Vega+ to launch October 20
Ageing fans of 1980s home computer games will soon be able to get their hands on Sir Clive Sinclair’s rebooted ZX Spectrum device, which is now set to be launched in October and available just in time for Christmas. The eagerly awaited Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+, which was bankrolled via crowdfunding site Indiegogo, is to get …
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 09:11 GMT Mage
Re: adapted ARM core or 8051 and increased clock speed
8051 is way below Z80 / 6502, it's a VERY limited micro-controller with Harvard architecture.
20MHz Z80 cores were available in SoC 20 years ago, so it's either an ASIC or FPGA with a Z80 core, or ARM with a Spectrum (and Z80) Emulator (available quite some time, 10 years?).
An 8051 doesn't even come close to Z80 or Cortex M0 ARM. It can't run anything other than 8051 code (which is nothing like 8080/Z80) and I don't think can run a Z80 emulator. They are still used in a Flash incarnation as legacy alternate to PIC16F or entry level Atmel AVR. Even the PIC 18F series is superior and wouldn't be used to emulate a Z80 either.
It would also have to run at the original clock speed (or simulate it in an Emulator) or many games wouldn't be compatible!
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 12:18 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: adapted ARM core or 8051 and increased clock speed
The 8051 compatible core you are likely to find in a modern SDHC card will probably have a 32bit ALU, 24 bit address bus and run at several hundred MHz. The architecture has evolved massively beyond the device with 128 bytes of RAM that I programmed in hand-optimised assembly language when I was a PFY. I would expect a modern 8051 compatible to be able to compile Z80 machine code into native, keep track of the amount of time a 3.5MHz Z80 would take, execute the result and still have plenty of time to spare to emulate the minimal hardware in a Spectrum. People really have put a ton of lipstick on the old 8051 pig.
Apparently Mike put an entire Spectrum on an FPGA three years ago. Clock accurate emulation of a Spectrum dates back to 200MHz Pentiums, Acorn RISC, 68020 and DEC Alpha. Try playing with QEMU some time. I think you will be shocked at how good CPU emulation has become.
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 09:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Excellent!
How things progress. I note that it supports SD cards, for storage
Does it emulate a ZX Microdrive?
One 8GB SD card would equate to a library of over 94,000 tapes :-)
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 16:08 GMT Peter Gathercole
Re: Hmmmm...
If you've never played Elite on a BEEB with a Bitstik, then you've really missed out!
Excellent control, and the throttle on the twist joystick.
Oh, and a 6502 second processor helped (full screen in mode 1, all galaxies in memory, and smoother as well).
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 09:32 GMT Robert Carnegie
Keyboard
It says "Novel and easy-to-use virtual keyboard", and also external keyboard but without details, "specification to follow".
I know where I could get a rubber keyboard for PC - which may be the same as one that I once bought which stopped working rather soon. The idea is it's super portable - the one currently on sale rolls up and comes in a jar...
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 11:32 GMT Dan 55
Re: Keyboard
Tempting but dodgy, look at the latest Amazon reviews for it. The apps and games have been taken down leaving you with a doorstop. You also need to activate standard Bluetooth keyboard mode using the app but again that's difficult unless you find it in archive.org due to the apps disappearing. Finally standard Bluetooth mode can't cope with games using Shift or Symbol Shift.
Why is he still selling it? That's Steve Wilcox for you.
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Tuesday 27th September 2016 12:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Keep your money in your pocket for now.
It's worth pointing out that this company have not actually manufactured anything yet and have refused to give a delivery date to backers - 20th October is just a "launch party".
They also announced that production had started in April, deleted concerned backers questions from their campaign page and claimed to be on schedule to release in September until yesterday.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
