ZX Spectrum Next | Nostalgia Nerd

today is a very exciting day because after three years the ZX Spectrum next is finally here in this box oh it's like being in 1983 or four or five all over again let's crack this little beauty else look at that look at it look at that it looks like a spectrum box should look it's got the lost it's got matte it's got colors it's got it's not too overstated we've got the spectrum just switched across the box like that like on previous boxes what a thing on the back we've got all sorts of things visit expect from next is the evolution of the original Sinclair 8-bit computer that kick-started a generation of bedroom coders whose games shaped the way we play to this day built from scratch of dedicated hardware the ZX Spectrum next boasts and it features what makes playing the original games a breeze and opens the door for brand new titles taking advantage of its improvements such as better audio more colors larger memory and faster processor Corriere were talking three point five megahertz zeday ET that's the same as normal what he's got additional turbo modes this is the unaccelerated version hence why i have it slightly before the accelerated versions beat one chip first exclusive games we've got dreamworld pogey john jeanette Lords of midnight Monkey McGee no mercy quake star war hawk wonderful dizzy look what this is incredible look at look look at that I can't take the excitement right I mean it's a few marks on this box never fear the ship the handlers were a bit excited about it as well nice foam bit of padding on the top inner of a box there to try and keep it secure but the packaging has given way inside which is a shame you know this must have I don't know if it was yodel who delivered it but it's obviously been buffeted about and it's torn the box at the edge which is a shame [Music] oh look the keys they feels like a spectrum should but not crap it feels improved because it's the same sort of mechanism but so much nicer the mark on that key a couple of marks here and there it's the easy route of its packaging see what we have it feels like a solid that were unit it feels sturdy I mean feels like a spectrum 128 okay there's a few scratches I've seen a few other people have reported scratches on the back here and bear this one seems to have the same scratches as a few other people have reported which you know we're not heavy scratches but just a bit on the back I like this before yeah okay now we also get a box here which contains all sorts of power adapters depending on which country you're in and the power supply itself which is reassuring and the manual now there's a big thing about the manual cover being a surprise so if you don't want that ruins then look away now we have this lovely manual which looks like a spectrum manual shiftry nice nice colors as well got ship whizzing around it feels like a spectrum manual and inside it looks like a spectrum manual and it's pretty concise so let's put this beauty in and find out what she can do but first allow me to give a short backstory for those unaware the spectrum next is really a work of love born from a discussion between andrey k Olaf ears and Viktor trucko childhood friends who grew up in Brazil on clones of the spectrum the TK 90x even with clones love for this technology was strong and by 2016 in partnership with Fabio Bela Venuto Viktor had created tibi blue a replacement board Bobby ZX spectrum adding SD card support and VGA output this became a success in Brazil paving the way for the obvious step to take it back home to the United Kingdom for Victor the obvious person to help with this was his childhood friend Enric a who by now was running the BAFTA winning games company Bossa studios the original chat was simply around the replacement board but this quickly led to talks about creating an entirely new machine assisted by none other than the original spectrum designer Rick Dickinson Rick almost immediately agreed to the proposal and came up with several concepts based around the various original spectrum releases discussion of course ensued and the idea based around arguably the bets Becky the Sinclair Zed expect from 128 plus prevailed on hearing this exciting news various community members including Sam Dyer of bitmap Books and Chris Hill of games you loved rallied around to ensure the machine would make it to the Kickstarter phase I was so excited I even made a video on it back in May 2016 yes skipper that one so next well it's the spectrum next yeah clearly I still hadn't grasped the concept of audio clipping back then by the 23rd of April 2017 the project was live and would quickly become one of the most successful retro projects ever to hit for crowdfunding platform I managed to get in just in time with an early bird model 4b bargain price of 165 pounds and 10 pound shipping bringing it to exactly the same cost as the original 48k detects spectrum on first release by the 4th of December 2017 the bare-bones boards were ready and on their way out to backers who wanted to get tinkering straightaway but for the case and final hardware the project was clearly a larger and more unwieldy beast than first imagined helped along by many people including of course Jim Bagley we programmed many excellent titles back in the day updates would come with a reassuring frequency and as they say if a Jobs worth doing it's worth doing properly and so almost three years from the Kickstarter launch this machine would finally work its way to me landing in my hands on the 13th of February 2020 so let's take a closer look at this labor of love and see whether it was really worth the three-year wait this is one beautifully designed computer but then I would expect no less from being credible rick dickinson responsible for some of the most iconic machines of the 80s but yet the project is tinged with sorrow given that Rick himself never got to see the final machine passing away on April the 24th 2018 the best joy that we get to experience one of his majestic creations one final time the next very much borrows from be 1984 plus and 1985 Sinclair 128 K model its width and length are very similar to the original machine yet depth now gives way to the slenderness of the original spectrum angles give way to flowing curves again merging features of the original model and that of the plus designs what we end up with is a divine looking machine which grabs your eye as much as any of the previous designs did if we go back to the packaging we can see that it also borrows from the 1985 model we have an angled yet partial view of a machine cutting through a colored background would be Sinclair logo at the bottom and recognizable Sinclair font at the top although over knew having a slightly more squished effect with wider kerning it just works and really conveys what this project was all about the experience the experience of opening a treasured box of real Hardware with almost endless possibilities going back to the manual we can see a harking back to the original Spectrum 48k manual with this futuristic sci-fi design which just fires your imagination sparking up wondrous worlds all of which could be recreated in your new boxed collection of circuitry and silicon although I'd love to be Dorling Kindersley manuals of the plus machines with their full-color photos and pages of basic fermentation the covers were bland in comparison and this machine just feels like it has plucked all the best parts of the previous spectrums into a final package it already feels like a true successor and that's before even getting hands-on with it at this point I don't even feel like I have the words to express the visual and tactile emotions the keyboard provides again modeled on the plus it brings all that made it special and makes it into a joyful experience without deviating too far from the source material we've got all the relevant shortcut commands on the keys which any spectrum owner will tell you are pretty essential but in operation we've got a much more forgiving depth a kinder amount of travel than the unique keyboard for Sinclair built you can touch type here with fluidity that just wasn't really possible on the original machines and the click enos is well it's spot on if we examine besides we begin to get a feel for what the next is really about those invaded color bands are such a distinct yet familiar feature and I know it took the team several attempts before perfecting four colors the front reveals two joystick ports thanks to the stretch goals and the campaign smashing through it's quarter million pound target to reach seven hundred and twenty three thousand three hundred and ninety pounds the left has a couple of buttons which we'll discuss later an SD slot and a reset switch in exactly the same place you'll find on the 80s models the rear exposes a ps2 port VGA connector audio out and microphone in sockets an HDMI plug a nine volt DC in and an expansion slot behind of a plastic accelerated models also get treated to a mini HDMI out and micro USB ports courtesy of the Raspberry Pi zero that this model can also be expanded which again we'll get to okay well I guess it's time to plug it in and see what she can do I'll be running the HDMI through my capture card and then back to this LCD TV to begin with we've got a rather nice branded SD card already in the slot it's all about nice touches with this so let's see what's on it oh by the way just like previous spectrum models there's no power switch I have no issues with this where I come from we rip plugs out of sockets to power things off or we used to in the 80s anyway now initially I couldn't get any image from the HDMI port whatsoever in the end I tried a VGA cable and then noticed you could press the D on boot to switch to the digital out I'm not sure why it doesn't default to that maybe I just pressed the VGA key accidentally on boot I should have read the manual to begin with in any case anyway I switched it back to HDMI so I could grab some clear footage of what's going on we can play with some CRTs later so after choosing the output mode in this case 5 7 6 I at 50 Hertz through HDMI this is what greets us welcome to next as nx-os presented in a more than familiar manner in fact it's running in the same 256 by 192 resolution as the original machines what follows these several pages of text informing us how to use the next operating system what type of files we can load how to start tape files how to access things like the multi-faced but rather than reading through all this how about we actually delve into it you can disable this message by pressing D on the final screen the next has a file called autoexec.bat but is essentially the same as the door to exact op bat and so to disable this intro it simply renames the file autoexec pass to autoexec - welcome dot bass you can create your own auto executive bass and put whatever commands you want in there later we're then greeted with a screen which will both look and sound more than familiar to users of 128 K spectrum models the up and down arrows will select a menu item whilst for left and right will switch between clock speeds of 3.5 megahertz 7 megahertz and a whopping 14 megahertz but before we get caught up in all of this we should update of a latest distribution of next-gen X OS so let's do that pull the SD card firmly out of the next place it in your computer navigate to spec next comm click on the latest distro click the download link save that file somewhere then unzip it to the root directory of your next sd card being sure to select yes to all when it comes to overwriting excellent that's that done but whilst we're here let's install CPM on the card as well CPM the most popular z80 based operating system of the 80s is built into the next menu allowing you to run all kinds of programs from that era but for licensing reasons its core cannot be shipped with the system so head to this address download the zip file extract it to next said X OS /c p.m. on the SD card and the Bob is your blooming uncle right put the SD card back in the next plug it back in and you should get this message hold down U and the next will update to the latest distribution when it's done hold dambha reset button for more than a second and it will cold boot back to where we were before but with a nice shiny new core which now has an even more whopping 28 megahertz mode and a different menu setup this is essentially the home page for next z legs OS written by Gary Lancaster it's a descendant of the first real spectrum operating system plus three dos which appeared on the final spectrum plus three models before that tapes were King disks were unlikely and basic was really the only way to get about just like DOS next Z X OS has a command-line interface which is really just a cleaner version of the basic interface it uses commands directories and Drive letters you might be familiar with for example from here you can list four contents of the SD card change to a different directory in it and execute files I mean you could do a whole lot more such as deleting files renaming them even mounting virtual disks and partitions in addition to the standard C Drive and M Drive VM being the RAM disk you find on the +3 model the manual contains all this information under chapter 20 which becomes increasingly handy as you go on ok let's do a quick reset and try next basic now here we have a much more powerful version of Sinclair basic really designed entirely around the next we've got powerful new command such as spectrum which can well they can do a lot really including switching modes changing for color scheme and even controlling the screen saver which out of the box looks like this we can even use sprites really easily - there's even a sprite editor there's a few demo programs in the demos directory to help you get to grips with this crazy new world but this is really where the strength of the manual lies there's chapters and chapters dedicated to basic in here its author phoebus dokos has done a really stellar job in that regard and remember anything you do here you can save into autoexec pass into the SD cards next Z X OS directory and it will execute on boot ok this time instead of resetting we can also press the edit button this will bring up numerous options including the ability to change the amount of columns on screen and even automatically renumber your basic code exit will do for now calculator gives us 4 usual calculator interface from previous Sinclair machines more takes us to another menu from which we can load a tape a ROM cart enter good old 48k basic go back or even load up CPM since we installed the file earlier if we enter CPM now we will get well CPM if we do a directory listing what we're seeing here is a virtual disk held in a file in the next Zen X OS CPM folder of course we could set up further virtual drives on the SD card but there's a lot more you can do here other than that if CPM is your thing you you'll know what to do ok so the menu item and that most people will use straight from the box is backup a start the browser this is an inbuilt navigator for the SD card and whatever additional drives you set up and allows you to manage or execute any of these supported file types which for anyone who can't remember are these four highlighted var will change color accordingly for files you can open and those you can not because there's lots of file is here some system files and some files to look at on PC the standard distribution comes with quite a bit to keep you busy from classic demos stored in Doc's hat format to modern next demos stored in B dot NEX format to several games from both be classic 48 K and 128 K errors and a selection of next releases in both demo and full release format my favorites are the frantic shoot-'em-up action of Warhawk by rusty pixels and the more fundamental night-night ported by david say Pia I could just while away the evening playing this but we have a lot to get through this is really just the tip of the iceberg I don't want this video to be an hour-long seminar but nor do I want it to be a simple review so I'm going to cover what I consider to be the essential information about the next the things I really wanted to know and then afterwards find out what questions you wanted answering [Music] first let's deal with connections now I've had this hooked up to your standard HDMI but you can also use VGA or if you have an appropriate cable RGB which will enable you to use scarce connections for example also note there's a slight issue of some televisions providing power down the HDMI lines of a system memory even when the power supply is disconnected if this happens to you then hard resets can only be achieved by holding down the reset button or if that fails by taking the HDMI cord and power cord out to cold boot my office is currently looking like the rubbish dump from the labyrinth but I still managed the fish out this rather nice IBM LCD VGA monitor which gives a pretty sharp image I thought about using a CRT but this LCD pairs well and it's easier for you to see on camera the next also has its own stereo audio output separate from the standard ear / mix sockets so I've plugged some speakers into that and we're ready to go now whenever you switch to a different output you'll get this test card calibration screen on HDMI I could pick between 480p 60 Hertz and 576 550 Hertz modes but with VGA output the selection is more extensive some of these modes my monitor wasn't happy with even though the picture was clearly displaying but as long as you can see the checkered border and there's no flicker you're good to go I would recommend 50 Hertz wherever possible given that's what almost all software on the spectrum was coded to run at and so should give you the least issues although it's not like the olden days over next mostly deals with timings correctly regardless so I plumped for one which required the least amount of position adjustment and of course for nice thing about this monitor is it gives you the correct aspect ratio if you're using a widescreen do the honorable thing and set the aspect ratio to four by three now this is arguably the best way to hook up of the next another issue of HDMI is due to the way it outputs visuals will mostly but won't always be displayed correctly particularly more modern or demoscene programs you can see the issues and games like old tower and it's the same with anything else about to use his timing trickery with VGA screen timing is intact but with HDMI it gets scrambled to buggery playing havoc with some of the graphical finessing ok let's invite some more members to this party thanks to devices like the ZX vga joy we can hook up older spectrums to vga as well so I've done that giving us a system for comparison purposes and look just like the 1 to 8 the new one also has pop-out feet although then they wear near as tall as on the 1 to 8 now personally I'm keen to try some of my old tape games on this thing so let's do that first for that you're likely to need one of these cables you see rather than separate mono jacks for next has a single 3.5 millimeter stereo jack to handle both be Mick and ear signals if you split that jack into two mono connections then you can connect up a tape player as normal but you need to be careful that your tape player doesn't output a stereo signal if it does when you'll need to convert that to mono and connect it up to the appropriate jack once all that's plugged in well the easiest route is to use the tape loader option from the main menu once you select that for screen will start to flash and you can press play on your tape if the volume is set too low or too high on the tape player then the next might have some issues picking up the signal so you might need to adjust that but all being well the cassette will start to load if you have further loading problems but it may be because your game requires 48k mode in which case select the 48k basic option press J followed by two quotation marks enter and you can play the tape if you're still having issues well there's some more things we can try in a bit but remember these cassettes are hold this copy of Batman had some spurious sound corruption halfway through for example and so wouldn't load I had to source another copy so finally here we are with Batman the movie running beautifully this is the 128k version as you can tell by the a1 music if I load the same on the first one to eight then well it's identical timings colors even the response time is the same the size difference in the border is simply dutiful waivers of xvg a joy outputs but thanks to the next having an FPGA Hardware implementation rather than an emulator lag is non-existent and it's barely even perceivable even through HDMI so what about joysticks well with the spectrum you have two varieties the Kempston interface was an expansion pack which allowed you to use any joysticks or game pads which complied with the atari joystick port standard however sinclair also had their own interface which although using the same connectors had differently wired pins and actually mapped to numeric key presses this allowed you to use a joystick in games without joystick support but also caused confusion thankfully even next allows you to use either a V standard straight out of the box for left a 9-pin connector is currently set up as a Kempston port whilst the right is set up for a Sinclair port so an ancient joystick like my preference reconyx speed King will work just fine as well all of these it doesn't mean however that you can use Sinclair or SJS joysticks in the other port but then why would you want to it just makes your Atari standard controller appear to the spectrum as a Sinclair controller there's even new joysticks and pads specifically made for the next like this pro pad which can make use of the next ability to detect three distinct fire buttons rather than the singular of old any new hardware but I mentioned like this will be linked in the video description by the way a lot of joysticks had this double cord arrangement so you can use from Eva as Kempston compatible or as sinclair compatible other than that you could just use a master system pad or even grab an 8-bit dough paired with wireless connector and that should work fine just don't try and plug things in and out when the spectrum is on otherwise all sorts of weird things can happen remember this is really a fragile little spectrum at heart okay back to loading so if you don't fancy loading from cassette you can use one of these Arduino loaders either of these choices will get around the issue of custom loaders you see some games such as Joe Blade to use a loading method that isn't compatible with most image formats of course with cassette that's not an issue the Arduino can use tzx files which really capture the audio of a game loading and so are compatible the next itself however can't convert teaser Dex files because they require some external processing to turn the file into a stream but the next can read but if you have an accelerated next or you install a Raspberry Pi 0 you can get around this issue will get about later but clearly loading games from the SD card is the easiest option I downloaded a new bundle of next titles from software amusements on each dot io simply dump them in the games folder and you can load them up in the browser my favorite here is Montana Mike mainly because I love to the Indiana Jones games on real original spec II but of course you can also copy classic titles which have been saved to add on tap set 80 or dsk image to name a few my next had some issues loading the odd tap file such as trapdoor but that could very well be just a dodgy image if you have problems with an image try a z80 or SNA file as they are actual snapshots of a loaded game in memory I tried a snapshot of trapdoor and it worked just fine you can even get Troublesome titles like a Joe Blade 2 to work using this method bypassing the quirky loading if you're feeling adventurous you can make your own images or alternatively source from excellent resource sites like world of spectrum simply download plonk them on the sdcard being sure to unzip files where necessary put the SD card back in the spectrum and then browse to your chosen images so here I've got an image of outrun it's easy enough to navigate to it and press return but to ensure it loads properly I need to tell the next what mode to configure itself for so we have 128 K mode for 128 K software user 0 mode which gives you 128 K of RAM but disables plus 3 basic 48 K mode for your bog-standard spectrum Pentagon timings for providing timings appropriate for a Russian clone and your standard next to +3 mode so whenever you load a tape or disk image unless it's specific to the next you'll be asked what mode to load it in user 0 usually has the broadest compatibility if you're unsure there's also a load of additional loading options you can choose whether to pause after loading providing a so warming tape loading simulation so you can sit for 5 minutes and just imagine the world which awaits although for purists I've noticed which doesn't seem to accurately simulate the actual tape loading in all instances for example on Batman the borders should alternate between black and red here but the simulation shows them as multicolored you know it's close enough you can also change a crapload of Advanced Options and of course change B running speed loading using PI Audio is for owners of an accelerated next looking to load those pesky teaser Dex files these options are designed to limit conflicts between old software and the next environment and ensure that the system can load well everything really outrun might be tedious and a bit hard to control normally but in seven megahertz mode actually fear was like outrun this is how a game was intended to be played it's just unfortunate Oshin couldn't optimise it enough at the time obvious games to try here our chase HQ which works beautifully and even more smoothly in seven megahertz mode although it does screw up for sound effects a bit depending on what games you try speeding the system up might help or hinder your experience Trans Am frankly is hilarious [Music] prai's stunt car racer is incredible it's programmed so well but even when switched to 28 megahertz it plays exactly as it should just silky smooth it really is a treat playing it like this [Music] hard-driving is also improved although as unplayable as ever driller is more playable at seven megahertz but if you go any higher than the aiming cursor becomes so fast its unusable which is a shame as movement is silky-smooth 28 megahertz interestingly dark side although running on the same engine doesn't have the same cursor issues we can go all the way up to 28 megahertz amber cursor is just as controllable as it was at 3 and a half so this is all good it's it's excellent in fact but wait you might say how does the next managed multi load images well let's go back to out run now when we get to a checkpoint the game would normally request you to start the tape and load the next stage but with the next it's utterly seamless it automatically handles it and we're instantly in the subsequent level there's some other trickery you can do here if he want ultimate cassette control but will gets about in a bit so armed with this knowledge you should really be able to load whatever you need until your heart's content but if you happen to find a game or more likely a piece of hardware that won't play ball in any of these modes which seems to be very little then the machine has a neat trick well a collection of tricks that can help you see whenever you cold food for next you have the option to press space this will then throw you into what the team call its personalities from here you can choose to load directly into a four tak spectrum mode 128 K + 2 + 3 a Russian clone even zx80 or 81 emulation there's also various looking-glass roms which are just like your usual ROM but allow you to type commands into 48 K basic rather than using 4 tokenized key commands originally designed to save memory space handy for when you've forgotten for placement of go-to or border or any other command which usually requires a combination of key presses to display once you're in these personalities the next will function just like of the original machine and when you reset it will remain the default select however you can always press space to bring up the personality screen again and change your selection if you press e on any of these you can actually configure the machine before you boot it allowing you to choose joystick types whether a co Vox is installed a multi face you name it it's here it also means that thankfully next features like the joystick ports still work and whatever else you configure here but almost all of the usual next functionality is now gone so these modes are useful for running old hardware which might not run in next mode as well as problematic software but you won't get access to SD loading without either a separate div MMC interface or an appropriate ROM for B multi-phase or incredibly useful features such as this nm I button on the side in next mode press VAT and you get this handy little menu this is emulated log functionality within an FPGA environment it's amazingly well implemented we've got all sorts of options here you can save a snapshot of a systems memory allowing you to effectively save a game wherever you are classic modes will save as a dot SN a format whilst the next snapshots save as dot s and X as you might imagine by not cross compatible you can poke a game by loading a dot pok file I've put a link in the description with a massive collection of these allowing you to cheat your way through even the most unfair titles oh you can just take a screenshot if that's your thing if you want more control of multi loaders or just like to feel you're using a real cassette perhaps you want to change the size of a tape then the nmi menu also allows you to select a different image for input so you can switch between sides a B or even different tapes until your heart is content it even allows you to browse that image and choose a specific point to load from clever stuff or bovver game if programs well will search for a specific part of the game it needs anyway we also get debugging tools and on-screen key map and settings which allows you to change for joystick input types so you can assign different joysticks to each port including selecting whether you're using a mega drive pad to take advantage of its three buttons turn scanlines on change timings the screen output frequency change V direct memory access from z80 to next mode even change for keyboard type everything feels like it's here it's so well done if you want shortcuts been pressing nmi along with different number keys will also allow you to tweak most of these options in game without having to go through the menu you can even double the output resolution by pressing nmi and - but don't do this with an old TV it's probably not going to end well you might notice that nearby is also a drive button this has the main purpose of being a div MMC NMI button for use on the ESX dos which you're unlikely to need unless you've used it before in which case you don't need me to tell you what to do oh and if you happen to break your system you can hold down the drive and nmi button on boot and it will automatically load the up data module from the SD card these guys have really thought of everything you [Music] next up excuse for pun romp acts well as we saw earlier there's a handy menu selector to load them simply take the plastic panel off the expansion slot on the back of the next insert a relevant interface plug the cart in and away you go the next will automatically connect up the expansion port circuitry and then disconnected again when finished lovely job but remember never plug expansion packs in when the spectrum is on as you can damage for hardware even with the clever method this uses of powering off the edge connector when it's not expected to be in use rom packs will also work in compatible personalities just like micro drives if that's your thing I don't have any micro drives to test with but I'm assured they work beautifully this goes for a lot of old hardware especially in a relevant personality as they're designed to prevent old hardware conflicting with any of the next hardware which might be using the same resources this is both a limitation and strength of the FPGA style implementation in fact pretty much any hardware you had for the original spectrum regardless of its model can be used with the next one way or another if you've got a co vox spec drum or sound drive then the next has built-in functionality for that so you don't even need to plug it into the interface for other peripherals you can add the ROM onto your SD card and also acquire that functionality the level of flexibility here are enormous one thing that is lacking is the 128 serial port which could support MIDI interfaces now you could grab a cheetah MIDI interface if that's your thing but as it stands there doesn't seem to currently be MIDI support on the next however I'm sure it could be added via the next UART at a later date if you were really keen for it but we do have one final port I haven't mentioned of course there's a ps2 keyboard and mouse port you probably won't plug a keyboard Intimus because the next keyboard is really good but a mouse you could use with some software like next door oh yeah smashing out some quality chiptunes like it's 20/20 because the original spectrum didn't have all these channels oh yeah you'll need to go to demo slash mouse and run mouse bass if you want to use a mouse and then put that in your autoexec top bass if you want to use it going forward but once you do it's a really fluid experience next door is a digital audio workstation designed specifically for the next I've got a physical copy on SD card which I ordered from Japan you can just pop this in your next and it will load up now this beautiful program supports all three of the nexts a wise sound chips giving a total of nine channels of audio to create your latest or old musical masterpiece now that is nice [Music] this is all spiffing but how about we go back to basics real basics well for this I thought I'd go back to my 128 Dorling Kindersley book and try a nice sunrise [Music] [Music] yeah that's nice but how about I try and program something that's consistent without any random numbers that can be compared with the original 128 I'm going to type it out in 48 km the next using the looking-glass ROM just to make things easier then save it to tape load it up on the standard spectrum and compare the results of wallah isn't it a thing of beauty pyramids interestingly the next completed the program noticeably faster than 128 whether that's an artifact of the looking-glass ROM over next to just a run slightly faster I can't tell you without further investigation maybe something we can come back to it so I've got the standard version of the next however it's more than possible to upgrade it to the accelerated version with just a few additions so let's get the hood up and get to work now before we take this apart I just want to thank today's sponsor audible for making this video possible now audible isn't just something I'm promoting for the sake of it I've used it for ages I listen to it when I'm at home through a lecture I listen to it when I'm in the office it just helps me work and do things because I put something to listen to and enjoy I've been wanting to get through Sherlock Holmes for ages ever since my dad spoke about it when I was little but it's only through audible I've managed to do it last year I hammered through the definitive Sherlock Holmes collection by Stephen Fry and it was amazing we're talking 70 odd hours of audio book and only counted as one audiobook credit and you can too with a 30-day free trial giving one audiobook and two audible originals just visit audible.com slash North out a nerd or textile stauch nerd to 500 500 that's audible.com slash nostalgia nerds or text nostalgia nerd to 500 500 and get started today right let's go back to the next and see what's inside it's clear the next is designed to make this easy there's just a few screws on the bottom a few screws on the board then you can just pull out these keyboard connectors to free before these are the same connectors you'd find in a standard spectrum so you can just put this in a special case if you desire whilst we're here let's brush over perspex so the main processor here is an enhanced Zed 80 clocked at 3.5 megahertz but with those turbo modes its recreated in a field programmable gate array or FPGA this means that the original hardware is actually recreated using programmable logic blocks and so although it's not the actual original Hardware it's for next best thing and certainly better than emulation because of this enhancements are built into the FPGA we've got a 512 color palette with 256 on-screen Hardware scrolling sprites 3a Y sound chips of digital audio and currently one megabyte of RAM which is housed here my first upgrade is going to be to double the RAM which is about as straightforward as it comes I've got to 512 kilobytes memory chips here which I've also linked below all I need to do is align the notch in the bottom corner to the cut out corner of the chip holder and press it in firmly you'll notice there's a gap too beside the B chip that's fine ignore it next is the Wi-Fi module this is an esp8266 ESP - Tiferet 1 and it fits exactly into this sockets here again incredibly easy now I could also install the real-time clock and onboard speaker but I'm saving that for another video on my extra channel today is just getting the essential upgrades in now if you've got a Raspberry Pi 0 you can install the accelerator board I've got a PI 0 W which works absolute fine you'll need to solder a female header on to the PI to connect it to the next male connector I thought I'd save myself time and use a solderless hammer kit with these you simply tap the header ends of a board and it forms a mechanical joint but for the love of God don't do what I did and install the header like this the next actually needs it to be put on the back of the board this meant some serious faffing before I was able to reinstall it correctly also because of this I really wouldn't recommend using a hammer kit as you'll need to put the board component side down to install and you're risk damaging components on the board make sure the connector is flush with the board and then we need to put the zero image on the SD card so go back to the district Aegis spec next comm navigate spur bottom click on the next PI distribution download link save the file then extract the contents of the archive then extract the contents of the subsequent archive and you'll have this now you'll need an imaging program such as beliar edger which you can get from here download that to run the file and you'll have this screen now you can select the next PI image which in this case is called next PI twenty nineteen oh nine - nine - IMG then select the SD card and you can write the image to a micro SD pop that in to zero push four zero in the next connector and boom job done you now have a next PI installation by d rim run Souter that handles cid files teaser Dex files and even xbox controller support now we can reassemble Oh be sure to remove this bit of plastic first though now the board should slip back in and once sealed up are exposed zero connectors should be visible on the back lovely job let's plug this Bessy back in now on boot you'll see our increased memory available on the bottom of the menu nice ok let's see if we can load some tzx files now [Music] well would you look at that the next is now making use of a PI zero to unpack and stream the teaser X audio meaning we get a completely authentic loading experience none of that simulated nonsense even the pac-man loading game works fine now the accelerators original job was also - well accelerate but due to the Kickstarter campaign doing so well and expanded fpga was utilized allowing for faster modes built in therefore it's not as necessary now but further users are planned for it I had a brief chat to Enric a who's a lovely guy in fact the entire next community seemed to be really nice and he mentioned a goal of having advanced to Maps capabilities such as 3d processing can you imagine an OpenGL engine available for the z80 that would be amazing ok how about we get this thing online to do this navigate to demos slash ESP and select Wi-Fi pass spin time run press 1 to set your SSID and once you've put your name and password in you should be connected now this opens a whole world of possibilities but let's just try next he'll head to demo / NX tell open a Nextel dot NEX and we get this Magnificence if you don't get this then try the alternative version in the NX tel - directory now what can we do here well we can get access to various Nextel servers which I believe are currently run by members of the glourious spectrum next community it's presented in teletext format and you can find anything here from bits boozled 7 news I would dedicate an entire video to this alone but already this video has run on for long enough so how about we answer a few of your questions and then wrap this video up finally so earlier in the week I asked you what questions you wanted to know about the spectrum next so let's go through a few of them how does it compare to the Sandy Bay and which made publishing houses are going to be supporting it now many would consider the Sam keep a the true successor to the spectrum manufactured in 1989 by miles Gordon technology and designed to have true compatibility with the spectrum in feature Daisy ATB CPU clocked at six megahertz it also had 256 kilobytes of RAM as standard but really it lacks behind the next in every category regarding software houses yes thalamus have included some games on the next distribution and are planning new versions of their games how good is the manual excellent how stable is it very stable I didn't have there was a couple of glitches but either hardly any I've been using it all week why does adding a Zed or an X onto anything make it automatically cool I guess because they're the least used letters so the less we see them but cooler they appears like anything in life how many of the classic spectrum games from back in the day will be getting a glow up for the next I put this question to Enrique and he said yes two versions of lords of midnight are included with the next and there are people working on a new version of attic attack lemmings has a demo version Rex will get a reboot and nodes of your sod yeah does it make Jet Set Willy any bloody easier [Music] no no it doesn't does it blend this isn't the early noughties this isn't frog in a blender I'm not going to stick this in a blender that would be insane what it feels like it feels like you're ma how is it for a casual gamer who wants a quick injection of nostalgia pretty good I mean out of a box you get quite a lot as it stands so yeah go for it does it play Commodore 64 games get out just get out of it basically all I want to know is when can I buy one on Amazon I never fought on Rico there are no plans to take the next we make it basically a cost no margin to take it the shops would make its price jump beyond the unreasonable unless we cut costs by manufacturing in China etc but it's made for the community rather than profit I can't think of anything serious because that's already been asked so instead I'll go with this what does its plastic case taste like it tastes like your muff how do you actually get one if you didn't back it you joined the second Kickstarter which is coming soon what exactly is the point I would like to know why would anyone want one well let's delve into both of those right now so it's that fundamental question what's the point well I mean what's the point in life to have fun I've certainly had fun with this next and that's good enough for me but if you want the wider story then I think there are several avenues the some of this could simply be a programming platform free from other libraries framework and constraints of modern day systems it's like the 80s all over again where you plug in a machine and you can instantly start coding I for one miss fact there's something about the brutal simplicity which just draws you in and then because this isn't a complex beast you can actually gain an understanding of what you're doing even using a high-level language like basic you can see how your commands affect the system it's an elegance we lack these days and sure you could just use a retro system for that but this is a new machine with an new community excited to see what they can produce it's not a rehash it's current but it's grounded in the past of course it also cause to your nostalgia bone if you have one of those we always look back on previous decades with rose tinted spectacles then when we get hold of a hardware again it can sometimes be and let down it's clunky the output looks crap you can't type on it it's not how we remember it because we adapt our memories to meet modern-day expectations the next creates a bridge to solve a problem and for the casual retro gamer it makes the whole experience fun again you know this is a machine for tinker's for creative types the bows you want real Hardware rather than a gimmicky retro rehash the shiny emulator shoved inside it but it's also for the casual gamer because it's so easy to get to grips with you can play with this machine you can add roms you can expand it pick apart for code and really gain a broader understanding for computing there's something fundamental about being able to actually count the number of pixels on screen about being able to watch code execute and then dive into the debugging tools that makes it so much easier to understand when you're high definition at the running device of today I think it's great and it's a machine I'm keeping in my house rather than the office because it's just that type of computer if you missed out on the first Kickstarter enric a reckons the second one will appear towards the end of March so keep your eyes peeled and keep yourself updated on spec next comm which has regular and consistent updates as well as links to upcoming games and all sorts else if you can join these LX Spectrum next Facebook group which I found an invaluable resource if demand is really high maybe just maybe we'll see this amazing spectrum handheld come to fruition as well I really hope it does but from what I've heard I'm not holding out hope you know it's unfortunate that Sir Clive Sinclair himself didn't have anything to do with these actual machines his name may be on the case but the actual ownership of that now lies with sky having been bought out by Amstrad in the mid 80s and then sold on thankfully they allowed this project the name thanks to a charitable donation so that's nice so thank you to our ek Jim Bagley Fobus Mike Allen and the entire team for bringing this together also thanks to visa to expect from the next Facebook group community and all the people who I haven't mentioned who helped bring this project to life and keep it going the back of the box sums up beautifully prepare to fall in love with a computer all over again I have and I'm sure you will too thanks for watching have a great evening [Music] you [Music] yes okay I deviated from heritage and put an inline power switch in don't tell anyone also link in the description

Channel: Nostalgia Nerd

Views: 350,690

Keywords: zx spectrum next, spectrum next

Id: ckYN_TwbGiQ

Length: 57min 47sec (3467 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/r_retrohacking_mod2]

ZX Spectrum Next emulators:

• CSpect

• ZEsarUX

ZX Spectrum Next FPGA GPL 3.0 source code

Similar project -- MEGA65, WIP C64/C65 compatible computer.