The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Emulator and emulator development specific topics
sirmorris
Posts: 2811
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 5:45 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by sirmorris »

Hi Oscar,

I think if you spend 5 minutes with MESS you'll see why no-one's mentioned it so far ;)

C
oscar
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:57 am
Location: Australia

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by oscar »

sirmorris wrote:I think if you spend 5 minutes with MESS you'll see why no-one's mentioned it so far ;)
I agree that it has many limitations, but it has the major advantage that it runs on just about any platform. As for myself, I use was using zxsp on OSX but it doesn't work on current versions of that OS, so I'm right now awaiting a composite video kit and ZXpand to arrive so that I can resume using a real ZX81 :-) In the meantime, sz81 works well for me.
swensont
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:55 am
Location: SF Bay Area
Contact:

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by swensont »

Since I'm looking to completely move from Windows to Linux, I've been working on ZX81 tools for Linux.

For the emulator, I've found sz81 version 2.1.7 compiles fine under Lubuntu 12. I've tried xz81 and it failed to compile. SZ81 is slow, but it is Linux native.

Another option is to use DOSBOX and run all of the DOS emulators (Xtender, TS1000, ZX81). The one called ZX81.exe by Paul Robson seems to be one of the fastest for DOS.

I've compiled zxtext2p and zx81list for Linux. I put them in /usr/local/bin and can run them from any directory.

Next is to get a Z80 cross assembler for Linux. Tasm is workable in DOSBOX, but it would still be nice to have a native cross assembler.

I have noticed one thing about DOSBOX, once you start it, any files access in the DOS directories by Linux is ignored by DOSBOX. If I fire up DOSBOX and then use a Linux editor to edit a file in a DOSBOX directory, any program running under DOSBOX will not see the changes until after DOSBOX is restarted.
User avatar
RetroTechie
Posts: 379
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:16 am
Location: Hengelo, NL
Contact:

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by RetroTechie »

swensont wrote:I've tried xz81 and it failed to compile.
Can you indicate what went wrong, what error message(s) you got?

I've also used xz81 (by Russell Marks). Works fine, just with limited configuration options (eg. no way to emulate a ZX81 with 32 or 64K RAM). Even though some Hi-Res software doesn't run correctly, I very much like this emulator for running regular ZX81 software. It seems to be unmaintained ATM, but I've used it on several Linux installs. Compile gives a number of warnings, but ends successfully here (Debian testing on 64-bit x86).

From what I gather, sz81 is basically an updated version of it. Haven't tried it so far.

Besides that I've run EightyOne under Wine. Which emulates more Hi-Res software correctly, but eats >50% CPU on my Intel Core 2 Duo... :x (probably a WIne problem)
Bill H
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 6:05 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by Bill H »

I didnt know you could emulate linux on a zx81! When did they make this possible and where can download it?

Bill H
User avatar
stefano
Posts: 542
Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:24 am
Contact:

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by stefano »

Painful to say, but my choice for the linux box is EightyOne running over WINE, the 'p' file can be passed at the command line without problems even if it is outside the 'c drive' path.
olofsen
Posts: 189
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:29 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by olofsen »

Attached is an attempt to patch xz81 (by Marks) for hires, so that it seems to work at least for two examples (JUL-FFP.P and SPIRO.P). The first change to z80.c relaxes the timing of the bytes to be plotted, the second gets them using IR, the third one avoids early fake syncs). The change to common.c allows for RAM at 0x2000 (and ctpaha mohctpob works too).
Attachments
patches.zip
(1.39 KiB) Downloaded 255 times
User avatar
chernandezba
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:30 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by chernandezba »

olofsen wrote:Attached is an attempt to patch xz81 (by Marks) for hires, so that it seems to work at least for two examples (JUL-FFP.P and SPIRO.P). The first change to z80.c relaxes the timing of the bytes to be plotted, the second gets them using IR, the third one avoids early fake syncs). The change to common.c allows for RAM at 0x2000 (and ctpaha mohctpob works too).
Hi

I suggest you to try http://sourceforge.net/projects/zesarux/

Cheers
Cesar
----

ZEsarUX
ZX Second-Emulator And Released for UniX
https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux
olofsen
Posts: 189
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:29 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by olofsen »

Hi Cesar, yes I did (version of 27 March)- it is a great project! I've tried the examples I mentioned (with and without --realvideo) but the video was not ok; I may have missed another option? I'm getting closer to understanding how xz81 works so my hope was that the patches may be of some help.
User avatar
chernandezba
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:30 pm

Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by chernandezba »

olofsen wrote:Hi Cesar, yes I did (version of 27 March)- it is a great project! I've tried the examples I mentioned (with and without --realvideo) but the video was not ok; I may have missed another option? I'm getting closer to understanding how xz81 works so my hope was that the patches may be of some help.
Hi

ZEsarUX version 0.5 supports both:
SPIRO is auto detected and set the realvideo+wrx+RAM in 2000H automatically
JULIA is not auto detected. You must set realvideo+wrx+RAM in 2000H and set the Video t_offset to 2

Note 1: They are not 100% displayed, WRX is experimental, but you can see almost the complete display
Note 2: For ZEsarUX to autodetect files and autosetting options, you must compile it with ssl support (it uses md5sum routine)

Thanks
Cesar
----

ZEsarUX
ZX Second-Emulator And Released for UniX
https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux
Post Reply