The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Emulator and emulator development specific topics
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yerzmyey
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The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by yerzmyey »

Hello guyz.

My friend is a very good coder for ZX Spectrum (MAT of ESI group).

Last times I showed him the newest demos and he expressed some interest in coding something for ZX81, however he uses only emulators (and Linux).

Hence my question: is there a _really_ good emulator of ZX81 for Linux, that would be simultanously a good utility for programming?

Thx in advance,
Y
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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Paul
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by Paul »

At least when it comes to zxpand emulation support there would only be eightyone running under WINE
Regards Paul
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
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PokeMon
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by PokeMon »

yerzmyey wrote:Last times I showed him the newest demos and he expressed some interest in coding something for ZX81, however he uses only emulators (and Linux).
Let me guess, is it him you mean ?
Developing for an emulator is nearly like being in MATRIX. :mrgreen:
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Andy Rea
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by Andy Rea »

Well funny that a thread like this should have been started, when my RasPi turns up i'm planning on a crash course in ' How to write programs for Pi ' and then in a co-operative partnership ( well i hope so ) to take the best bits of the various emulators around and write an emulator that can trump the lot....

Well we can all dream eh? might never happen... But i did once write an emulator, from scratch.... i have recently found *some* of the original source code ( it got lost in a hard drive crash.... Well was a bit more than a crash but thats a different story....)

Anyhow check back in about 2015 you never know :D

Until then probably eightyone under wine is your best bet, but if possible for final testing always try it on the real hardware :lol:

Andy
what's that Smell.... smells like fresh flux and solder fumes...
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Paul
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by Paul »

Charlie always wanted to change the development system for eo to something better. Maybe we can switch to something that supports intel and arm as well as win and RasPI and OSX?

Is your RasPI already at home? I have paid for mine but never got any receipt or message it would be sent. I have no experience with farnel up to now. But this doesn't look too good. I am used to better customer information from Chinese suppliers... Not to speak from German suppliers where I get emails every now and then whenever the status of my parcel changes.
I guess at farnel they don't even have an idea when they will be able to send it. As long as they have my money there seems no reason to hurry for them :(
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
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Andy Rea
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by Andy Rea »

Erm i thought Farnell wern't taking the monies till shipment... but yeah there communications have been rather sparse...

No i haven't got a RasPi and don't know anybody else who has either, i hear they will start sending them out in the next few days but thats only the first batch which i imagine won't stretch as far as mear mortal like us...

Anyhow the future looks bright :-) with RasPi, it *might* very *might* be possible to have some real hardware support as it has a number of general purpose IO's :-)

Andy
what's that Smell.... smells like fresh flux and solder fumes...
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PokeMon
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by PokeMon »

As I heard about RasPi there is a problem to modify or use another (own) OS.
So it is not so open as it may look. :shock:

See discussion here:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=14044
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RetroTechie
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by RetroTechie »

Mostly I use an old emulator called xz81, which is good for most ZX81 software, but a few of the more tricky stuff (demo's mostly) fails on it.

For that I use EO under Wine, which is an excellent emulator but has the disadvantage of eating a lot of CPU on my setup. Maybe that's settings, maybe that's Wine or something else, too much trouble to figure out... (well yes, Windows software under Wine is hardly ever optimal :( ).

For running on the Raspberry Pi you might want to check sz81. Basically xz81, improved & ported to SDL.

Of course nothing beats real hardware, so IMHO you should check software at least on a real ZX81 before doing any release. :)
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yerzmyey
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by yerzmyey »

Thank You a lot guyz, we do appreciate all the info.
Also I pointed this thread to MAT, so he reads it too, as now actually I don't understand over 70% of the stuff You're talkin'bout here. ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
Thx again!
Y
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
oscar
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Re: The best ZX81 emulator for Linux?

Post by oscar »

yerzmyey wrote:Hence my question: is there a _really_ good emulator of ZX81 for Linux, that would be simultanously a good utility for programming?
Another option is MESS (same basic code base as MAME).

As a "pure" ZX81 emulator it's not as good as other options, but it has the advantage being quite flexible, and can emulate LOTS of other systems as well.
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