Possible new ZXp features

[Andy Rea]

Sorry to go on some more, but... it turns out that it seems like it's not the joystick bit thats not working but the test to see if the interdace is present or not, i've just hacked minerman to assume that zxpand is always present (just nopped a couple of JR nz's out) and now it works happy days

Thanks Sir Morris for your hard work.

Regards andy

[sirmorris]

Hmm, I need to check this - thanks for the report. Oh - your zeddy isn't running in turbo is it? The delays may not be long enough if so..

C

[Andy Rea]

nope, tried it both normal and turbo, and on a unmodified zeddy with a 184 ULA... still reports nointerface. with V1.9 firmware and rom v6.6

[sirmorris]

could you please try with a good delay? I'm clutching at straws but that's the only variable that can change when running vs an emulator

**edit: if I use 2 EX (SP),HL instructions the detection fails. If I use 4, it passes. I think it's because the command which outputs the heartbeat is last to be checked and therefore takes longer to complete.

I need to work out exactly how long this takes so I can calculate the minimum delays needed for different processor speeds.

Watch this space.

C

[Andy Rea]

Yep...done, all the way to 40 cycles before it started reporting correctly.... looking at Bobs program it looks like he's usign 5 nops (20 cycles) is a bit too short... strangely for reading the joystick port 20 cycles seems to be enough. least the game plays ok...

Andy

P.s got a better bodge replaced the 5 nops with PUSH AF / CALL $002F / POP AF equates to a 48 cycles delay ( $002F is a ret instruction in the rom)

[sirmorris]

Some may have noticed that errors are not propagated to BASIC programs, that file access failures will be silent.

Should this be the case or should the BASIC program stop with an error?

[Paul]

Should this be the case or should the BASIC program stop with an error?

Hi sirmorris,
I always try not to change the default behaviour of a program. Those who used them are not likely to like a changed behaviour after an update.
Could you have this CONFIGured? Like CONFIG "ERROR = 1" for Error reporting to BASIC and CONFIG "ERROR = 0" for no error reporting and this as a default?

You asked for it
Paul

[sirmorris]

Yes I did, didn't I

I thought it may not be an issue because not many people have written zxpand compatible code yet ...
C

[Andy Rea]

I would like the error to be reported to a running basic program, one thing i would really love is an auto *.bak feature so that a program saving data can save even when the file already exsist but rename the old file *.bak

Regards Andy

[Paul]

Or instead of .bak you could add numbers like .1 and .2 this way all old versions would be kept. Delete could then rename the file with the highest number to .p and you have the last version again.