Sinclair ZX80 / ZX81 / Z88 Forums

When loading, the ZXWespi always sends the same program which is a fast loader. The the fast loader then requests the menu, which is loaded with the fast loader.

So it’s only the fast loader, that is loaded with the ROM routine .

Aaaahhh ! That saved me a lot of poking around. I'm finding that code (Wespi C) a bit difficult to follow

After perusing the forum I knew I wanted to do the WESPI ESP32 mod to my soon arriving machine.
I picked up an ESP32 on Amazon for the princly sum of £6
What I wasn't expecting was what turned out to be an entire evening of pulling out what little hair I had left trying to get it flashed with the install files via my ageing Macbook (2010)
What follows is how I did it which will hopefully help those that follow who don't have access to the easy windows way of doing it.
First go here and get the official driver for the Mac https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-t ... =downloads

Once you've downloaded and installed the driver you can check the board is communicating over serial with your mac terminal following these instructions https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... ction.html

Next download and install the latest version of python. https://www.python.org/downloads/

Next goto the terminal and install esptool.py
I used this command.
> pip3 install esptool

Now you'll need the port details the ESP32 is plugged into using ls /dev/cu.*
Mine was /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART

Now navigate in the terminal window to the directory where you have the four WESPI flash files located.
Now you can use NOLLKOLLTROLLS earlier posted commands modified to reflect your port address details (thanks NKT! )

esptool.py --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART write_flash 0x8000 partition-table.bin
esptool.py --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART write_flash 0xd000 ota_data_initial.bin
esptool.py --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART write_flash 0x1000 bootloader.bin
esptool.py --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART write_flash 0x10000 zx_iot.bin (Or zx_iot_video.bin if your doing this version)

Once the fourth file has uploaded you should have a flashing led and a successful ready to go into your zx WESPI module. (minus the required extra components obviously)

Hope that helps someone avoid the Internet trawling and repeated failures I had tonight and I didn't forget anything!

Sounds like fun! I flash mine on a 2010 Mac but mine is boot camped with Windows 7 so was fairly easy.

One gotcha you may not be aware of is that the Wespi doesn’t work on the early maths bugged ROM (or at least it didn’t on the ones I tried) so if you have bought a really early zeddy you may have issues!

Edit - if you have read this thread then you will have seen my fun with the 550 ROM.

And if you want to load from a tape still then I go for this arrangement:


The switch controls the D22 and VP lines so you can disable the Wespi by stopping it picking up the sync loss.

There is a software option in the Wespi to allow it to load from tape still but I could not get it to work in about 10 installs until I switched these two out completely. Now it works fine.

That's really helpful. Thank you.
Fortunately the pictures of the motherboard on the one I've bought show the 649 ROM so fingers crossed

Still if it was easy everyone would be doing it

FYI - I was having a ton of trouble flashing the device.
I was doubting if the ESP32 was the right type.

I thought I would post the steps (at least for a windows machine) & then share the types of boards I've successfully tried it on.

• I downloaded the ESP32 flash tools from https://translate.google.com/website?sl ... ther-tools
  I downloaded "Flash download tools" (version 3.9.3)
  _
• I plug in the ESP32 via usb and I can see that I have this driver.
  (Details here if you need to install it https://forum-tlienhard-com.translate.g ... -US#p44668

  

  Usb driver

  FlashStep2.jpg (6.44 KiB) Viewed 1687 times

  _
• Running the "flash_download_tool_3_9_3.exe", I select EPS32

  

  Select ESP32

  FlashStep1.jpg (9.77 KiB) Viewed 1687 times

  _
• I then set up the files and speed as prescribed

  

  Set up files

  _
• I then flashed

  

  Flashed But I did it wrong!

  _
  And here's where I was doing it wrong. While the above picture showed success & showed that it recognized the board. It completed really quickly (within about 2 seconds). That's because it was connecting but not actually sending any files.
  _
• What was missing was the checking of the check boxes.

  

  Correct configuration

  _
  Notice the blue 'checks' on the left hand side next to the files. Now when I flashed it took noticeably longer (say 12 seconds), and a green progress bar was displayed along the bottom of the app window.
  _
• The console output also was different and now displayed.
  

  Uploading stub...
  Running stub...
  Stub running...
  Changing baud rate to 460800
  Changed.
  FLASH_CRYPT_CNT 0
  ABS_DONE_0 False
  Compressed 25408 bytes to 14963...
  Compressed 3072 bytes to 143...
  Compressed 8192 bytes to 31...
  Compressed 732512 bytes to 452999...

• Lastly I had to press the Reset button (Labeled "EN") on the board. This resulted in the blue led lighting solid for a second (as it boots I guess) and then flashing every 3 seconds as it should.

I've tried it on the following boards and the blue led light is flashing on both types:

• https://a.co/d/gLRoMMC
• https://a.co/d/7Lj2OZw (This probably doesnt have all the pins accessible for the LCD version of the WESPI - but can handle the minimal one.

Hopefully this helps others. I thought I had an incompatible wrong board, but all along it was "user error" & I didnt know how to use the flashing software...


Cheers
Mike

So I’ve been playing with this for the first time this weekend - it’s very cool. I am running the minimal (non-lcd) version.

patters wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:33 pm Most of the games I've tried have worked, but not One Little Ghost for some reason. I wonder why it's not compatible with the turbo loader.

I had a similar issue with some programs failing to load. The experience is that you choose the program from the zx81 menu program, it loads and the zx81 crashes. You get a blank screen and no signal from the video out.

I figured out that the problem was the filename length.

If you upload .p files with a filename longer than 13 characters, it will fail to transmit into the zx81.

That is

• 1234567890123.p - will load
• 12345678901234.p - will fail to load

I think you had a filename like onelittleghost.p - renaming it to onelg.p would allow it to load fine.

I hope this helps some others,
Mike

Further to the above, if not mentioned already:

• No spaces in the names

• Only use characters present in the ZX81

mikeh_nz wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 2:21 am I think you had a filename like onelittleghost.p - renaming it to onelg.p would allow it to load fine.

Brilliant, thanks for the fix!