EO + ZXpand?

[sirmorris]

Yep.

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** Edit - 15th July 2011 - Updated attachment to version X3 **

The very latest version will always be available at this top post.

[sirmorris]

The zxpand emulation uses an sd card image. You can grab one from your device using something like DD, or you can generate one with a tool such as 'Build Floppy Image' or BFI for short. I've attached a copy. The license permits this.

What I have is a folder full of directories and .p files. Using a commandline such as this:

bfi -v -f=card.bin -lZEDDY sourcedir

will leave you with a FAT formatted disk image ready for use with the ZXpand emulation. It will contain all the files from sourcedir, and have the label ZEDDY.

Coupled with the wonderful text to P program you have a complete end-to-end solution for creating sd card images and programs to test under emulation.

Why would you need to do this? Well, it's handy when you need a debugger, for instance. But who'd need one of those??

[Prime]

So, I presume you didn't write a PIC emulator in a couple of days but are emulating the functionality of the PIC with your EO module ?

Cheers.

Phill.

[sirmorris]

The firmware for the PIC is written in C. It has a very clean interface meaning that it's easy to use elsewhere.

It only needs bytes feeding to/reading from it. When running in the PIC this is done by passing on the data written to/read from the parallel slave port. In the emulators this is done by calling the internal state machine more directly.

Right now I've wrapped the zxpand core in a dll and this is being driven by the EO/MESS code with minimal changes.

If anyone is interested in having the DLL I'll be happy to talk to them. ZXpand in vb81 xur? Sure!

C

[iturbez]

So... What do I need to "run" ZXpand with EO

[sirmorris]

Here's the patched EO. I've made a final few tweaks and I'm happy to release it, though of course the phrase 'you get what you pay for' may well apply in this case

I'd like to get in touch with Mike W to get a blessing, but seeing as he's been away from the scene for a while I think that might be some time in coming.

It's a package of bits to drop onto an installation of 1.0a which you can get from here.

There's the zxpand V3 ROM, a test card image, and some other bits of clart that I've managed to shove in there.

Because there are some aspects of ZXpand's workings that are hard to emulate without a huge effort the following do not work:

* Turning off the ROM with config or load extensions
* RAM configuration
* Joystick input.

Turn on ZXpand in the hardware menu.

TTFN

Charlie

[iturbez]

Thaks, sirmorris. I will test it, but I'd rather test my REAL ZXPAND I've bougth this morning... (I can't wait it to arrrive...)

[sirmorris]

Now with the beginnings of ZX80 support.

I know what the question is, and the answer is 'Yes, with a new GAL'.

In the 'hardware' menu ensure that both the zx80 machine and zxpand options are selected.

The only command implemented at the moment is 'cat'. Press Z to get the command, and for those not well-versed in zx80 keyboard you can get quotes with shifted-Y.

The zx80 character set is different to the '81 so the catalogue listing is a little strange with directory entries being shown enclosed with + and - marks instead of the angled brackets. There are a couple of options - look for symbols which are the same for both machines or have a configuration setting to switch between. I favour the latter. As it's only cosmetic I'll hold off releasing new PIC firmware.

The cat command waits for a key when the listing is paused or finished. This is different to the '81 version and the reason is that the '80 clears the screen when returning to immediate mode >:¬(

Try CAT "GM" to see a long listing - pressing space will quit out, any other will continue to the next page(s). If anyone can tell me why the command leaves a '.p' in the bottom corner of the screen I'll be pleased to know

C

[sirmorris]

At last I feel the DLL is ready for release so here it is.

I've also supplied some test code which uses the ZXpand interface firmware emulator to read some directory entries from a card image. It's not exactly how you'd use it in an emulator but it illustrates the overall shape of the code.

There are many things to keep in mind when implementing the ZXpand in an emulator and I'll be happy to talk those over with people via email - there's too much technical guffery for the forum

C

[XavSnap]

Hi,

I tryed DskCenter on the Binary file, and it can read root directory of the SD image disk !

ProDos is already code in this project.

But, the ZXpand's DLL declarations in Vb81 seem to generate an error...

Have Fun.