New release of EightyOne available

[zarsoft]

There were some versions of ZX81 with 64K.
I have a program for ZX81 64K but it doesn't work directly on EightyOne 1.4 because in this emulator the RAMTOP doesn't exceed 16K RAM even when we choose the 32K or 48K option.

So I have to do:
POKE 16389,255
NEW
LOAD ""

I wish EightyOne would change RAMTOP to 32K RAM and 64K RAM.

[Paul]

Wouldn't it be better for EightyOne to change RAMTOP?

NO
Eightyone does what it should do.
It perfectly emulates the ZX81 and it add-ons.

Also your post is very aggressive.
If you don't know how the ZX81 works a question like
"How can I get 64K working on EO"
Or
"Why do I have to enter .... to get 64K working"
would be advisable.

[1024MAK]

In EightyOne you need to do exactly the same as you do with real hardware.

For example, here is an extract from the Memotech Memopak 64k Manual:

On powering up a small K will appear in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. This means that your system is ready to go, but the computer is expecting to use only a maximum of 16K. So you'll probably want to tell the computer that more memory is present. On the other hand you do not have to use all available memory. (See Chapter 26 of the ZX81 handbook).
There are two memory locations which you change in order to tell the computer the upper limit of your memory (or RAMTOP If you're into the jargon) These are 16389 and 16388. To set top of RAM at 64K type the following:

POKE 16388,255 (this is not usually needed)
POKE 16389,255 (this is usually set at 128 for a 32K limit)
NEW (the memory is now cleared to start afresh and will now be organised to the new limit)

To check the current top of RAM type:

PRINT PEEK 16389

and the value will appear in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

The full manual is available here.

It’s the design of the code in the ZX81 BASIC ROM that sets the maximum RAM that BASIC recognises. Sinclair at the time of the design of the ZX81 presumably did not expect users to have more than 16K bytes of RAM. Because at that time RAM was very expensive (the price fell dramatically later on). The ROM code was designed to work with Sinclair’s 16K RAM pack as well as any memory amount from 1K to 16K.

Note that it’s only BASIC that takes any notice of the RAMTOP system variable. Machine code programs normally ignore this.
And BASIC’s PEEK and POKE are also unaffected by the value of RAMTOP. They can access any address in memory.

If you have a permanent set up with more than 16K, it is possible to use a custom ROM where the appropriate value in the ROM has been changed so that BASIC sets RAMTOP at the top of available RAM rather than up to 16K.

Mark

[Moggy]

Wouldn't it be better for EightyOne to change RAMTOP?

NO
Eightyone does what it should do.
It perfectly emulates the ZX81 and it add-ons.

Also your post is very aggressive.
If you don't know how the ZX81 works a question like
"How can I get 64K working on EO"
Or
"Why do I have to enter .... to get 64K working"
would be advisable.

Perfectly emulates!?

Also Paul although the post has been edited I don't sense any aggression and suspect it's more of a language thing as English may not be the posters first language.

[Paul]

And I didn't quote that part so it was possible to edit the post the way it was.
We had private messages exchanged.
Everything is fine now.

[Invictaman]

Hi. I'm new to this forum. I have been using/buiding EightyOne for many, many years now and I've been wondering why joysticks have never been implemented? There is a greyed out 'Joystick...' item in the Options menu. Thank you.

[Exile]

Welcome to the forum

It is true that the joystick menu item does not have a dialog box associated with it, however, I think there is some support for a USB joystick within EightyOne.

If you:
a) plug in a USB joystick
b) enable zxpand+ in the hardware options
c) load a program that reads from the zxpand+ joystick port
then the joystick should work.

I've just tried this with the updated ZXGLX.P downloaded from https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtop ... f=4&t=4388 and it worked for me (but note that the joystick only works after you have pressed any key to start the game).

[Spinnetti]

Joysticks were working fine as "SirMorris" enabled it for us on our ZonkeyKong game, though last time I tried it on a different computer a week ago it was not working. Haven't dug more into it yet (latest version of EO).. I'll try it back on my primary computer and see if its something related to the hardware but as far as I know it should be working unless one of the last couple EO updates accidently disabled it - maybe try about 3 versions back and see if that works?

[Exile]

My tests were using the latest version of EO (V1.40). Looking at the source code for that version it appeared to me that the joystick menu option would always be greyed out, however the joystick did work for me when I tested it with zxpand.

I also inspected the code in github, it appears that a lot of work is being done on joystick support at the moment, with a big submit being made two days ago

[Invictaman]

Thank you for your replies.