ZX Spectrum emulator

[theli]

well, i haven't touched this from the moment i posted this to tracker due to workplace change and some other things ... i just have not much spare time now ...

so the state is:
working ZX Spectrum 48k emulation
should work on any of currently supported platforms  ( except archos due to very small screen... but if anyone wants this shouldn't require much changes)
lack of sound
maybe slightly confusing input system ( support for basic keyboard input and kempston joystick emulation )
terrible in terms of speed screen updating routine (though universal and works on all targets )
works like a viewer for tap , tzx , .z80 , sna files

and works, as i remember, at about 50% onmy iPod mini

[miner49er]

Aaarrgghh!

When I do patch < zxbox.patch

I get

patch unexpectedly ends in middle of line
patch: **** Only garbage was found in the patch input.

I (quite ashamed to admit) havn't tried to use patches yet :-(

But have built rockbox succesfully in the past (I coded Spacerocks)


Edit: I've now tried another patch (maze something) and this works fine. Could it be my version of gunzip? I'll investigate... Or post a non-gzipped version...

[theli]

i remember linuxstb stating patch was gzipped 2 times ... though noone else experienced this ...
so try to gunzip it twice

[miner49er]

That's it :-)

Can't try it here at work but the very second I get home I will, well after dinner and putting my kid to bed anyway.

Ooohhh, exciting stuff :-)

[miner49er]

Nothing's ever simple is it?

I don't appear to have an apps/plugins/SUBDIRS file, so it can't be patched.

What's going on dude?

I really want this to work.

I won't give up though :-)

[theli]

hmm .. that's very strange
you should have it ...


http://www.rockbox.org/viewcvs.cgi/apps/plugins/SUBDIRS


so you are running from incorrect directory or there is something wrong with your sources

[miner49er]

okay, I do have a appls/plugins/SUBDIRS  file - I have to specify where it is though after running patch.

Question: When I run patch < whatever.patch, where should I run it from? I've been running it from my root rockbox directory and any new files that are in the patch are placed there, I then have to manually copy them over to the correct place - this seems a bit rubbish to me.

Are there any command line params to specify where files shoulld go - I must be doing something wrong here.

[theli]

well, i don't know what is wrong but running
patch -p0 < zxbox.patch in rockbox root directory should do all fine

[theli]

anyway .. does someone want to work on it?
cause it doubtfully would be committed in its current state if none would actively work on it

and i just have no opprtunity to do this now ...

[shotofadds]

I'd help out with this, but for two things:

1) At the moment I'm limited to a Windows PC, so trying to contemplate patching, CVS etc on this machine gives me the shudders!

2) I've just replaced my broken iRiver with a Zen Vision:M, for which there is no Rockbox yet. (I also don't feel I'm technically knowledgable enough to help out with the start-of-life coding for a new port)

Unfortunately while 1) can be overcome, 2) is a bit of a show-stopper for me 

[miner49er]

If I could get it building then I would love to help work on it. But perhaps the trouble i'm having getting it to build indicates how succesfull I would be at adding anything to it...

Perhaps if you could identify parts that could be optimised I could have a look.

I'd love to see this working at it's full potential.

Edit: Got it working! Yay! Seems a bit slow, now I will look at the code and see if there is anything obvious to speed it up.

[theli]

i've uploaded a new version on the tracker...
reworked virtual keyboard input
it now uses grayscale lib on non-color targets ... should work on any current target
as for perfomance .... when not using grayscale lib on my iPod mini it runs at about 41 FPS (25 == realtime)
with grayscale i think it is near 90 ( or even 100.. just had no opportunity to measure)
i'm wondering now at what speed it runs on color targets ... so if anyone is willing to test .....

so the only thing left is sound support (well, mainly, sound output)... i would be thankful if anyone can help in this part.

some more screenshots:
Chuckie the egg on Archos Recorder:


Some Demo/Intro on iPod 4g without grayscale lib:

and with grayscale:

and the same on nano in color:

[miner49er]

Coolness!

I will try this out at the first available opportunity!

You managed to speed it up then?

[theli]

slightly
i wonder how the speed is on other targets....

[theli]

i've updated a patch and as it now can show actual speed of emulation i wonder what the speed is on different targets .... with different frameskip settings ... (well, i'm interested in 0-3 frameskip mainly )

btw i saw it was included in iRiver H3x0: Kosh's 'Experimental' build had anyone tried it?

ps: i advice to turn sound off for now ... this sound horrible still