There was some mention of RealX over in a thread about FuseX (a ZX emulator for the X-Box). Luca, the author, mentions that he does aim to finish the emulator, but it won't be for a while due to other commitments (ie, a lack of time).
Sadly it does sound a little like that.
For me RealSpectrum is still the best emulator as far as accuracy and stability goes, so I'd like to see RealX eventually.
There was some mention of RealX over in a thread about FuseX (a ZX emulator for the X-Box). Luca, the author, mentions that he does aim to finish the emulator, but it won't be for a while due to other commitments (ie, a lack of time).
However, one of the latest posts from Luca brings some better news.
The actual CVS is up to date, as you're more than well aware.
Maybe it is. For those luckies who know where it is. Link on your site points to old archive, where some files are even older than in last regular pack.
I see no particular reason to believe anything more will happen this time than at any other time Ramsoft have said that something will happen "soon".
I've stopped to give any estimates concerning release dates since a very long time, please note it. Altough I don't owe anything to anyone, I understand many people have been "suffering" from this.
What must be clear to everyone is that whenever we failed to "keep our promises" in the past, it was due to the fact that real life takes precedence over hobbies. Unless you can stay a teenager forever (which I can't), I suppose that all experiment this sooner or later.
Anyone thinking that I and Stefano have betrayed the scene with the announcements about our projects is watching the stage from the wrong perspective. Did the missed release of RealX prevent other emulators to evolve, or other tools to come to life and progress? I thought this was an old story and long-gone.
I still love the Spectrum scene (despite not being loved by some, as I see), but let me remember to you that everything I've done and I do is for free and is a hobby. I think I have not debts. And I'm not the only one who hasn't been able to respect schedules when real life came in :)
That said, RealX will be ready when it's ready, whatever you may think about that :)
Did the missed release of RealX prevent other emulators to evolve, or other tools to come to life and progress?
Not releasing RealX didn't really do much harm. However, how can you explain taking on "maintenance" of the TZX format, which you did much more recently, and then failing to do anything with that? That is hurting the scene.
I still love the Spectrum scene (despite not being loved by some, as I see), but let me remember to you that everything I've done and I do is for free and is a hobby. I think I have not debts. And I'm not the only one who hasn't been able to respect schedules when real life came in :)
This is common misexplanation or misunderstanding. Writing couple critic words has nothing with love. Actually, people here started to make jokes about unrealised RamSoft's semi-promises.
Luca, of course you don't own here nothing to anyone. Except maybe to yourself...
For instance, you got some bug reports from me about Real Spec. It is now forgotten, as I see. I can live without using those buggy features. Can you live with known bugs in your program?
I have an emulator right here that's more accurate than RealSpectrum :)
Well I've user a fair few emulators and so far RealSpec (in it's RS32 form) is the only one I've tried which I'd happily run Demos on to show at a party. It's the only one that, on my system, emulates the oddities of the ZX close-to-perfectly with no stuttering - admittedly it does go whuppass on the CPU, but that's not a big issue. As I've said before, my emulator "set" consists of Spin for debugging, and RealSpectrum for watching just-downloaded demos, etc. And of course there's a real Spectrum :)
I actually tried a full copy of Spectaculator, but deleted it - it didn't really do anything I wanted that most other emulators don't have (apart from I think General Sound emulation, which is also in UnrealSpeccy).
As for Luca not getting RealX released... I can understand perfectly about other priorities. These things can often cause hassles with hobbies (as I've found on many occasions). Luca, I just hope you don't feel pressured :)
It's more the claims of "100% exact contended memory and multicolor emulation" when it's been proved time and time again not to be the case that annoy people a bit.
It's more the claims of "100% exact contended memory and multicolor emulation" when it's been proved time and time again not to be the case that annoy people a bit.
I think it only annoys emulator authors :D Come on, you can't take things so seriousely! I have already apologized many times if this claim sounded superb, that was absolutely not the spirit! I might say the same about Spectaculator claiming itself "the world's premiere Sinclair Spectrum emulator for PC" and many others cases like that, but we're not fighting a commercial war! It's a hobby :)
Piters: I know RealSpec has bugs, sure, just like many other emulators and softwares, but I can safely live with that if I don't have the time to fix them... it's not controlling a plane after all.
Not releasing RealX didn't really do much harm. However, how can you explain taking on "maintenance" of the TZX format, which you did much more recently, and then failing to do anything with that? That is hurting the scene.
This time I agree, but nevertheless I did more in the last two years than everybody else since 1998. This week I'm going to dedicate all of my spare time to the official release of TZX v1.20.
Piters: I know RealSpec has bugs, sure, just like many other emulators and softwares, but I can safely live with that if I don't have the time to fix them... it's not controlling a plane after all.
This weekend I was running a game in RealSpectrum and it crashed. No-one died, but 14 cows suffered slight grazing.
Also, it looks like some documentation errors exist in Ramsoft's floating bus article. It neither matches the real machine's behaviour or RealSpec's implementation.
Well, thanks to a real 48k speccy and Woody's determined hacking, we've managed to gain a good understanding of how ULA snow really works. And in doing so, it might be an idea to update your snow effect documentation on your site at http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/floatingbus.html#SNOWEFFECT.
If we take it as read that any period where the values of the I register and the R Register, combined to form an address with R occupying the low byte, point at contended memory, shall be called a "snow period" then the contention that may be applied during this period is "snow contention".
Your documentation states that
Technically speaking, this happens because when the I register falls in the range 0x40-0x7F then the ULA gets confused by the memory refresh cycles of the Z80 (performed during each instruction fetch), and it doesn't apply contention to take precedence as usual.
That could do with clarification - as snow contention is not applied until the M1 cycle is completed. This contention may also cause extra "snow" to occur in some cases.
Your Snow documentation also states incorrectly that the address the ULA uses to build up the "snow" is formed by:
A15-A8 = A15-A8 of the ULA address
A7-A0 = the R register of the Z80
Which should also be addressed.
We cannot obviously test RealSpec's snow effect as there is none, but we did test the "snow contention", and you do emulate that. It would be nice for your documentation to match what you yourselves do in your emulator :-)
Your Snow documentation also states incorrectly that the address the ULA uses to build up the "snow" is formed by:...
Which should also be addressed.
We cannot obviously test RealSpec's snow effect as there is none, but we did test the "snow contention", and you do emulate that. It would be nice for your documentation to match what you yourselves do in your emulator :-)
I agree. It would be nice. And many things more...
However, hmmm... Maybe we should start poll with name: will Ramsoft come back to Speccy scene or not?
Actually, it is pain to visit their homesite. Some kind of museum :D
If RealX Ever gets released will it have the D80 and realdisk emulation?
I guess it won't have the non-standard disk bug fixed cuz it's a hardware error, not software :(
But make sure to add the NMI to didaktik emulation (I mean the SNAP button). Maybe you could also release it in a RealSpectrum update? ;)
Comments
For me RealSpectrum is still the best emulator as far as accuracy and stability goes, so I'd like to see RealX eventually.
However, one of the latest posts from Luca brings some better news.
... filler for short post ...
Heh heh heh.
Maybe it is. For those luckies who know where it is. Link on your site points to old archive, where some files are even older than in last regular pack.
I have an emulator right here that's more accurate than RealSpectrum :)
Oh, and it's not the only one a little more accurate ;)
Luica
I've stopped to give any estimates concerning release dates since a very long time, please note it. Altough I don't owe anything to anyone, I understand many people have been "suffering" from this.
What must be clear to everyone is that whenever we failed to "keep our promises" in the past, it was due to the fact that real life takes precedence over hobbies. Unless you can stay a teenager forever (which I can't), I suppose that all experiment this sooner or later.
Anyone thinking that I and Stefano have betrayed the scene with the announcements about our projects is watching the stage from the wrong perspective. Did the missed release of RealX prevent other emulators to evolve, or other tools to come to life and progress? I thought this was an old story and long-gone.
I still love the Spectrum scene (despite not being loved by some, as I see), but let me remember to you that everything I've done and I do is for free and is a hobby. I think I have not debts. And I'm not the only one who hasn't been able to respect schedules when real life came in :)
That said, RealX will be ready when it's ready, whatever you may think about that :)
Regards,
Luca
Not releasing RealX didn't really do much harm. However, how can you explain taking on "maintenance" of the TZX format, which you did much more recently, and then failing to do anything with that? That is hurting the scene.
This is common misexplanation or misunderstanding. Writing couple critic words has nothing with love. Actually, people here started to make jokes about unrealised RamSoft's semi-promises.
Luca, of course you don't own here nothing to anyone. Except maybe to yourself...
For instance, you got some bug reports from me about Real Spec. It is now forgotten, as I see. I can live without using those buggy features. Can you live with known bugs in your program?
I actually tried a full copy of Spectaculator, but deleted it - it didn't really do anything I wanted that most other emulators don't have (apart from I think General Sound emulation, which is also in UnrealSpeccy).
As for Luca not getting RealX released... I can understand perfectly about other priorities. These things can often cause hassles with hobbies (as I've found on many occasions). Luca, I just hope you don't feel pressured :)
Piters: I know RealSpec has bugs, sure, just like many other emulators and softwares, but I can safely live with that if I don't have the time to fix them... it's not controlling a plane after all.
Luca
This time I agree, but nevertheless I did more in the last two years than everybody else since 1998. This week I'm going to dedicate all of my spare time to the official release of TZX v1.20.
Luca
Ba-doom, tish!
Not really, no. It's just a very simple test program to check the correct write order for the high+low bytes in a few opcodes.
Luca
:D :D :D :D :D
Doesn't look corrected yet :)
Oh, when you do correct it can you amend the snow article too. Just "Oops! You actually do get contention based on IR" at the bottom oughta do it ;)
If we take it as read that any period where the values of the I register and the R Register, combined to form an address with R occupying the low byte, point at contended memory, shall be called a "snow period" then the contention that may be applied during this period is "snow contention".
Your documentation states that
That could do with clarification - as snow contention is not applied until the M1 cycle is completed. This contention may also cause extra "snow" to occur in some cases.
Your Snow documentation also states incorrectly that the address the ULA uses to build up the "snow" is formed by:
Which should also be addressed.
We cannot obviously test RealSpec's snow effect as there is none, but we did test the "snow contention", and you do emulate that. It would be nice for your documentation to match what you yourselves do in your emulator :-)
Thanks!
D.
I agree. It would be nice. And many things more...
However, hmmm... Maybe we should start poll with name: will Ramsoft come back to Speccy scene or not?
Actually, it is pain to visit their homesite. Some kind of museum :D
If RealX Ever gets released will it have the D80 and realdisk emulation?
I guess it won't have the non-standard disk bug fixed cuz it's a hardware error, not software :(
But make sure to add the NMI to didaktik emulation (I mean the SNAP button). Maybe you could also release it in a RealSpectrum update? ;)