Recreated ZX Spectrum - something positive for a change
I've spend the last couple of hours mashing rubber keys and playing various Spectrum classics on a 42" TV, wirelessly.
Despite the bad press that the RZXS has had and the fact that Wilcox and co. seem to have done a moonlight flit, it turns out that it is not just a workable bit of kit, but a damned good one at that.
I'm not going to do a full review - that's been done many times elsewhere - but I'm going to give a mini-guide on getting this thing up and running.
1. You'll need an Android device for this. I'll see if I can come up with an iOS version later.
2. Get an RZXS. They're currently £50 on Amazon, and the price will probably come down further now that those nice folks at Elite have pulled their apps.
3. This is the fiddly bit. They ship in a 'locked' state, making them out of the box no use to man nor beast. We need to unlock it, so follow this link and download the old APK
4. Switch the device to option B, and hold the Pair button down - this will let you connect it to your Android device.
5. Fire up the app, and select the Unlock option.
6. You'll be taken through a somewhat arcane procedure, but follow the prompts exactly. You'll be asked to press the space key, and then enter a string of numbers. Do so, and some hex codes (Ah! The nostalgia!) will flash up, and you'll be told that the keyboard is now unlocked.
7. At this stage, you may as well delete the app - it's pretty poor anyway.
8. Get emulatin'! I'm still experimenting, but so far Marvin has given good results, if a little sluggishly. Set your emulator to landscape and full screen.
9. If you have a Chromecast, cast your device onto your TV. Switch back to the app and there you have it: a wirelessly-controlled Spectrum on the big screen.
I noticed that Symbol Shift is not picked up in Marvin, so I'm going to do a bit of playing around and advise what works. But despite all of the negativity, the RZXS is a lovely bit of kit - it looks, feels and smells like a Spectrum and it makes playing those old games a joy. I wouldn't be surprised if these bottom out at around £29.99, and then start going for silly money on eBay once the existing supplies dry up.
Right, tutorial over - time to see if I can finally get Bugaboo out of that damned cavern...
Despite the bad press that the RZXS has had and the fact that Wilcox and co. seem to have done a moonlight flit, it turns out that it is not just a workable bit of kit, but a damned good one at that.
I'm not going to do a full review - that's been done many times elsewhere - but I'm going to give a mini-guide on getting this thing up and running.
1. You'll need an Android device for this. I'll see if I can come up with an iOS version later.
2. Get an RZXS. They're currently £50 on Amazon, and the price will probably come down further now that those nice folks at Elite have pulled their apps.
3. This is the fiddly bit. They ship in a 'locked' state, making them out of the box no use to man nor beast. We need to unlock it, so follow this link and download the old APK
4. Switch the device to option B, and hold the Pair button down - this will let you connect it to your Android device.
5. Fire up the app, and select the Unlock option.
6. You'll be taken through a somewhat arcane procedure, but follow the prompts exactly. You'll be asked to press the space key, and then enter a string of numbers. Do so, and some hex codes (Ah! The nostalgia!) will flash up, and you'll be told that the keyboard is now unlocked.
7. At this stage, you may as well delete the app - it's pretty poor anyway.
8. Get emulatin'! I'm still experimenting, but so far Marvin has given good results, if a little sluggishly. Set your emulator to landscape and full screen.
9. If you have a Chromecast, cast your device onto your TV. Switch back to the app and there you have it: a wirelessly-controlled Spectrum on the big screen.
I noticed that Symbol Shift is not picked up in Marvin, so I'm going to do a bit of playing around and advise what works. But despite all of the negativity, the RZXS is a lovely bit of kit - it looks, feels and smells like a Spectrum and it makes playing those old games a joy. I wouldn't be surprised if these bottom out at around £29.99, and then start going for silly money on eBay once the existing supplies dry up.
Right, tutorial over - time to see if I can finally get Bugaboo out of that damned cavern...
Thanked by 1Flyer28
Comments
Put in other words: say you have a random Bluetooth-enabled microcontroller, how difficult is it to establish a connection & read out key presses? Would you need that Android app to 'flip a switch' one time, and easily use after that? Or would you need that app to get a working setup each time you bring in another microcontroller / emulator / OS re-install?
If the Bluetooth connection / protocol is reasonably 'hackable', I'd be interested in getting one (some day :) ). But if it's keyboard <-> app communication with most details unknown, how useful would this keyboard be in 5 or 10+ years from now?
How much lag time between pressing a key, the device sending the keypress via bluetooth, decoding the key and the android device displaying the movement, then the chromecast sending it over and displaying on a TV
Can you play a fast moving game such as pacman / jetpac that requires split second timing to move the sprite around the screen.When you press the key does the sprite move instantly, when you release the key does the sprite stop instantly or does it continue for a fraction of a second (crash into a wall / alien / the next square).
When I connected my real +2 via the RGB Scart lead / composite / RF to the LCD screen there is no time lag and fast games are playable.
If I place a DVD recorder into the mix - +2 via RGB Scart / Composite / RF to DVD recorder, then the output to the LCD screen via RGB scart / Composite and now HDMI there is a very slight lag that makes games unplayable due to the DVD recorder having to process the signal.
Good luck at getting Bugaboo out of the cave.
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
I'm still over the moon about this thing - it makes playing Spectrum games a complete joy again.
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
If you have a Mac, you could try the Retro Virtual Machine emulator.
That fully supports the RZXS keyboard....including the symbol and caps shift keys.
I don't know of any other emulator that does so.
That's worth knowing. I've got an old Mac Mini that I could repurpose as an emulator.
First off - RVMS is a great emulator (although it would be nice to be able to import multiple snapshots in one go... minor gripe). It does indeed support the RZXS and there was no latency or lag that I could detect. I used Jet Set Willy, Sabre Wulf and Knot in 3D as my test subjects, all of which need microsecond precision, and there were not blips due to lag.
It's amazing how it all comes back to you - the games just feel right with rubber keys under your fingers.
So, I'm delighted - I'm looking forward to grinding my way through Tir Na Nog, Mercenary, Elite...
In mode 'A', pressing the keys gives input characters apparently unrelated to the key pressed. For example, pressing the '1' key down makes Linux see an 'a' character. Releasing the '1' key produces a 'b' character. All 40 keys act in this way: pressing gives you a single ASCII code, releasing gives you another one. Any program which "knew" how to decode these pairs would be able to make sense of what was happening. I would guess that's how an emulator could be coded to understand the keyboard.
In mode 'B', pressing the keys behaves more logically - pressing '1' gives you a '1', etc. CapsShift-0 gives you a backspace. SymbolShift mostly gives you what you want (SymZ gives a colon) but sometimes it doesn't (SymP gives you @). A spot of keyboard re-mapping in the OS would probably make it usable.
There aren't many Linux emulators, but Fuse is pretty good. Only, the keyboard doesn't work properly with it. It was a buzz at first, pressing a rubber 'P' and getting the click and the word 'PRINT' on the screen. It's been literally decades since I did that. But I couldn't get a " out of it. Also, with my hands hovering over the rubber keyboard I was astonished how my thumbs automatically went for the two shift keys simultaneously - muscle memory from my teenage years! But nothing happened when I pressed them, Fuse didn't respond. I could play Manic Miner with it, though, and it certainly brings back that feeling of how things used to be.
It's fun, but it needs support from the emulators to make it a must have.
Aw, that's just brilliant. I typed "Hello world" in BASIC, just like I used to do on the Speccies at school. I typed a BEEP using the two shift keys, as it was always supposed to be done. Then a quick round of Atic Atac, all with the right keyboard and feel.
I sold my real Spectrum 30-odd years ago and have frequently regretted it. This is as close as I can get to getting it back without paying a fortune on eBay. It's brought a bit of a lump to my throat.