PsPectrum v0.1 (Spectrum Emulator for PSP)

[wraggster]

Ryosaebaa (http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/exkq/pspectrum/index.html) has emailed me some fantastic news of the first release of his Spectrum emulator for the PSP, heres the email:

Hi , Ryosaebaa from Spain here ;)

It's being some hard and paintfull months :P, but we have first version here of this
48/128k speccy emulator.

The emulator is far from perfect, but it runs really well.

We will add new features in near future like image streaching, 128k sound. etc...

Below you have an URL where you can download, post, and talk about the emulator. Feel
free to post bugs, and opinions.

We´re looking forward to hearing from your!.

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/exkq/pspectrum/index.html

http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/files/img1psec.jpg

Download Here --> http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/pspectrum.shtml

[Amiga]

Fantastic!!!!!

[laxer3a]

Yes, that's really cool.

Even the author says it was for fun, I am really wondering they wanted to write it from scratch :).

well more diversity means more choice. It will just take them a lot of time to get to the level of other ZX emu probably...

I didnt check if they released their code or not.
I hope so.

[WrathOfSnoopy]

what games does it play??? I have never heard of such????I a clueless

[SmashinGit]

Awsome release! :)

Games i've tried so far with no apparent problems.

Airwolf
Beachead
Bruce Lee
Chuckie Egg (love this game) :D
Deathchase
Elite
Ghostbusters
Jet Set Willy
Jetman
Jetpac :D
Kickstart
Manic Miner
Monty On The Run
Nebulus
Scuba Diver
Skooldaze
Spyhunter
Tempest
Thrust
Trailblazer
Trashman
Wheelie

What a great first release.

[alepus]

what games does it play??? I have never heard of such????I a clueless


a few weeks ago someone asked what an amiga was.. now i meet another person who's never heard of the speccy..
well.. it doesnt need to be a bad thing.. the psp emu scene is getting younger people into old console emulation and thats really cool.


this is great news indeed! thank you alot for this release!


btw.. my favorite games on the speccy was always Manic miner, commando and Skool daze.

ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-inlays/Rereleases/c/Commando(ZafiroSoftware).jpg

oh well. ftp url to img didnt work.


btw.. you guys who didnt know.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org
best site, every single game released is there for free+ LOADS of other stuff.

[Amiga]

Awsome release! :)

Games i've tried so far with no apparent problems.

Airwolf
Beachead
Bruce Lee
Chuckie Egg (love this game) :D
Deathchase
Elite
Ghostbusters
Jet Set Willy
Jetman
Jetpac :D
Kickstart
Manic Miner
Monty On The Run
Nebulus
Scuba Diver
Skooldaze
Spyhunter
Tempest
Thrust
Trailblazer
Trashman
Wheelie

What a great first release.


You've listed all my favourite games :D


10 let a=20:let b=10:let z=1:x=1:i=1
20 print at a,b;" =A= "
25 print at z,x;" (o) "
30 let x=x+i
35 if x>27 or x<1 then i=-i:let z=z+1
40 let b=b+(inkey$="8")-(inkey$="5") <<< i forget is that wrong :D
45 if inkey$="0" and fire=0 then let fire=1:let o=a:p=b
50 if fire=1 then print at o,p;"!":print at o+1,p;" ":let o=o-1:if o<1 then let fire=0
100 goto 20

if only i could master c++ :)

[adamb]

ok copied pspectrum to my stick as follows:

PSP/GAME/PsPectrum

and

PSP/GAME/PsPectrum%

I've put a folder called "GAMES" with one game in it called "SKOOLDA.Z80"

when I run the emulator and press any key as it says the screen goes black the memory stick flashes, but then the PSP shuts down?

MY PSP is a Jap 1.50 and I can run a version of Snes on it so I know emulation works, although a previous Snes emulator had the same problem.

Any clues, please help one of the reasons I bought a PSP was to play a spectrum on the train to work
:)

Cheers
AdamB

[Amiga]

have you copied all the files over and put them in the correct folder ,its needs the speccy roms to be in the same folder with another floder contian the games

[mvickers03]

Hi i have the exact same problem i get the main menu that says press any key then it crashes on a black screen

i have firmware 1.5 and my games go here G:\PSP\GAME\PsPectrum\games

can ayone help please

[mvickers03]

Hello again

To anyone one with the black screen problem

No matter what i did i could not get the 1.5 eboots to run properly crashes everytime

Just download the 1.0 eboot and use kxsploit or seitool to send it to the psp
dunno why this makes a difference but it works

I have tested it with sei tool and am enjoying manic miner

Thanx

[Jla]

I have tried to install this emulator on my PSP, I have managed get to the welcome screen but after that it comes back with the message that the game could not be started (80010002) I am very much a novice with all of this, can anyone help out with what I have done wrong?!

Many thanks

[moggster2001]

was just wondering if the emulator only played .z80 or .sna roms....if so...where can i get them from. world of spectrum only has .tzx or .tap files

[SmashinGit]

Here's a sad news update from the Pspectrum forums regarding this emulator.

Thanks for all the support. Emulator is not being continued at this moment. I have bought a gp2x and sold my psp. Perhaps in the next future I´ll get another one and start again.


Thanks a lot for your greetings this is the only thing that can make me comback to psp dev again.

HexDump.

So for all you Speccy fans I suggest you get over to his sight and start posting in his forum.

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/exkq/pspectrum/index.html

[SmashinGit]

Here's a great news update from the Pspecturm web site.


Good news for all, our friend Hexdump ask to us that he want to continue the development of PSPectrum, nowadays he don´t have enough time to do, but we are sure that in a nearly future we have a new version of PSPectrum :D


So fingers crossed!

[SmashinGit]

This is the latest news update regarding this fantastic emulator.

Hi all,

Sorry, but Cross Platform engine is comming nicely but is not finished... I need to finish it first. Thanks for the support.

HexDump.

Apparently he's making a new engine for the gp2x, psp and pc and this is taking longer than expected.

[SmashinGit]

Here is some great news from Hexdump.

As soon As I get my new psp (second hand) I will make a fast update, adding streching support to the renderer, this way we will have a bigger picture, 128k will come later, it is not a simple thing, but a friend will borrow me his AY core and this will speed up things. Well, Now we have other priorities. Like Streching and 128k. Let's see what happens in the next weeks . I will get my new psp tomorrow I think, but I need to set up everythin, I don´t like to stress with dates, but perhaps next week we will have new version running .



So great news for all us Spectrum loving fans. :)

[Vega]

Cool!
Gonna get all my old speccy games now!!! (Dizzy collection, CHAOS!!! :) !! Batty, Jet set willy, Manic Miner, Chuckie egg, Fruit machine2) aah, memories!

also to the guy who never heard of the Spectrum, I dont think it was released in America. are you even american? Im jumping the gun here.

[SmashinGit]

Latest update from HexDump


It will be nice to see some posts with suggestions for the emu, for example the key mapping feature Horace suggested.

So if you have any ideas you would like to see in the next release nows the time to let HexDump know. Follow this link

http://www.forumcommunity.net/?t=2401548&st=15

[SmashinGit]

Here's a great update from HexDump



The emulation work is not all done but the biggest part. For example, I will intorduce lot of speedups in the z80 core and rendering, no perfect timing achived, etc.... Today I finished porting the pspectrum code to our internal engine MGE, sound is not working yet, and transparencies are a bit slow :/, but everything else went nicely. What does this mean?, it means that I can code everything in the pc, previsualize it and then compile for psp (no waste of time). As an added goody, porting things to MGE will make really easy compile a version for example for GP2X.

Hungry Horace, I´m not planning to emulate del 48k + AY3 at the moment, lot of other things are more importante.

Here is a list of priorities I have in mind (from most to less):

-> Port everything to MGE
-> Stretching suport (Hardware + software)
-> Custom speccy key to psp button mapping.
-> Speed Up / Clean Up of z80 core.
-> AY emulation
-> Tap support
-> Better GUI
-> Transtape emulation.

To name just a few .

P.D. MGE Base has been code by MiCr0, one of our team (NewOlds) and a friend of mine. I added high level game oriented functionality, like animations, sbuffer, a tiler engine, etc... He build the multiplatform desing of MGE too, and I have to say it is really nice and easy to use .

HexDump.

[SmashinGit]

Some excellent news regarding this excellent emulator. HexDump has completed the renderer to allow fullscreen emulation, check the screenshots!

[Hungry Horace]

lol - dude! "completed" ?? i dont remember him confirming that ;)

[SmashinGit]

Well maybe completed is the wrong word, but it does look very good. :)

[SmashinGit]

Here's another update from HexDump


Well, Well, Welll,

Nice, I´m happy today , I started to optimize emulator rendering ( I was getting 30 fps at 11:00, by now, at 16:30, emulator is running at 60 Fps, really good frame rate ).


I think something is limiting fr to 60 FPS, what is really strange because no vblank sincronization is being done.

This achivements make us have the following things -> Good Framerate, Nice Keyboard support, and most important, everything at 222 MGz .

C ya mates,
HexDump.



HexDump has put a lot of time, effort and money into this project. He actually had sold his psp and went out and bought another one so he could continue with this project.

Thanks for all your hard work m8 :)

[jrsmaster411]

wow great work where can u download the "completed" version

[SmashinGit]

He hasn't released it yet, ryosaebaa is play testing it at the moment and has reported that it plays very well. Apparently there's 1 or 2 bugs that have crept in, home button not working, which HexDump is sorting out before he releases it.

Here's ryosaebaa first impressions,

[/QUOTE]
Well , i´m the luckiest men in the World!!! i´m testing new version of PSPectrum, and this is the first impressions :

- The emulator works so fine!!!! in 222Mhz works a litlle more quick than real Spectrum ( Hex ask to me that we can control the speed of the emu as well ) but... in my opinion... the speed is perfect because some Speccy games are so slown but in this emu seens perfect!!

- The key configurator is so easy to use, we select Custom in Fast config menu and we start to configure our keys we have 16 possibilities to configure. I´m playing in Back to school and i use the virtual keyboard for see the action of one key, when i see the action if i want to use it i go to Custom control and i configure it , so easy to use!!! i hope that in near future we can save our Custom key config in every game automatically ( autosave option of Custom keyboard for every game )

- The Full size screen in PSP screen is lovely to see Really this mode is great!!! Thanks Hex!!!

- I´m looking some bugs in this version, at first we can´t exit from the emulator with home button, because the psp freeze and we need to make hard reset to psp ( turning off 5 seconds ) I think that hex can solve this small problem so easy.

- Another great option is snapshot option when you´re playing a game and push L+R automatically the emulator save a snapshot to view when you´re selectin a game, you can see it in the next picture :



Well, i try to test more hard these hours but my wife is so angry with me , i can´t stop of playing PsPectrum!!!!
[QUOTE]

[SmashinGit]

Well here's a news update i'm sure all Spectrum fans and fans of this emulator have been waiting for,




Hi all,


It's 2:30 and I´m really sleepy. Sound starts to work, although it is really bad, hope tomorrow I will fix it.

I think I´m realeasing new release next week... or I hope so .

Good night,
HexDump.



So fingers crossed we may see an update to this excellent emulator soon.

[SmashinGit]

Here's another update,




Well, zip support is added too. Yesterday sound worked almost perfectly, but it still has some flaws... I think I´m getting there.


HexDump.



As you probably can guess i'm getting so excited over this.

[SmashinGit]

This is the latest update from ryosaebaa, the person play testing the next release.




Hi to all!!

Today Hex give to me the RC of 0.2 version I want to ask all that is a wonderful version!!! but yet he have a little bugs... and Hex want to release new version almost perfect ;-)

I want to ask a little about this new version...

-48k sounds pretty good, but sometimes the sound make extrange things ( for example when you´re playing a game and enter to menu or use the virtual key, but this not happend always, then is difficult find the problem)

-The virtual Keyboard now is better!!! you can select the transparency % of the keyboard.

-For select keys in virtual keyboard you use a pointer, you can select the size of this pointer. Also if you push triangle button the pointer change is colour ;-)

-As you know now is possible configure every key of PSP with customice keyboard, also you can configure keystrokes ( L+Square,L+Cross, etc... )

-You can make snapshots pushing L+R at same time ( one screenshot per game ) and you can see it in the selector game page.

-One of the best options!!!!! now we can select 3 diferents screen size!!!! Thanks Hex for this option!!!!

The emulator works perfectly but the sound yet have small problems, i think that Hexdump can fix it in some days. I hope that we can release a new version in next days...

Seeyaa....

[SmashinGit]

HexDump has been kind enough to send the next version of this emulator to Hungry Horace who's been play testing this like mad, here's what Hungry Horace had to say.




wow - this emulator is fun fun fun!

i know everyone is gonna love this when its out, but all the "pre-release ironing out" muct be done of course.... so here's a few more findings for the list for HexDump.


1) "Ultimate Play the Game(s)" / Dan Dare / Zorro (including loop-bug) / others HighScore variable bug still occuring.

this is (for me) the most irritationg of all the bugs, and was one i had hoped might have been lost in the port of Hex's more generic code... alas not yet.... but given time i'm sure Hex will crack it.


2) If you last select "128k" mode, but then load a 48k snap, the OSK stays on 128k mode, (not a problem) - but use of the menus (for changing custom keys etc) will *always* reset speccy on the emulator.... also changing back doesnt restore the 48k keyboard picture! (but the buttons are lined up for 48k)


3) Ghosts n Goblins still goes freaky wierd on game-start!
Heartland still missing gfx and crashing occasionally.

4) Some (very minor) Sound glitches..


Bruce Lee - druing play, sometime a bit of currupted / static-like noise occurs. not a big problem.
Fairlight 2 music sounds a bit different - not really a problem it doesnt sound *wrong* which is the important thing

5) although i found the "exit" function - R on the main menu... it doesnt work. dunno if this has been disabled deliberatly?


i will add to this as i find more.


quite honestly, the new key-config setup is brilliant.... making pretty much every game (even Fairlight 2!!!) very playable. Even greater is the option to add "jump" to a 2nd button making the d-pad a bit easier on those tight platform games.

Full-screen Horace also rocks big time!!

the lack of analogue stick support to accompany the d-pad seems a shame (some games i flick between the two at different sections) but is far from essential. i've already forgotten if this was possible in 0.1...



Later on Hungry Horace had even some better news to report,




well Hex and I just finished a long MSN session, where i tested stuff out and he did lots of hard work modding code and recompiling!

as a result v0.2 now works on eLoader 0.97 ! (phew!!)

and *somehow* L-R-Start works on this version too!! (at least on 0.97)

(but then you cant get back into pspectrum - too many resources used??)

[jrsmaster411]

Its finally here pspecturm V0.2 download at the official site http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/exkq/pspectrum/download.html