radikalbytes/ZX-ESPectrum

A ZX spectrum 48K/128K emulator running on ESP32 with bitluni ESP32 VGA Board (also in TTG VGA32)

ZX-ESPectrum

An emulation of the ZX-Spectrum computer on an ESP32 chip with VGA output based on bitluni's driver.

Features

• VGA output, 8 or 16 bits.
• Beeper digital output.
• Accurate Z80 emulation.
• Spectrum 16/48 achitecture emulation without PSRAM.
• Spectrum 128/+2/+3 architecture emulation with PSRAM.
• PS/2 Keyboard.
• VGA OSD menu: Configuration, and architecture selection, ROM and SNA.
• Tape save and loading.
• SNA snapshot loading.
• Internal SPIFFS support.

Work in progress

• AY-3-8910 emulation and sound output with dedicated chip.
• SD card support.
• DivIDE emulation.
• Dedicated motherboard design.
• Joystick support.
• USB keyboard.
• OTA: Over the Air updates.

Compiling and installing

At this point we only support GNU/Linux and MacOS/X. It may work at Windoze too but we don't know.

Install platformIO:

• They have an extension for Atom and VSCode, and this is the webpage.
• Select you board.
• Install Bitluni's ESP32Lib.

Softlink and customize platformio.ini

ln -s platformio.ini.linux platformio.ini
# or in osx
ln -s platformio.ini.osx platformio.ini

Copy boot.cfg

cp data/boot.cfg.orig boot.cfg

Upload the data filesystem

Run Other Task > PIO Upload Filesystem Image

Compile and flash it

Right arrow at the bottom icon bar or Tasks > Run Build Task > PlatformIO: Build and Tasks > PlatformIO: Upload.

Hardware configuration and pinout

Comming soon...

Thanks to

• Idea from the work of Charles Peter Debenham Todd: PaseVGA.
• VGA Driver from ESP32Lib by BitLuni.
• PS/2 keyboard support based on ps2kbdlib.
• Z80 Emulation derived from z80emu authored by Lin Ke-Fong.
• DivIDE ideas (work in progress) taken from the work of Dusan Gallo.
• AY sound hardware emulation from AVR-AY.
• Amstrad PLC for the ZX-Spectrum ROM binaries liberated for emulation pourposes.
• Nine Tiles Networs Ltd for Sinclair BASIC.
• Gary Lancaster for the +3e ROM.
• Retroleum for the diagnostics ROM.

And all the involved people from the golden age

• Sir Clive Sinclair.
• Christopher Curry.
• The Sinclair Team.
• Lord Alan Michael Sugar.
• Investrónica team.
• Sovietic cloners.
• Queru's uncle Roberto for introducing him into the microcomputing world with a Commodore VIC-20.
• Queru's uncle Manolito for introducing him into the ZX-Spectrum world.
• Rampa's mother for the Oric 1 and for inculcate her passion for electronics.

And all the writters, hobbist and documenters

• Microhobby magazine.
• Dr. Ian Logan & Dr. Frank O'Hara for The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly book.
• Chris Smith for the The ZX-Spectrum ULA book.
• Users from Abadiaretro and its Telegram group.
• Users from El Mundo del Spectrum and its Telegram group.
• Users from Hardware Devs group.
• The World of Spectrum.

A lot of programmers, especially

• GreenWebSevilla for its Fantasy Zone game and others.
• Julián Urbano Muñoz for Speccy Pong.
• Others who have donated distribution rights for this project.