The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

akeley
Top Contributor
Posts: 1441
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 7:54 pm
Has thanked: 496 times
Been thanked: 467 times

The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

Unread post by akeley »

I'm curious how advanced the ZX Spectrum (and many others) core actually is. Assuming that ideally FPGA core should be a 1:1 representation of the original machine, how far are we from that ideal?

Of course I know it's probably impossible to measure in numbers, but any more in-depth detail would be welcome. Are there any milestones left, how accurate is ZX emulation, what's the compatibility, etc.

This question is partially inspired by comments made by the author of ZX Baremulator, on another forum. They partially refer to ZX-UNO, but the gist is that in general ZX Spectrum FPGA emulation is "far from perfect" (eg, contended memory, timings).

CRT SCR$ Project - building a collection of high-quality photos of CRT displays
CRT ART Books - retro-gaming books with authentic CRT photos

User avatar
NightShadowPT
Posts: 224
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 9:56 am
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 12 times

Re: The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

Unread post by NightShadowPT »

I’m sure the purists will have complaints, but the current MiSTer core does everything I ever wanted it to do...
akeley
Top Contributor
Posts: 1441
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 7:54 pm
Has thanked: 496 times
Been thanked: 467 times

Re: The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

Unread post by akeley »

This is not about "complaints" & "purists" but gathering factual information and perfecting the core (if there is need to).

CRT SCR$ Project - building a collection of high-quality photos of CRT displays
CRT ART Books - retro-gaming books with authentic CRT photos

Xtro
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 10:15 am
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

Unread post by Xtro »

slingshot updated ZX Spectrum core for the MiST to support snow effect and now ir contention works perfect, so the core is actually perfectly cycle accurate. https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-bina ... s/spectrum
akeley
Top Contributor
Posts: 1441
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 7:54 pm
Has thanked: 496 times
Been thanked: 467 times

Re: The State of the Core: ZX Spectrum

Unread post by akeley »

Great news, thanks for the heads up.

CRT SCR$ Project - building a collection of high-quality photos of CRT displays
CRT ART Books - retro-gaming books with authentic CRT photos

Post Reply