Some Spectrum games load fine in 48K mode but not 128k mode

[Fuzzball]

I think tape loading from a real tape is simply nostalgia, and not of any real use, or value.
Back in '82/83, aged 12, I had the time to load a tape, and that was the only cheap option at that time - unless you could afford an Opus Disk Drive, and the expensive (for that time) 3.5" floppy disks.
Today, in my 50s, I simply don't have that time anymore, and neither do my friends from that time period. 5 mins for one tape, provided it loads, takes 5 mins off of my free time. 3 tapes, could be 15 minutes of loading, rather than 15 seconds. If I have a spare 1 hour, that is down to 45 mins due to loading old tapes. Fine, if you want that real nostalgia for old media, but tapes might not rot, but they can chew-up in your tape deck.

Back to the original topic. Why can't you just use 48k mode, if that is working ?
It shouldn't matter if you owned one or not, you are trying to play Matchday 2, not the actual 48k system.

A perfectly valid point of view and I can completely understand where you are coming from. I'm also sure the majority will agree with you. However, if I have an hour for gaming, I'd rather get 45 minutes of gaming with 15 minutes of loading. I'm no different. I have very little free time. We only differ on how we want to spend that free hour. Neither is wrong. I want the nostalgia. I want to use hardware exactly the way I used to use it back in the day even if I completely understand why others wouldn't.

I don't want to play Matchday 2 in 48k mode. I know it is weird but I only ever had a 128 Toastrack and I want to load my games via the 128 tape loader menu for nostalgia and to use it the same way I did back then. I get it. That's really stupid to some people but I'll just do me I've done well over 50 years of stupid at this point - no point in changing now

p.s. I never use any of the "fast loading" features in any of the cores. I prefer to wait the full time for games to load - yep I'm just that odd!

[Chris23235]

I can understand the fascination of loading a game from tape. If you load a game from tape you won't close it after 5 seconds, something I do more often then not when loading a tap file. Waiting 5 minutes for something to load gives it much more weight in my opinion.
Last year I tried some of my old Spectrum tapes and was surprised to see them all work flawless.
I put an eLeMenT ZX mainboard in a +2 case and bought a bluetooth cassette adapter. it is a bluetooth receiver that can be used as a cassette in any audio cassette player. You transmit the audio data from your phone or tablet to the cassette and when you press play on your cassette recorder it works just as any other cassette tape.
This allows the use of a real cassette deck for MP3 files.

[Bristles]

Neither is wrong. I want the nostalgia.

Oh, I agree. And, more power to you for having the patience to do it all over again. There is the nostalgia for it, but also the time is needed.

If you load a game from tape you won't close it after 5 seconds

Oh, you will. There was a lot of utter dross released back in the day, and it's only now that we can play 99.9% of those that have been preserved, and truly see just how bad some titles were. My personal ZX Spectrum Tape collection is around 260+ original tapes, and most of them do still work. But, I just don't have the patience anymore for 3,4,5+ minutes of hoping you're not going to get a "R Tape Loading error..."
Even back in the day, it was the hope that often killed the excitement, and I often wished there was some kind of magical way of faster, more reliable loading. I didn't get a disk drive until later in the 80s when everyone was moving on, or waiting for 16-bit machines, I snagged some cheap 1541 drives for my C64s, and a 1050 for my Atari 800XL. And even these (stock machines) were slow, but obviously more reliable than tape.
I think where a lot of the nostalgia comes from isn't just the tape loading, it's the physical tape itself, the tape inlay card, along with the artwork, and screenshots. This is more special for me for old disk games on Atari 8-bit, and C64. I have a vast collection for both machines, and those disk wallets, with the excellent A4 artwork holds a lot of nostalgia. But, I still won't get out a real 1541, and load them.

[Chris23235]

I think where a lot of the nostalgia comes from isn't just the tape loading, it's the physical tape itself, the tape inlay card, along with the artwork, and screenshots. This is more special for me for old disk games on Atari 8-bit, and C64. I have a vast collection for both machines, and those disk wallets, with the excellent A4 artwork holds a lot of nostalgia. But, I still won't get out a real 1541, and load them.

I can fully understand that, I marvel at my old tapes and discs and cartridges as well sometimes (these wonderful early Psygnosis packages and these magnificent VCS cartridge artworks).
Old floppy discs do next to nothing to me (it is more the packaging here) and I avoid loading from discs like the plague while i love tape loading. It wasn't the same back in the day for me but it now definitely is, strange how everyone experiences this so different.

[Bristles]

strange how everyone experiences this so different.

Could it be the sounds ?
I know this might sound mad, but I love the stepping sound of a 5 1/4" disk drive, as it accesses the tracks on the floppy disk.
For you, and other tape fans, could it also be the loading sounds ? That 'beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee beep' sound of when the tape loader first finds the header, when loading in Spectrum tapes ? This was also why I hated the silent C64 tape loading, because unless there was visual feedback, such as an on-screen tape counter, then it was difficult to know if the screen suddenly freezes, has it loaded ? Has it crashed ?
Weird how the tape has also made such a large comeback (music) that some mass-production plants had a shortage of ferric oxide, a couple of years ago. I've always hated tape music audio, because unless you have quality tape deck hardware, then you always get a tiny bit of tape wobble, and the audio sounds like the equipment used in the music was ever-so slightly out of tune. I had a CD player in the 80s, and friends thought it was something from the future.

[Chris23235]

strange how everyone experiences this so different.

Could it be the sounds ?
I know this might sound mad, but I love the stepping sound of a 5 1/4" disk drive, as it accesses the tracks on the floppy disk.
For you, and other tape fans, could it also be the loading sounds ? That 'beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee beep' sound of when the tape loader first finds the header, when loading in Spectrum tapes ? This was also why I hated the silent C64 tape loading, because unless there was visual feedback, such as an on-screen tape counter, then it was difficult to know if the screen suddenly freezes, has it loaded ? Has it crashed ?
Weird how the tape has also made such a large comeback (music) that some mass-production plants had a shortage of ferric oxide, a couple of years ago. I've always hated tape music audio, because unless you have quality tape deck hardware, then you always get a tiny bit of tape wobble, and the audio sounds like the equipment used in the music was ever-so slightly out of tune. I had a CD player in the 80s, and friends thought it was something from the future.

Yeah, sound plays a big role for sure, I always preferred the Speccy loading over the C64 loading and also the Atari 8-Bit loading that gave audio feedback but not in form of the real signal. I like the idea of hearing the information that is transferred to the computer.
The stepping motor of floppy drives is nice as well, optical drives never made sounds that I like.
I loved tapes because they were portable I heard music all the time when being outside after I got my first walkman so I preferred tapes always over Vinyl which I always found to fragile for everyday use.

[lister_of_smeg]

Match Day II is indeed odd - I can't get any version to load on 128 (bar one Z80 snapshot), even a 128k dedicated one or a +3 dsk.

Have you tried the folowing command?

OUT 32765,48

If you have a DIVMMC enabled this will change the paging of the 128.

That command works and loads Matchday 2. However I never had to do this back in the day so how do I disable DIVMMC? What is DIVMMC? I can see it mentioned in the menus but I can't see where to disable it.

Not having a VHD loaded effectively disables the DivMMC. If you are getting the 128K menu at core startup then the DivMMC is disabled.

[Chris23235]

Have you tried the folowing command?

OUT 32765,48

If you have a DIVMMC enabled this will change the paging of the 128.

That command works and loads Matchday 2. However I never had to do this back in the day so how do I disable DIVMMC? What is DIVMMC? I can see it mentioned in the menus but I can't see where to disable it.

Not having a VHD loaded effectively disables the DivMMC. If you are getting the 128K menu at core startup then the DivMMC is disabled.

This is not the case, at least not if you use the Rom that is provided with the core. When you set the core to Spectrum 128 you get a Rom that has a TR-DOS shortcut by default. The DIVMMC is active with this setting.

[lister_of_smeg]

That command works and loads Matchday 2. However I never had to do this back in the day so how do I disable DIVMMC? What is DIVMMC? I can see it mentioned in the menus but I can't see where to disable it.

Not having a VHD loaded effectively disables the DivMMC. If you are getting the 128K menu at core startup then the DivMMC is disabled.

This is not the case, at least not if you use the Rom that is provided with the core. When you set the core to Spectrum 128 you get a Rom that has a TR-DOS shortcut by default. The DIVMMC is active with this setting.

No, you get the TR-DOS option in the 128 menu because the core implements a Beta Disk interface and boot.rom includes its associated TR-DOS ROM.

[Chris23235]

Not having a VHD loaded effectively disables the DivMMC. If you are getting the 128K menu at core startup then the DivMMC is disabled.

This is not the case, at least not if you use the Rom that is provided with the core. When you set the core to Spectrum 128 you get a Rom that has a TR-DOS shortcut by default. The DIVMMC is active with this setting.

No, you get the TR-DOS option in the 128 menu because the core implements a Beta Disk interface and boot.rom includes its associated TR-DOS ROM.

Just because you get the start up menu of the Spectrum it does not mean the DIVMMC is not active.
I use a DIVMMC equipped Spectrum clone (Omni) for years and I always have the start up menu even when the DIVMMC is enabled. I even use a modified rom that triggers the NMI button press when I choose the loader option in the menu to open the DIVMMC browser (Derby Pro ROM), this ROM locks the paging by default letting you run all 48K games on 128K without the OUT command even when the DIVMMC is enabled.
You don't have the startup menu on a not modified rom but as the core uses a combination of modified roms the menu is present.

[lister_of_smeg]

This is not the case, at least not if you use the Rom that is provided with the core. When you set the core to Spectrum 128 you get a Rom that has a TR-DOS shortcut by default. The DIVMMC is active with this setting.

No, you get the TR-DOS option in the 128 menu because the core implements a Beta Disk interface and boot.rom includes its associated TR-DOS ROM.

Just because you get the start up menu of the Spectrum it does not mean the DIVMMC is not active.
I use a DIVMMC equipped Spectrum clone (Omni) for years and I always have the start up menu even when the DIVMMC is enabled. I even use a modified rom that triggers the NMI button press when I choose the loader option in the menu to open the DIVMMC browser (Derby Pro ROM), this ROM locks the paging by default letting you run all 48K games on 128K without the OUT command even when the DIVMMC is enabled.
You don't have the startup menu on a not modified rom but as the core uses a combination of modified roms the menu is present.

There's a reason why I stated 'effectively disabled'...

From the core documentation:-

Supported both VHD images and secondary SD card. Default auto mode makes DivMMC hidden til VHD image gets selected. You have to get ESXDOS package, rename ESXMMC.BIN to boot1.rom and place to games/Spectrum/ Make sure boot1.rom and files inside VHD (or SD card) are from the same ESXDOS version.

Now 'hidden' to me, can mean one of two things:-

1. The address and data lines between the DivMMC and the Spectrum are disabled, so that there is no communication at all between the devices.

2. The DivMMC is still connected but has its automapping disabled (which it would have to be to get the 128 menu and not USR 0 mode).

I'm not sure which it is, as I've never put it to the test - but it would be trivial to find which of these two cases is true by doing OUT 227, 64 from BASIC. This will put the DivMMC into MAPRAM mode with bank 3 @ read-only @ $0000 and bank 0 read-write @ $2000 (assuming it is indeed connected). If that crashes the Spectrum, then case 2 is true. If nothing happens, then case 1 is true.

Either way it's effectively disabled, unless a piece of software happens to output to the DivMMC control register port - which is unlikely because all the lower 8 bits of the address bus are decoded by the DivMMC. It should be noted that the DivMMC's TR-DOS emulation relies on the automapping execution traps @ $3d00-$3dff being enabled.

[akeley]

If it's really disabled then why the games mentioned in this thread do not work without using the OUT command?

[lister_of_smeg]

If it's really disabled then why the games mentioned in this thread do not work without using the OUT command?

Because the OUT command disables the 128's banking. This is enabled in both 128K mode and USR 0 mode (which is 48K BASIC with banking still enabled - which the DivMMC forces the 128k Spectrum into at boot).

The reason the games worked after using the OUT command is because running that from 128 BASIC (The 128 BASIC editor needs 128 banking active to work at all) crashes a Spectrum into 48K mode (with banking disabled) regardless of whether you have a DivMMC connected or not. And we're told in the topic title and the first post that the games run fine in 48K mode.

[akeley]

Ok, even if we assume DIVMMC is a red herring in this case, and that the Ultimate games will load on 128 machine when going through 48k Basic (as they do on this core), it still leaves the case of the Match Day II. I'm not near my +2A these days to test it, and OP states he managed to load it via Tape Loader on the 128. Even assuming he misremembers things, there is a 128k version of Match Day II I can't get to load on the 128 core.

Any ideas?

[lister_of_smeg]

Ok, even if we assume DIVMMC is a red herring in this case, and that the Ultimate games will load on 128 machine when going through 48k Basic (as they do on this core), it still leaves the case of the Match Day II. I'm not near my +2A these days to test it, and OP states he managed to load it via Tape Loader on the 128. Even assuming he misremembers things, there is a 128k version of Match Day II I can't get to load on the 128 core.

Any ideas?

Well the TZX version uses the Speedlock 5 protection scheme, which crashes the Spectrum if there's a Multiface connected IIRC. The MiSTer core implements the Multiface 128 and Multiface 3, but noticeably not the original 48k Multiface. I would hazard a guess that the 128 and 3 require 128 banking active to work.

EDIT: Hmmm, looking at the Wikipedia entry it says they do work in 48 mode...

EDIT 2: The TZX still loads fine in 128 mode in Fuse with a Multiface 128 attached, but it crashes it you try to use the Multiface though, so maybe this is a dead end.

[Chris23235]

Ok, even if we assume DIVMMC is a red herring in this case, and that the Ultimate games will load on 128 machine when going through 48k Basic (as they do on this core), it still leaves the case of the Match Day II. I'm not near my +2A these days to test it, and OP states he managed to load it via Tape Loader on the 128. Even assuming he misremembers things, there is a 128k version of Match Day II I can't get to load on the 128 core.

Any ideas?

Well the TZX version uses the Speedlock 5 protection scheme, which crashes the Spectrum if there's a Multiface connected IIRC. The MiSTer core implements the Multiface 128 and Multiface 3, but noticeably not the original 48k Multiface. I would hazard a guess that the 128 and 3 require 128 banking active to work.

EDIT: Hmmm, looking at the Wikipedia entry it says they do work in 48 mode...

EDIT 2: The TZX still loads fine in 128 mode in Fuse with a Multiface 128 attached, but it crashes it you try to use the Multiface though, so maybe this is a dead end.

At least on the Omni with Derby Pro ROM Matchday II only works from 48 Basic or with paging locked, I get the same results on the n-go. The game only works in 48K mode. Both machines have a DIVMMC on board the same goes for the MiSTer core.
Because of this I assumed this is a DIVMMC issue as the opener says it worked on a 128K Spectrum and looking at the cover scans I would expect this as well. While the first Matchday clearly states on the cover it will only run in 48K mode and not with 128 the cover of Matchday II Hit Squad re-release says it will run on a Spectrum 128.

If it is not tied to the DIVMMC I have no idea what else could cause this. At this point we would need someone testing this on a real 128 with an original tape.

Edit: @fuzzball are you 100% sure you meant Matchday II and not international Matchday as this was a 128K version of the original Matchday.
EDIT2: There is a DSK version that shows the same behavior and we can be sure this version was intended to run on 128K machines.
EDIT3: The ZX Spectrum core on the MiST shows the same behavior and on the eLeMeNt ZX it is also the same. The game only works in 48K mode.

[lister_of_smeg]

Anyway, some things I tried on the MiSTer so far (without success)...

Loading via ADC in (to rule out the TZX decoder being the issue).
Setting Port #FF to SA1099 instead of Timex (which prevents Earth Shaker from crashing on the title screen - possibly related to floating bus raster sync?).
Disabling General Sound.
Setting Issue 3 Ear/Mic behaviour (Port #FE).
Using the the 2021.03.08 version of the core (The last core before DivMMC was added).
Modding boot.rom to use the original 128 BASIC editor ROM rather than the one from the Pentagon (I realised this is why you get the TR-DOS menu entry on the 128/+2 model).
A modded boot.rom where all ROMs other then the ones for the 128/+2 are empty.

All exhibit the same behaviour of the Spectrum crashing out to 48 BASIC upon the loading counter reaching 0.

I'll give it a go with some even older cores when I have a little more time. The problem is the really old cores use a different layout in boot.rom and I don't know what that is.

[lister_of_smeg]

Can confirm that the Matchday II TZX loads fine in 128 mode via the Tape/Sound port on my +3.

EDIT3: The ZX Spectrum core on the MiST shows the same behavior and on the eLeMeNt ZX it is also the same. The game only works in 48K mode.

Thanks! Saves me setting up my SiDi

EDIT: Forgot to mention is also loads fine on my +3 with DivMMC connected.

[Bristles]

Can't you just play the actual 128k version ?
This was named "International Match Day", and was made for 128k Spectrums.

[Chris23235]

Can confirm that the Matchday II TZX loads fine in 128 mode via the Tape/Sound port on my +3.

EDIT: Forgot to mention is also loads fine on my +3 with DivMMC connected.

That's an interesting info, so my DIVMMC theory can be put to rest. I have no clue at all why it does work on the +3 but not on the MiST(er), Omni, eLeMeNt and Spectrum Next.

Can't you just play the actual 128k version ?
This was named "International Match Day", and was made for 128k Spectrums.

That was the 128 version of the first Matchday, this is about Matchday II. And the game works when in 48 mode, question is why it doesn't work in 128 mode when the game loads fine on real hardware.

[Bristles]

So just play the damn game in 48k mode, then ?
It shouldn't matter what Spectrum you owned, if all you want to play is Matchday II.

[akeley]

Modding boot.rom to use the original 128 BASIC editor ROM rather than the one from the Pentagon (I realised this is why you get the TR-DOS menu entry on the 128/+2 model).

Thanks for investigating this. As an aside, any chance you could share this boot.rom? I wouldn't mind seeing the "original" 128 menu (I believe it says "Tape Tester" instead of "TR DOS"?)

So just play the damn game in 48k mode, then ?
It shouldn't matter what Spectrum you owned, if all you want to play is Matchday II.

I don't really care about playing Match Day II that much, but I do care about core accuracy. If you don't then that's fine, but then you might as well stop posting in this thread because comments such as this one do not help at all.

[Fuzzball]

So just play the damn game in 48k mode, then ?
It shouldn't matter what Spectrum you owned, if all you want to play is Matchday II.

Your opinion is perfectly valid but I want to use the Mister cores exactly how I used the original machines back in the day. I own a Mister purely for nostalgia. If I only cared about playing the games any which way then I would save my money and use Retropie or something. Of course some would argue if you want that level of nostalgia then buy original hardware. I do actually own a Spectrum among a few other old retro computers but I find it too much hassle to get them out when I want to use them when I have a Mister that takes up little space and can emulate them all.

The issue is I watched endless Youtube videos on the Mister before purchase. All of them (bar none) advertised the Mister as this perfect simulation of original hardware. But that actually isn't really the case if you can't use cores the same as original hardware.

Yes I get it - it's a very small point for most people but, as I said, for me personally, if I can't get the same nostalgia as I got from using original hardware back in the day, it defeats the purpose for me. I may as well use a software emulator. That's just me.

[Chris23235]

Modding boot.rom to use the original 128 BASIC editor ROM rather than the one from the Pentagon (I realised this is why you get the TR-DOS menu entry on the 128/+2 model).

Thanks for investigating this. As an aside, any chance you could share this boot.rom? I wouldn't mind seeing the "original" 128 menu (I believe it says "Tape Tester" instead of "TR DOS"?)

You can find the complete layout of the ROM on the Github page:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spectrum_MISTer

All you have to do is swap the 128p-0.rom (first half of the Pentagon ROM) with the official 128-0.rom.

There was a thread about this a while ago:

viewtopic.php?t=6533

The post from JamesH from May 22nd 2023 give a detailed explanation where to find the files.

If you have all files use the copy command in the Windows command shell to combine them all in one file.

Modding boot.rom to use the original 128 BASIC editor ROM rather than the one from the Pentagon (I realised this is why you get the TR-DOS menu entry on the 128/+2 model).

This is what I meant when saying the core uses a combination of modified roms.

[Bristles]

It's just a game ffs!
Just play it, and end this stupid thread.
I never owned ANY arcade machines, yet I play them all.
I never owned many of the rarer consoles, and computers, but I still play games on them via the Mister.
Utter madness.

[akeley]

You can find the complete layout of the ROM on the Github page:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spectrum_MISTer

All you have to do is swap the 128p-0.rom (first half of the Pentagon ROM) with the official 128-0.rom.

There was a thread about this a while ago:

viewtopic.php?t=6533

The post from JamesH from May 22nd 2023 give a detailed explanation where to find the files.

If you have all files use the copy command in the Windows command shell to combine them all in one file.

Thanks, but I'm not that handy with this kind of stuff and if somebody has already done the legwork I'd rather borrow that

[lister_of_smeg]

Thanks for investigating this. As an aside, any chance you could share this boot.rom? I wouldn't mind seeing the "original" 128 menu (I believe it says "Tape Tester" instead of "TR DOS"?)

Sure, I've dropped it here

The shell script below will create the above file on the MiSTer:-

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
cd /media/fat/games/Spectrum
wget https://github.com/rastersoft/fbzx/raw/master/data/spectrum-roms/128-0.rom
mv boot.rom boot.orig
wget https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spectrum_MISTer/raw/master/releases/boot.rom
dd if=128-0.rom of=boot.rom bs=16k seek=2 conv=notrunc

[Fuzzball]

Sure, I've dropped it here

The shell script below will create the above file on the MiSTer:-

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
cd /media/fat/games/Spectrum
wget https://github.com/rastersoft/fbzx/raw/master/data/spectrum-roms/128-0.rom
mv boot.rom boot.orig
wget https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spectrum_MISTer/raw/master/releases/boot.rom
dd if=128-0.rom of=boot.rom bs=16k seek=2 conv=notrunc

Sorry can I ask what this boot.rom does? I have read all the posts on it but it all went over my head.

[lister_of_smeg]

Sorry can I ask what this boot.rom does? I have read all the posts on it but it all went over my head.

Nothing special. The default boot.rom uses the 128 BASIC editor ROM from the Pentagon machines for it's 128K/+2 model. It's pretty much the original 128 ROM, but with the 'Tape Tester' menu entry replaced with 'TR-DOS' to save Beta Disk interface users having to type RANDOMIZE USR 15616 in BASIC.

The boot.rom I posted replaces the Pentagon ROM with the original 128 ROM.