Save snapshot to disk

[zboszor]

Help! :-)

Is there an easy way to convert tape-loaded games to disk using the ZXEVO?
Some games (like Operation Market-Garden in "Arnhem") need some hours to complete and I don't want to start every time from the beginning.
I thought the NMI (PrtSrc/SysRQ) button would allow taking a snapshot but I didn't find such an entry in the submenus.

Thanks in advance.

[DimkaM]

Is there an easy way to convert tape-loaded games to disk using the ZXEVO?

нет

[zboszor]

Thanks.

[zboszor]

The Multiface 1 / Muiltiface 128 roms had code to discover the presence of the Beta Disk interface (also microdrive, Discovery or Disciple) and save the snapshot to disk or tape. The Beta Disk Interface 128 also had an NMI magic button that allowed saving the snapshot.
There is a disassembler for Z80 under Linux (I use Linux for work and hobby, no Windows for a long time), I can look into disassembling the Multiface roms and match it with the TR-DOS programming information found in the links at http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=1000033

[MISTER_BEEP]

You would have to get Speccy2010 for it.

[zboszor]

I don't need to do anything extra with ZX Evo. "EVO ProfROM" already has the "magic button" functionality and more organized in a nice menu. The only downside is that it doesn't have the SD card functionality so I can't save directly to a disk image on the SD card.

Fortunately, I was able to buy a new (well, manufactured in cca. 2006 but unopened and still in the original plastic bag) floppy drive that has the DD/HD selector switch and the necessary electronics/logic inside to handle DD disks and a box of floppies. It works wonderfully with the ZX Evo. The other 3(!) drives I tried were too new and they cannot handle DD disks.

The solution to load TZX files is a little convoluted. I don't have a tape player anymore but there is the TeeZiX app for Android so I can use it in my phone. I just had to solder an audio cable with a 4-pin 3.5mm Jack at one end (pinout: http://pinoutsguide.com/HeadsetsHeadphones/samsung_i9100_headset_pinout.shtml) and the RCA on the other end and experiment with the volume setting, otherwise I get "Tape loading error". When "Arnhem" was loaded, pressed the NMI button, selected the "Save & Load" -> "Magic button" menu and it saved the snapshot to the disk. I got 3 files on the disk: "@" , "@0" and "@8". Loading is done by

Code: Select all

GO TO "@"CODE

The files can all be renamed (one by one) with the same prefix but the last character must be kept. So the file name prefix can be 7 characters long:

Code: Select all

NEW "arnhem","@"CODE
NEW "arnhem0","@0"CODE
NEW "arnhem8","@8"CODE
GO TO "arnhem"CODE

[zboszor]

New issues, related to the snapshot. It may be obvious to the old users and perhaps it's already documented in this forum somewhere, but I can't read Russian. Maybe this little information will help someone else later.

Taking the snapshot using the NMI button only works when using the EVO ProfROM.

I also tried TRDOS ("BETA1024") from GLUK Service. CAT says "No disk" on the first or first two attempts but eventually sees the files on the physical disk. After the files are listed, the GOTO command happily loads them using the GOTO command. I also found LIST says "Out of memory" a lot of times, especially if the CAT command failed first, it looks like a bug to me. Pressing the NMI button brings up the same interface that the EVO Service has, a simplistic menu and the register contents and not the feature-packed monitor of the ProfROM mode.

I was able to create an empty TRD disk image under Linux, mount it in the EVO Service mode and copy all the files to from the physical disk to the disk image, so it's a good bridge between the floppy, the SD card and sending the image on the Internet or archiving and restoring. But loading the snapshot doesn't work at all in this mode, neither from the physical disk nor from a disk image. I tried both starting TRDOS from the EVO Service menu and by RANDOMIZE USR 15616 from 48K mode. Neither combination worked in the EVO Service mode.

Mounting disk images from SD card only works in the EVO Service mode, they are not persistent when rebooting in a different mode.

Is there a comprehensive documentation about the ZX EVO in English? Like what can be done in the 3 standard modes (EVO Service, GLUK Service and EVO ProfROM), with all the features and differences (and bugs) like the ones I just discovered. Anyway, it's a versatile little thing, it is really 3 machines in one and can also be extended with a custom set of ROMs, so it's possibly 4-in-1.