LOAD “”

I sometimes get questions about difficulties encountered when loading (Spectrum) games from cassette tape, and end up typing the same info over and over.  To save time in future I’ve pasted my thoughts here :)

Long filename support for SMART Card

I’ve just added long filename support to the SMART Card’s Snapload ROM. This pretty much necessitated a proportional font renderer so I did that and added icons too whilst I was at it :) As always, the latest version is in the project archive at www.retroleum.co.uk/smart.zip

SMART Card V2

I’ve redesigned the SMART Card PCB so that it will physically fit all versions of the Spectrum. At the same time I’ve made a few improvements such as removing the DIP switches and adding auto-detect for the Spectrum 128+2A / 3.  The SMART Card V2 will of course be available from the store (when I’ve made some more:)

On the software side, I’ve rewritten the game loader ROM – it now allows snapshots to be saved to the SD Card, Pokes to be entered (in all games not just those loaded from .taps as was the case before) and is generally neater looking. The new software should work fine on the V1 SMART Card too, so if you have one of those you can update it by installing the latest ROM from the project archive downloadable here.

Update: 26/9/2017: I’ve also made a toolkit ROM which allows SD Cards to be formatted to FAT16 actually in the SMART Card (even those larger than 4GB).

A Slight Switcheroo

Just a heads up – as the retro store has become my main focus of late, I’ve decided to make its front page the default landing zone for traffic to my retroleum.co.uk domain. However, this blog will not be disappearing (it can be directly accessed at blog.retroleum.co.uk) and the links etc should continue to work. The store will also soon be getting a face-lift to make it more compatible with mobile devices.

In summary.. Direct link to this WordPress blog -> blog.retroleum.co.uk (There will be a link at the store too.)  The store’s front page will soon appear at www.retroleum.co.uk and store.retroleum.co.uk (as before) In the meantime, keep calm and carry on :)

DiagROM 1.28

Added a little extra feature to the Spectrum diagROM: Now when you press the NMI button on the SMART Card, an upper/lower bus test runs showing any unexpected bits as red colours bars. Always nice to have an immediate visual representation of things..