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As a backer of the ZX Spectrum Next board and also the ZX Spectrum Cased version, I was very excited to receive a new backers email in my inbox this morning from the Next team. News about new games, apps, box design, upcoming firmware and more!

The Box

Mike has been relentlessly pushing the box forward, with the design and materials finally locked and greenlit. There was a lot of back and forth on the options of foam innards versus polished cardboard, external box (the box to ship the box within, as no one will want to have their Next’s box scratched up) and clever cutting to ensure the computer is neatly seated and protected from all sides.

Alfredo is now adapting the images and print to the box’s format, as we’ve moved away from the traditional style to a more robust and elegant cap and tray design, more akin to what one would expect from a high end manufacturer.

The Manual

The printed and wirebound manual is a big part of the Next’s crowdsourced nature, and has been in the works for months now with more than a dozen collaborators helping with its composition under the coordination and editing of Phoebus. It’s impossible to overstate how much effort and passion the community has poured into the crafting of this piece of Speccy history, and how much we all owe them and Phoebus for going the extra mile to produce it with the detail and care they’ve put into it.

Creating an updated version of the Speccy manual was already a significant undertaking, but when it came time to incorporate all the new functions of the Next, plus the ever-evolving nature of the Next Basic, things got complicated: how to edit a book whose chapters keep on shifting as fast as the Next’s ROM and feature set?

And while the cover artwork (done) will remain a secret kept for the unboxing of your Next, the manual is almost complete!

Games! Apps!

The Next titles continue to surprise with their gorgeous graphics and gameplay, with 25 prods in development (that we know of!) We’ve also been granted the rights to distribute old classics, such as Sanxion, ensuring there will be a lot of new and old stuff to play on the Next from day one.

Speaking of apps, we’ll now kick off the development of the internet apps connecting the Next to the web using its Wi-Fi module. While some groundwork has been done and the functionality is in place, the UI/usability aspect of it needs a lot of love – that’s the work ahead.

In the meantime, marvel at the new generation of Speccy software being brewed in physical form: how cool is it to see a game boxed like Dungeonette by Adrian Cummings coming to life?

Case works

The month was filled with final adjustments to the board and daughterboard thanks to out-of-specification replacement parts that we got instead of the intended originals. One would think that a single millimetre would not be a big issue, but in Rick Dickinson’s world of exquisite precision and purpose, it would have meant a redesign of the Next case to accommodate the difference! Thus we had to spring to action and secure yet again a part that’s no longer produced (at least to the specs we need), the DB9 joystick connector, and send the 6,200 chunky culprits back to its spawner.

Other adjustments included moving the DB15 (VGA/RGB connector) 1mm back to allow some safeguarding distance between the board and the case, and a reposition upwards of the internal cable connector on the daughterboard which was touching the keyboard enclosure. Thus the Next board version 2B is born!

As of last week, we’ve now finalised all the adjustments and validated the neat fit of the hardware inside the case, thus the final phase of the mold carving can finally begin. We’ll have mold pictures shortly, as we originally hoped these would be done by the end of January. Now it’s pushing to get them done as fast as possible to ship the Next!

Firmware

The team is currently working on the versions 0.8b & 0.8c of the firmware, with yet another update of the NextOS thanks to the relentless Gary Lancaster. To say the NextOS is surpassing everyone’s expectations would be quite the understatement – from the ability to load files from the SD as if they were loading from tape, including the borders (but much faster if you so wish) to new BASIC commands such as Functions – the NextOS is now the de-facto Speccy BASIC and operational system, with the largest feature set out there.



Version 0.8b will also include a new mouse driver and support, and… ZX81 3D Monster Maze! Yes, the old gem that made so many people scream back in the early eighties will be included in the Next with the blessings of Malcolm Evans, the original creator of the game.

Meanwhile, Victor and the community have been wrapping up the specs of the Next features at last, aiming at the version 1.0 of the firmware in the next couple of weeks – the version that will ship in the box. Currently under work is the finalisation of the Copper (the coprocessor) and the DMA optimisations required by some coding tricks to be possible.

The video below by Mike Dailly, who originally thought out the Copper for the Next, is done entirely with it, with no work from the Z80 CPU that remains free to do other stuff:

Following the capacitor mod by the community (thanks again, Pokemon!) helping a lot of the users nail HDMI incompatibilities and noise, it has been added to the design of the 2B board version, thus shipping in the final version of the Next. No need to bring up your soldering iron!

And while the Turbo Sound’s three AY chips with their six channels is nothing new to the Spectrum Next by now, hearing it in action is another thing altogether – so turn up the volume for the video below:

https://www.facebook.com/ Z80ULA/videos/ 1495599280535126/

Wrapping up…

This is the final stretch for the project before it ships, with the molding of the case and keyboard started. With the help of the entire community, grouped around the manual, firmware, games, apps, sourcing of extras such as power supply and SD cards, the discovery of mods to make the Next better… With the help of the community, the Next is happening. Later than scheduled, yes, but around the corner nonetheless.

In the next weeks we’ll be adding smaller updates to the website, FB group and Next Forum with the progress of the molding, as we’re aware the curiosity is running high for the final date and, of course, seeing the Next in the flesh at last. If you are as anxious as we are, you need these updates indeed to bridge the delay we’ve caused to the shipping. The good news is that after all the past adjustments and care, we expect few or no surprises in this last phase of the project. Fingers crossed and…

Stay tuned!