Messages

1

Software / Sz81 2.1.7 - Portable Sinclair Zx80 And Zx81 Emulator

« on: February 13, 2011, 05:21:20 pm »

Hello

Description

sz81 is a Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 emulator very much based upon the work of Ian Collier's xz80 and Russell Marks's z81 but employing the highly portable SDL and including additional functionality and features for desktop computers and portable devices.

Features

• Virtual keyboard with several adjustable properties
• Control bar with icons for regularly used features
• Load anytime file dialog (no need to use LOAD)
• Save state system with 9 slots for each program
• Runtime options including a joystick configurator
• RAM configurations of 1 to 4, 16, 32, 48 and 56K
• Quicksilva, BI-PAK ZON X-81 and VSYNC-based sound
• Screenshot saving using the bitmap image format
• Joystick control remapping within the emulator
• Full keyboard, mouse and joystick support throughout
• 3x runtime switchable scaling on supported platforms
• Window and fullscreen toggling on supported platforms
• Portrait orientated resolutions such as 240x320
• The ability to run centred within any resolution
• Source code support for *nix, AmigaOS4 and Win32
• Maximum porting potential since it only requires SDL

Changes Since 2.1.6

• Added forced (non-LOAD) program loading via a load file dialog
• Added a save state system for saving and loading sz81 save states
• Moved command-line emulation options to GUI runtime options
• Added support for 1 to 4, 16, 32, 48 and 56K RAM (UDG now works)
• Added the ability to save screenshots via PrtScn (SDLK_PRINT)
• Added support for o, 80, p and 81 program file types
• Added autoloading of ZX80 program files in addition to the ZX81
• Added sequential filenaming for ZX80, printer and screenshot files
• Added a ZX80 BASIC xxxx REM SAVE "progname" filenaming hack
• Added an emulator pause feature via Pause (SDLK_PAUSE)
• Added mouse wheel support, used within the load file dialog
• Added a machine code PipePanic game and a machine code template
• Added the GNU GPL'd Open80 and Open81 source code and ROMs
• Added Win32 support via the _WIN32 preprocessor macro
• Applied several graphical and usability tweaks
• Fixed a couple of bugs

[img]http://www.thunor.org.uk/sz81/images/sz81-2.1.7-05.png\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /] [img]http://www.thunor.org.uk/sz81/images/sz81-2.1.7-06.png\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]
[img]http://www.thunor.org.uk/sz81/images/sz81-2.1.7-07.png\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /] [img]http://www.thunor.org.uk/sz81/images/sz81-2.1.7-04.png\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]

[size=]Screenshots | Downloads | Project Page[/size]

Regards,
Thunor

2

Software / Sz81 2.1.6.1 - Portable Sinclair Zx80 And Zx81 Emulator

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:49:01 pm »

Hello

Well, I thought the forums were gone forever and I was making Zaurus releases for only the most persistent of searchers. It's nice to see them back again.

Description

sz81 is a Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 emulator very much based upon the work of Ian Collier's xz80 and Russell Marks's z81 but employing the highly portable SDL and including additional functionality and features for desktop computers and portable devices.

Features

• Virtual keyboard with adjustable opacity, autohide on newline, sticky shift or toggle shift
• Control bar with access to several regularly used options
• Runtime options including a joystick configurator
• Joystick control remapping within the emulator
• Full keyboard, mouse and joystick support throughout
• Runtime switchable scaling up to 3x on supported platforms
• Toggling between a window and fullscreen on supported platforms
• Support for portrait orientated screens such as 240x320 and 480x640
• The ability to run centred within any resolution
• Maximum porting potential since it only requires SDL

[size=]Screenshots | Downloads | Project Page[/size]

Regards,
Thunor

3

Software / Gnu Robbo 0.65-1 Sharp Rom Zaurus Ipk Released

« on: January 07, 2010, 09:26:17 am »

Hello

I have released probably my last Zaurus update of this great puzzle game. It now comes with some very nice sound effects and a level designer.

This 0.65-1 Zaurus port now features:
* Graphical skin support (although I've only included 1 skin)
* Sound skin support (although I've only included 1 sound theme )
* 975 levels across 23 packs converted from Robbo and Robbo Konstruktor
* A mouse/stylus driven level designer
* In-game help
* Reconfigurable options and controls
* Support for the mouse/stylus throughout the game
* Support for keyboards, analogue and digital joysticks
* Centering of game within any resolution >= 240x240
* Support for locales: English, German, Indonesian, Polish, Russian, Slovak and Swedish

Requirements
libSDL + libSDL_mixer packages for your particular Zaurus version (see here under SDL Libraries perhaps).

About This Port
This project has moved away from simply requiring libSDL and now uses libSDL_image and everything else that that depends upon. To get this working on my SL-5500 and to make it as accesssible as possible to everyone else I've built it requiring libSDL + libSDL_mixer only; I've also converted the ogg sounds to wavs. Therefore only 1 skin and 1 sound theme is packaged because either the other skins use alpha or there was too much work or too many complications involved with converting them to bitmaps.

Once installed the game will play in 240x320, 320x240, 640x480 or 480x640 resolutions and orientations. By default the game viewport is either 240x240 or 480x480 but you can stretch this area by passing "-vpx" on the command line. This is especially useful when using the level designer as you can see more of the map. Additionally if you are using a higher resolution you can also force the use of the smaller tile set with "-ts 16". All these things are documented in the README and you can type "gnurobbo --help" on the command line.

The level packs are installed into the system so are not writeable, but a default user level pack is created in ~/.gnurobbo/levels/ called mylevels.dat. Within this level pack is one pretty empty level that you edit and save, or you can add your own levels to this pack. The project's rcfile is ~/.gnurobborc if you want to see what's in it, but the majority of the properties are configurable via Options.

Well that's it  I've been having a lot of fun using the designer on my SL-5500 with the viewport maximised and you can see the fruits of my labour in 008-Designer. I hope that you will have fun playing and creating with it too.

http://gnurobbo.sourceforge.net/

Best regards,
Thunor

P.S. Just for fun -- and for me a trip down memory lane -- here's my original port back in 2005

4

Software / Gnu Robbo 0.62 Zaurus Sharp Rom Ipk Released

« on: April 22, 2009, 12:05:29 pm »

Thanks much for the application! One minor point on the clamshells, at least my C3100, the OK button doesn't map to confirm. By trial and error (basically pressing all the buttons), I found that the Function key, the two Japanese keys, and the / key can all be used as confirm.

In Cacko, I'm currently using the libsdl_1.2.5-slzaurus20050731 version of libSDL.

Many thanks for telling me this as I can now set the Zaurus Confirm control to something else like SPACE that can be easily reconfigured.

5

Software / Gnu Robbo 0.62 Zaurus Sharp Rom Ipk Released

« on: March 19, 2009, 04:57:40 pm »

wow, it's awesome to see people still doing stuff for the z like this. Way to go and thanks greenknight! I'll have to try this out later.

You're welcome .

I don't know what sort of demand there is for Zaurus software nowadays but I still use my SL-5500, whatever I develop gets tested on it and so I may as well upload it for everybody else

6

Software / Gnu Robbo 0.62 Zaurus Sharp Rom Ipk Released

« on: March 18, 2009, 06:36:21 pm »

Hi again

GNU Robbo Zaurus Sharp ROM ipk now available for download -> http://gnurobbo.sourceforge.net/

0.62 Changes:

* Created Sharp Zaurus Sharp ROM ipk
* Added option to save rcfile on change for battery powered devices
* Modified the exploding bomb to be more similar to Atari Robbo
* Added pixmap fonts and the option to use them over SDL_ttf
* Swedish translation added by Niklas 'Nille' Åkerström
* Slovak translation added by Viliam Búr
* German translation added by Chris Zeiler rabyte_at_gmail.dot.com

Because the README gets buried into /opt/QtPalmtop/share/gnurobbo/ I will paste it here :-

Code: [Select]

Game help and default keys for this device are explained in-game.

Save rcfile < { on exit | on change } >
=======================================

In Options you can now choose to save the rcfile (.gnurobborc) whenever
important settings are changed. You may experience a slight delay whilst
the data is being saved and synced (depending on platform, backup media
type, CPU underclocking etc.) but if you are running GNU Robbo on a
battery powered or generally unstable device then you won't lose your
level progress or your modified settings.


Video Mode Selection
====================

Depending on platform, video mode initialisation works thus :-

* A user requested video mode via the commandline is attempted
* If that fails then the default hi-res 640x480 mode is attempted
* If that fails then the default lo-res 320x240 mode is attempted
* If that fails then the program quits

If you are using a device with a portrait orientated screen or you
prefer this orientation then you should pass it via the commandline :-

e.g. ./gnurobbo -600x800
e.g. ./gnurobbo -480x640
e.g. ./gnurobbo -240x320

Additionally you can pass the -vpx option to expand the viewport to fill
the screen vertically by 40%. See Command Line Options below.


Following is the desktop Linux README which you may find interesting.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

+-------+
| About |
+-------+

GNU Robbo is a free open source reimplementation of Janusz Pelc's Robbo
for the Atari XE/XL which was distributed by LK Avalon in 1989.

+---------+
| History |
+---------+

The first version of Robbo was released in 1989 by LK Avalon, and in a
short time became very popular in "little" Atari's world. Their main
developer Janusz Pelc did a very good job. There are rumours that he
wrote the game just three months before his graduation exam;) In 1990
Janusz Pelc and LK Avalon released their next product -- Robbo
Konstructor -- which enabled people to create their own levels.

In 1991, Maciej Miasik (http://www.linkedin.com/in/tosiabunio) developed
The Adventures of Robbo for XLanD Games -- an updated PC-DOS port
of the Atari version -- and published by Epic Games. In 2006 Maciej
Miasik declared that the idea and code of the PC-DOS version to be
licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic
licence (http://www.miasik.net/archive/2006/06/moje-gry-dla-kazdego/).

I (Alus) just ported it to Linux trying to set Robbo's behaviour as
similar as it is possible. You can still buy Windows version of Robbo
in "LK Avalon", with better graphics and new objects and levels.
Thunor joined the project in 2007 and completely rebuilt first version.
Version 0.60 and above was mostly his job;)

+------------------------------------------+
| A More Complicated History, Allegedly :p |
+------------------------------------------+

Janusz Pelc's company XLanD Games created the Atari Robbo game and it
was distributed by LK Avalon, a promoter of independent developers. In
1991 whilst working for XLanD Games, Maciej Miasik created the PC version.
In 1994 XLanD Games agreed to sell the rights to the PC version to LK
Avalon and then XLanD Games went out of business. Later in 1996, Maciej
Miasik joined LK Avalon and worked on several projects until 2001. In
2006 with the permission of past and present LK Avalon employees he
released the PC version under a Creative Commons licence.

As far as licencing goes, any agreements between Janusz Pelc/XLanD and
LK Avalon regarding the Atari version disappeared with the demise of
XLanD Games, but the GNU Robbo team have been told that the Atari Robbo
game was the property of Janusz Pelc/XLanD Games and Janusz Pelc has no
problems with the existence of the GNU Robbo project.

+--------------+
| Requirements |
+--------------+

libSDL (plus libSDL-devel for source compilation)
Optional: libSDL_ttf (plus libSDL_ttf-devel for source compilation)

Most Linux distributions come pre-installed with libSDL and libSDL_ttf
but you will likely have to install the development versions yourself.

For more information about the SDL libraries, please visit
http://www.libsdl.org/ and http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_ttf/

+--------------+
| Installation |
+--------------+

See COMPILING.

+------+
| Keys |
+------+

Default PC controls :-

    Enter                Confirm
    Cursors                Move
    Cursors + RShift    Shoot
    R                    Restart
    Escape                Exit

All keys are reconfigurable and are listed in Options. Digital and
analogue joysticks are also supported and it's possible to mix input
devices.

+----------------------+
| Command Line Options |
+----------------------+

GNU Robbo version 0.61
Usage: gnurobbo [options]

Options:
    -XRESxYRES    e.g. -800x480
    -ts n        Tile size 16 or 32
    -vpx        Maximise the viewport
    -f            Run the game fullscreen

The tile size of 16 is used in video modes less than 480x480.
On suitably large video modes, maximising the viewport will enable you
to see more of the level but this is considered cheating and is only
meant for level design and testing. Still, if you are interested in
designing levels you may want to try ./gnurobbo -800x600 -ts 16 -vpx

+-------------+
| Level files |
+-------------+

You can create own level files - more details can be found in
original.dat. Don't hesitate to send complete working levels to the
author. If it's sensible, be sure that it will be attached to official
game :-)

In the future I plan to release interface for graphical creating levels.

Homepage of this game is available at: http://gnurobbo.sourceforge.net

-- Alus and Thunor
Regards,
Thunor aka TheGreenKnight

7

Software / Gnu Robbo 0.62 Zaurus Sharp Rom Ipk Released

« on: March 02, 2009, 05:29:28 am »

Hi

Back in 2005 I released a port of GNU Robbo for the Zaurus. Since then I have become a GNU Robbo Sourceforge project developer and have considerably updated the game. The problem for me at the moment is that the project uses SDL_ttf and I have an SL-5500 which I've never been able to find the dev packages for. I can fix this by creating some pixmap fonts but the project is now internationalised, it'll be a lot of work and I have other things to do for the immediate future. So for the moment I am announcing this project as Zaurus ready (it has a Zaurus (Sharp ROM) Makefile and packaging script) and hopefully people with the capability to package it across the various ROMs will bring this to the Zaurus masses

The project is in SVN until tonight when the other developer is going to package the source and place it for download on http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnurobbo .

GNU Robbo 0.61 Changelog:

* Added graphical skin support
* Added a newly created graphical skin: Tronic
* 15 additional levels converted from RobboVII
* 32 additional levels converted from RobboVIII
* 32 additional levels converted from RobboIX
* Added in-game help
* Added reconfigurable options
* Added reconfigurable controls
* Added analogue and digital joystick support
* Added centering of game within any resolution
* Added support for different locales
* Added a Polish translation
* Many bug fixes

Requirements:

libSDL
libSDL_ttf

Regards,
Thunor aka TheGreenKnight

8

Software / New: Friq For The Sharp Zaurus

« on: September 13, 2007, 08:56:29 am »

libSDL_mixer link does not work for me (but I found it by googling).

Thanks for the game.

James

Thanks James for mentioning it.

For some reason I failed to ftp up the libraries  

They're there now.

Cheers.

9

Software / New: Friq For The Sharp Zaurus

« on: September 10, 2007, 07:27:12 pm »

Thanks for the feedback.

The volume can be adjusted via the volume control keys: Menu Application Key (-) and Mail Application Key (+). The music can be disabled by placing an empty music.txt file within the rc folder ~/.friq/

If you need help, the Zaurus README is available on the download page next to the ipk link. Also look inside /opt/QtPalmtop/share/friq/ and you'll find the READMEs for the Zaurus and the original GP2X game (which explains about the music.txt file). I should have mentioned this sooner.

I've spent the last several days making this GP2X game a stable cross-platform port and have enhanced it somewhat over the original, but other than that I won't be adding anything else to it. I ported it because the gameplay was worth the effort and I still use my SL-5500 Zaurus

I trust it scaled up and worked as intended on VGA models. I'd be interested to know what the fps is at 640x480: open a console and type "friq -fps". The original author capped it at 55 so it won't go any higher than that.

Regards,
Thunor

10

Software / New: Friq For The Sharp Zaurus

« on: September 10, 2007, 09:23:21 am »

Hi

I've just ported Friq from the GP2X to the Sharp Zaurus. It'll run on 320x240 and 640x480 models.

I've built an ipk for the Sharp ROM but the source is available and it would be very simple building it for something else.

I've tested it on my SL-5500 but have simulated 640x480 on my PC.

Please download it from here -> http://thunor.org.uk/friq

Requirements are libSDL and libSDL_mixer, available from my site too if you don't already have them.

I welcome your feedback.

Regards,
Thunor

P.S. I'm using this old account because my new one won't let me start a topic.

11

Software / New Game Release For All Zaurii And Linux Pcs

« on: May 17, 2006, 05:37:13 am »

Ok cheers for the info Greg.

12

Software / New Game Release For All Zaurii And Linux Pcs

« on: May 16, 2006, 05:05:00 pm »

Hi

I've created an ARM binary tarball for download and attached it.

Am I correct in assuming that this will work on all Zaurus ROMs? I don't know much at all about non-Sharp ROMs and I would like to know the answer to this question. Isn't the difference mainly the directory structure as far as installation goes? This information would assist me with future projects.

Regards,
tgk

13

Software / New Game Release For All Zaurii And Linux Pcs

« on: May 15, 2006, 06:16:50 pm »

Man!  sweeet!

both games work on my c3200 at 640x480.

Very proffesional looking games.  It's up there with Lgames.  I am not sure if any library is needed but i do use all the zports sdl ipk files.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127171\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Thanks for saying it works on the C Series  It just needs libSDL and you have the right one.

I've got 4 more games I've created before in Javascript and Flash that I want to convert to SDL so I'm going to move on to a new project now.

Cheers,
TGK

14

Software / New Game Release For All Zaurii And Linux Pcs

« on: May 15, 2006, 10:26:19 am »

It would be nice if people with a Zaurus that isn't an SL-5500 could confirm that it works please

I'm only assuming it does at this stage. Just state that it works and which model you have.

Cheers,
TheGreenKnight

15

Software / New Game Release For All Zaurii And Linux Pcs

« on: May 15, 2006, 09:54:57 am »

Is it Open Source? If so I would like to compile for OpenZaurus.
[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Yes it is open source.

Source code licence: GNU GPL v2
Artwork licence: Free Art Licence

Download the source, and if you have the default ARM development environment set-up then simply typing 'make -f Makefile.arm' will compile it and create an ipk. In any case you can edit the simple Makefile and use CC LINK CFLAGS LDFLAGS LIBS appropriate to you.

handheld-linux: I will add it to the Zaurus Index.

My thunor.org.uk domain name seems to be unresponsive at the moment. If you are having trouble getting my site to load go directly via [a href=\"http://www.users.waitrose.com/~thunor/pipepanic/]http://www.users.waitrose.com/~thunor/pipepanic/[/url]

Regards.