pouët.net

Commodore users have at least 3 different platforms here at pouet:

Commodore64 (a classic one)
C16/116/plus4
C64 DTV

But ZX Spectrum doesn't. In the same time there is ZX Spectrum 48, ZX Spectrum 128 prods and nowadays we can see more and more prods for advanced ZX Spectrum hardware with 24Mhz accelerators (NeoGS), new hardware graphics modes as "16colors per dot", TSFM soundchips, etc.

Maybe we must add more platforms and split ZX prods to different cathegories which can help people to understand all the variety of ZX Spectrum prods?

My offer is:
1. To rename "ZX Spectrum" platform into "ZX Spectrum 128"
2. To add platforms "ZX Spectrum 48", "ZX Spectrum Enhanced".

also i can take gloperator function to subdivide ZX Spectrum prods or make the prodlist with the subdivision information.

Gasman, Factor 6, Yerzmyey and others, what do you think?

also i can draw new platform icons :)

Definitely. The stuff that require the unlicensed speccy clones such as Scorpion / Pentagon should be diffrentiated from the 48 / 128 stuff, which also are somewhat incompatible (128 has different sound chip and more memory).

And what about Spectrum 16K? :P

yes it would make sense to divide the platform.

Dividing the ZX Spectrum Category definitely makes sense ... my approach would be the following 3 subcategories:

- ZX Spectrum - Sinclair/Timex,
- ZX Spectrum - Clone (Pentagon, Scorpion, etc ... as they have different timings, diffrent memory layouts, different registers)
- ZX Spectrum - Enhanced (demos which require 7MHz, 16c, [Neo]GS, DivIDE, TSFM and/or massively improved clones like the Sprinter/ATM Turbo/etc.)

Sounds like a good plan ... has happened a few times already, that demos crashed halfway through and/or showed errors because I ran russian demos designed for the original Spectrum in unrealspeccy (which is designed for Pentagon/Scorpion/ATM)

Yes, more categories for sure. Purely selfish reasons, of course.

It'd be very nice if it was easy to find stuff that runs on my 48k.

In my part of the world, it's almost like they never sold the 128k - I've never actually seen one in the flesh!

It's about time to introduce tags.

kusma has leading

If tags are implemented, someone's going to have to write something to merge the existing categories to ones with tags anyway, right? =)

Diver: I would be resonable, I think. However my proposition would be:
1) Spectrum 48K
2) Spectrum 128K / Pentagon
3) Pentagon SL / ATM Turbo and other 'monsters'.


Visy: 48K and 128K models are far more different each other than Pentagon and Spectrum 128K are, btw. But of course Pentagon SL is a different matter.
But with 128K and normal Pentagon - it's actually impossible to state for 100% which prod was for classic Pentagon. All of them works also on 128K but with broken timing. So You could see whole demo on regular 128K however it would look bad. Is it for Pentagon only then? Or still on 128K? In some demos only last effects are timed for Pentagon only. Another problem then.


Exin: there are only two demos for Spectrum 16K and both are mine actually, so I dunno if there is a point. Well, maybe, because Gasman in our last meeting 2 days ago mentioned about his intention to make one more. I can't say.

Ript: remember that 90% of 48K demos require AY/YM interface http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/spectrum/spectrum_sounds.html
I subdivided these demos on my ZX48K portal http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/ however I would be against dividing it on POUET.


Shockwav3: I would be rather against dividing demos with a factor of soundcard used. For instance our demos for ZX with general Sound http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=10531 and http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=33435 are actually for ZX Spectrum 128K. If somebody has a General Sound - he will switch the music on the GS.
Also the first one can be switched on Pentagon's timing and the first part of the second one goes even on 48K, if I recall.


As You can see - the problem might be much wider than it seems at the start.
Thanx to CCCP and then - thanx to Russia - development of ZX Spectrum was very fluent, exactly like in PC case, so it will be hard work to split it all. PC demos here are also divided only into DOS and Windows.

Anyway - my humble proposition is on the start of my post, You might consider it. :)

Exin, yeah! ZX Spectrum 16k is needed too, but tell me some demos for that hardware!

visy, Shockwav3. yes, i understand it's bad to run russian demo on original spectrum and get a crash. BUT:
1. all the clones such as Pentagon, Leningrad, Profi (many different versions), Scorpion, ATMs, etc. disigned as compatible computers in general and there is huge amount of demos which runs everywhere.
2. don't forget about ZX Spectrum +2/+2A/3, etc. does they fully compatible? i think no, multicolor effects needs to be fixed, same thing in russian clones.
3. this is a normal situation when demo works fine on all clones. I think this is must be a SINGLE platform "ZX Spectrum 128k" but not two platforms "Sinclair/Timex"+"Clone".

16K demos:
http://hooyprogram.republika.pl/rubber_demo.zip
http://hooyprogram.republika.pl/rubber2.zip
and only one of them is on POUET.
So I don't think it's a point to make a separate category here. They might be connected with 48K.
Ah, I don't know. I even didn't add the "RF2" demo to POUET because it's rather pointless for me.
Hm.

YERZMYEY, thanks for an answer! generally i'm agree with you.

i think that the 3 cathegories (48k, 128k, enhanced) is enough for start. Pentagon/Scorpion/Profi/Original clones subdivision is too complicated and unclear.

As I've said for years; subcategories!

Yes! Good idea. Other platforms have such distinctions, so why not ZX? Especially considering it's popularity. Amiga is divided into OCS, AGA and RTG. Atari has ST, STe and Falcon. Sure *some* prods will run on all spec. machines, but most don't.

I agree, ZX should have categories for 48k, 128k and expanded.

The "48k / 128k / russian uberspeccy" split has my vote, too.

Yes, all the Ataris compatible with the prod are added to the prods plateform list. Works fine.

I completely agree with Yerzmyey... the division between 48/128 is a more meaningful one than 128/Pentagon.

For me, the key point is that even if the 128 and Pentagon are not 100% compatible, they have the same general feature set. A coder might make a conscious choice to use the 128 feature set in a demo, and for me that's what makes it a distinct platform from the 48.

As a fairly crap analogy, you can think of 128 and Pentagon like ATi and Nvidia. There are some demos out there which only work on one or the other, but nobody ever said "I'm going to write an Nvidia demo."


(and yes, 16K doesn't need its own category right now - for me it feels more of a curiosity, a theoretical challenge like "can I make a demo entirely in black and white" than a platform in its own right.)

gasman thanks for an answer. the PC graphics cards analogy is fits perfectly here.

i dont think it matters whether there's only one or more demos for some specific platform, if the platform is unique then it should have it's own category/tag.

I thought the difference between the 16k and 48k is just RAM (putting aside the fact that 16k demos would just plain run slower because you can't put the code outside contended memory) ... I may or may not know what I'm talking about, though.

i think TAP and non-TAP would be differentiation enough

Ript: there is not only this. 16K is also much slower than 48K (not to mention 128K and highers) as it has a slow-ram only. Also moving in the slow-ram area often causes many troubles with some hard do avoid "noise" on the screen. Ah, this machine is a living trouble. ;)

Yerzmyey: I didn't know about the noise on the screen. That would make things hard... but it's nice to know I'm not entirely full of crap (contended memory = slow-ram) Is there any difference in actual hardware, apart from RAM?

The only thing I've coded on 48k is a vblank interrupt and a crappy loading screen for the basic tape loader, so I'm not exactly qualified to know these things ;)

Thanks for the links before, by the way. I've actually found your 48k demo page before. Nice work.

BTW, we're pouet neighbours! Exactly 1h30 between when we signed up!