PC Shareware 1996 December/PC_Shareware-1996-12.iso/windows/spectrum/docs/wspecem.txt

Text File | 1996-06-06 | 15.1 KB | 419 lines

WSpecEm v1.11 - 02/06/96 Rui Ribeiro

    WSpecEm is a 48k Spectrum emulator that runs under Microsoft Windows.
It emulates successfully a Model 2 or Model 3 Speccy. I developed it over a
5-month period as my final year project, at University of West of England,
Bristol, England. I'm here as an Erasmus student
(ECC foreign interchange student).



    Features implemented:
    ---------------------

. F4 as pause (v1.11);

. emulator display frame rate definable (v1.10). Essential to run it on
slower machines;

. emulator has delay configurable by user (v1.10). Essential with new
routines;

. ghost keys (aka ghost closures -- v1.03 -- they were documented but not
        introduced with v1.01 due to a lapse);

. save the current Spectrum screen as a PCX file; (v1.01)


. handles .BLK tape files (v1.01 - a bug prevented it from working before
            this version);

. all the Z80 undocumented instructions [that I'm aware of, at least];

. exact R register emulation;

. exact T state cycle timing in Z80 engine;

. kempston joystick as cursor keys with Fire as CTRL (if NUM LOCK off, the
numeric keypad will work as a kempston joystick);

. Sinclair joystick as numeric keypad if NUM LOCK on
(8 up, 2 down, 4 left, 6 rigth , 0 and 5 are both fire);

. recognises Windows'95 longfilenames;

. deals with ACH, PRG, SCR, SIT, SLT, SP, SNA, SNX, RAW, TAP, Z80,
ZX and ROM spectrum related emulator files;

. ED FB level loader trap supported (aka .DAT files);

. files may be loaded by drag-and-drop, double-clicking or with the File
open menu;

. short-cut load and save keys, a' la Z80 (F2 - save and F3 - load,
                       F5 - reset);

. maps the Spectrum keyboard in the PC keyboard, with some extra pc-keys:

        ESC         : Caps-shif+SPACE      (CTRL-BREAK in a Speccy)
        BACKSPACE   : same as Caps-shift+0 (DELETE in a Speccy)
        LEFT  SHIFT : same as Caps-shift
        RIGHT SHIFT : same as Symbol-shift
        TAB         : same as Caps-shift + Symbol-shift (Cursor E)

        +,-,*,/ extended keys, operate as their Spectrum Plus
        counterparts;

. pause, reset, nmi functions;

. sound generation through PC speaker;

. sound, flash, issue 3 or issue 2 control options;

. capability of saving options;

. WinG high-speed pixmap transfer;

. resize to 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 size for optimum speed under WinG;

. poke menu;

. easy of use;

. enclosed DOS utility to sample Spectrum tapes in a PC as a .TAP file through a SoundBlaster
or the printer port;

. free, complete and commented sources available under GNU policy.



    Features not implemented:
    -------------------------


. Border;

. High Colour Resolution (also known as cropping);

. Sound as WAVEFORM;

. Pasting on clipboard;

. does not save .TAP and .SLT files;

. trapping of the LOAD and SAVE routines to save blocks as files on disk
 'a la Xtender;

. .BMP files --- the code is at the end of WSpecem.C, but is somehow
flawed -- if you can put that to work, drop a line :) Of course you'll get
credits for that.

. TAP editor;

. built-in debugger;

. interface I emulation;

. output to printer;

. using a real joystick;

. 128k compatibility.



    Third Party Copyrighted Material
    --------------------------------


ZX Spectrum 1982 ROM from AMSTRAD.
Thanks to AMSTRAD for granting permission to it's use within software
emulators.

WinG copyrighted Microsoft.

If you want to know the snapshots that work with WSpecem, look at all the .Z80
files at snaplist.txt. I checked now the .TAP files, and they're also OK.

    Tips
    ----


. If the application is not working, first make sure you have properly
installed the WinG drivers. If you did,  make sure you have the multimedia
drivers installed (a sure fire way of doing that is by installing the Media
Player Windows utility) -- remember that I am talking about video drivers,
in windows'95 you can also deinstall install the multimedia video drivers,
so make sure you get them installed -- if you still want to check it out,
find a little AVI file and see if you can play it;

. a 8 colour screen depth (256 colours) mode is recommended for optimum
speed. If you want it faster and bigger, decrease the windows screen
resolution;

. run it under the menu sizes 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 or you'll surely get very
slow graphics transfer speed;

. to get a faster emulation and smoother sound quit all applications that
you can, disable screen savers and remove any windows background bitmaps;

. to get a decent speed in the emulator, I recommend a Pentium or equivalent
processor (altough I suspect it working reasonably with a 50 Mhz 486) --- err
currently with version 1.10 I think the 50MHz 486 is really true;

. and of course 8Mb or more for overall windows performance;

. if you still don't have a good speed, try decreasing the frame n/50 option
at Options->Speed menu, and disable the flash option at Options menu;

. if by the contrary, you have too much speed, put frame n/50 option at
Options-Speed menu to 1, and if that doesn't still help you, go to
Options-> Speed menu and start increasing the Delay number;

. double-clicking in a .SCR file will not do any good, since
WSpecem will reset itself upon boot;

. If you're using 16 colours, sometimes the subset of the palette chosen by
Windows for WSpecEm is flawed. If this happens, you'll have to shutdown and
boot Windows again;

. If a key gets stuck, press it again. That should solve the problem. A key
can became stuck if you press it down, select the a Windows menu and release
it before leaving the menu;

. Sometimes, when you are using the extended keys, you can get only one key
instead of the combination of them (e.g. when pressing DELETE you get 0).
This is a Spectrum ROM related bug and was also present on the real machines;

. If you have problems with SHIFT keys stuck trying to get the E cursor, use
TAB instead to get the E cursor -- this problem is more likely to occur under
Windows 95 than Windows 3.x;

. if you load a ROM, it will be used untill you load another ROM on the
emulator;

. if the emulator presents a message he couldn't load a ROM, thats because
the spectrum.rom file is not on the directory of WSpecem.exe file. Following
that message you can load your own ROM file;

. to load a .TAP or .BLK contents (binary image files of Spectrum tapes),
do File->Open to the corresponding file, and then tape LOAD"" (j SHIFT-P
SHIFT-P ENTER).



    About the original author
    -------------------------


    Rui Fernando Ferreira Ribeiro

        [e-mail] (until mid-end of June 1996)
        [e-mail]

            (both emails address subject to change after 1996)


    If you would like to embark in technical discussions or exchanging
ideias, sugestions...you're welcome to send me a message. I can read
Portuguese, English, Spanish and French (I also understand a bit of
Italian: you can try to write, but I cannot assure you that I'll fully
understand the message).

    I can reply in English or Portuguese. My Spanish is very fragmented
and I must undergo great pains to write in French. No snapshots or software
requests, please. Also if you're reporting problems, be sure to include the
program version number, please.

    I would to find a job after mid-June 1996 (in my own country or
anywhere in the world, really that doesn't matter as long I'll get fairly
paid), so I cannot assure replying to messages after that date (well, that
is IF I'll get any messages at all). And if you are wondering, yes, I
already worked for 3 years at a Software House and since then in several
part-times... I even have been building computers from components for a
short while and selling them to friends.

    Would you like to send me a postcard with a theme from your country,
to improve my collection? Please do not send emails, if you just want to
congratulate me or tell me the emulator is good (sorry, already receive too
many of them). Worst, I also received some binary pictures by email. Avoid
this also, this really is annoying me.

    My address in Portugal is:

    Av. Carvalha, 280 3o. Dt
    P-4420 Gondomar
    Portugal


    And in England until 24 of June:

    27B Carrol Court
    University of West of England
    ColdHarbour Lane
    Bristol
    BS16 1QY
    United Kingdom

    If you like reading, read also the file tape2tap.txt. It has a few
more details about myself and will explain you how to read Spectrum tape
files.

    Finally, I sincerelly hope this software will be of any use to you.

    Best regards,
         Rui

------------------------------------------------------------------
        WING NOTES FROM MICROSOFT
------------------------------------------------------------------

Known Bugs And Limitations
--------------------------
The following are known problems with or useful tidbits of information
about WinG version 1.0.

- On Windows 3.1, WinGBitmaps must be 8 bits per pixel and must be
  created with full 256 entry color tables.

- WinGDCs are NOT palette devices. You must change their color tables
  using WinGSetDIBColorTable, not SelectPalette.

- WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt only support bltting from WinGDCs to the
  screen.

- Using BitBlt and StretchBlt to blt from one WinGDC to
  another can be very slow when a clipping region has been
  selected into the destination.

- WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt may return different values than
  StretchDIBits for identical blts.

- A few GDI APIs do not work correctly with WinGDCs:

    StretchDIBits will not blt 24bpp and 16bpp DIBs into an 8bpp WinGDC.
    FloodFill with a NULL brush draws incorrectly
    FloodFill outside of the bounds of a WinGBitmap can flood the
      entire image
    Brushes created with CreatePatternBrush with a WinGBitmap fault when
      selected into a WinGDC on Win3x - use CreateBitmap(8,8,1,8,0)
    DrawIcon will crash
    WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt will not always blt to the correct
      location when you have changed the Viewport and/or Window origins
      using SetViewportOrg or SetWindowOrg.

- You cannot change the origin of halftone brushes created by WinG.

- Noticeable timing differences have been found while running the
  WinG profiler on a computer connected to a network. For accurate
  results, disconnect your computer from the network the first time you
  run a WinG application. After the profile is complete, you can plug the
  net in again. NOTE: Microsoft is not liable for any damage you may
  incur by incorrect handling of your computer hardware.

- WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt use a slightly different color matching
  algorithm than StretchDIBits when blting an 8-bit image to a 4-bit
  planar display such as a standard VGA. Mixing WinG and
  StretchDIBits on these displays may produce odd results.

- WinG relies on the mmsystem timer drivers to determine display
  performance. If mmsystem.dll and timer.drv are not installed
  correctly, the results of the performance test may be incorrect.
  mmsystem.dll should appear on the drivers= line of the [boot]
  section of system.ini, and timer=timer.drv should appear in the
  [drivers] section of system.ini.

- WinG version 1.0 does not yet use standard DCI because of time
  constraints.

- "Just In Time" debuggers install a fault handler in a chain along
  with the WinG display performance profiler. If your debugger
  reports a fault during the WinG display performance test, pass the
  fault on to Windows instead of invoking your debugger.


Driver-Specific Problems
------------------------
WinG depends on Windows display drivers written by independant
hardware manufacturers for much of its speed. Bugs or performance
problems in third-party display drivers may cause problems in WinG.
In many cases, the video card manufacturer has already fixed the bug,
and upgrading your display driver will often clear away problems.

There are some specific "bugs" in display drivers of which you should
be aware. The list below is not intended to slight the manufacturer
of any particular card or driver.

A list of stress-tested configurations is available on the CompuServe
WINMM forum and ftp.microsoft.com.

Some names in this list are trademarks of the respective
manufacturer.

- Early drivers for Diamond Viper cards included a "Power Palette"
  option that is no longer supported by Diamond. They recommend that
  you upgrade your drivers if you have this option. WinG may be
  slower when power palette is enabled.

- IBM no longer supports the IBM ThinkPad 720c. There are some
  problems using WinG with the ThinkPad 720c display drivers.

- Cirrus drivers before version 1.43 have many known bugs which
  have been fixed in the more recent drivers. Be sure to upgrade your
  drivers if you are still running with this version.

- Some ATI drivers offer a "Crystal Fonts" option. Turning Crystal
  Fonts on in 8-bit modes sets up a non-palettized driver that can
  slow WinG significantly.

- The ATI mach8 Radical drivers cause a number of problems in both
  WinG and in Windows with some versions of the ATI chipset. Be
  aware.

- The ATI VGA Wonder drivers (W31-*.drv) will crash during a call to
  StretchDIBits in the profiler.  Users can run the SVGA256.DRV driver
  that shipped with Windows.

- Many miro Crystal drivers have problems with StretchDIBits, so they
  crash during profiling.

- Early ATI Mach 32 PCI cards have a hardware timing problem and will
  hang while blting.  ATI will replace these cards for no cost.

- WinG is incompatible with the #9GXE "TurboCopy" mode.  Use the
  #9 control panel to disable TurboCopy (it is off by default).

- WinG uses a GetPixel to synchronize with display hardware when
  writing directly to the screen.  The ATI Mach 32 driver's GetPixel
  does not work properly, so it is possible to use GDI to draw to
  the screen, then use WinG to blt to the screen and have them overwrite
  each other.  Be careful mixing GDI drawing commands and WinG blts
  to the display.

- The Orchid mmtllo.drv driver for the Prodesigner IIs has duplicate
  system colors which prevents applications from getting an identity
  palette and greatly reduces the WinG blt speed.  A workaround is
  to set SYSPAL_NOSTATIC mode or use standard the Tseng ET4000 drivers
  instead of the mmtllo drivers.


A Note on Speed
---------------
WinG is designed to be the absolute fastest way to blt DIBs under
Windows.  The goal, achieved in many cases, is to blt at memory
bandwidth to the display device.

On most 8bpp devices, if you use the recommended DIB format (returned
by WinGRecommendDIBFormat) and set up correct identity palette, you
should get 1:1 blt speeds comparable to BitBlt, which blts device
dependent bitmaps (DDBs) to the display.  The timewing sample
application will show you various blt speeds on your display.

The WinGRecommendDIBFormat API will tell you whether to use top-down
or bottom-up DIBs for fastest unclipped 1:1 identity palette blts. If
you plan on using other types of blt (such as stretching or complex
clipping), your application may want to time top-down versus
bottom-up blts itself at run time. See the WinG help file for more
information.