The colour LED may flicker during multi tasking and show a mixed colour depending on the
active background instances.
Extended SAVE
From release 1.9 the user can store a complete instance rather with whole RAM content (56k
from 8192-65535) and load such a complete instance later and continue at the interrupted
instruction. Normally ZX81 programs are saved only partly with a part of system variables,
program and defined variables but no further memory areas or stack or similar.
Storing a complete instance can be done with the normale „SAVE“ (DS-S) and choosing a file
extension with .BAK. In the same way instances can be loaded with DS-L and will be
automatically continued right after loading. This is an easy way to do complete instance
backups and save the work completely.
Especially after complex or time-consuming configurations with loading different drivers to
different memory areas or during testing this may be a very comfortable feature. It is even
possible to clone complete instances while storing instance 2 and load it into instance 3 in
parallel or to store a game not finished yet or similar tasks.
System backup and restore
In the same way as described for single instances it is possible to do a complete system
backup of ZXmore with all instances and to easy restore after power-on. There are 2 new
options in tools menu in instance 0 (ZXmaster), named backup and restore.
The data is stored into a single file with fixed name (ZXMASTER.BAK) and will be restored on
request. Only active (running) instances will be stored resulting in 56 to 392 kByte size
depending on the configuration. Backup is available in tools menu only in instance 0.
Restore is possible either with selecting restore from the tools menu or even a bit faster while
pressing NEWLINE during reset or while powering-on. If a cold start was requested or after a
longer time power-off the screen with version info is printed first. If NEWLINE is pressed as
any key the restore is called, if pressing any other key it will not be restored automatically.
Storing will take some time depening on speed of USB flash media as well but can be
calculated with approx. 2 seconds per instance or up to 15 seconds for all instances or maybe
even longer. There is no video display available during backup or restore due to technical
reasons (FAST mode). Loading sytem backup (restore) will take about half of that time, so 1 to
7 seconds depending on how many instances are choosen for backup.
VDRIVE interface
Release 1.9 has a very first implementation of the VDRIVE interface which requires a small
driver (ZXMVDRIV.ROM). This driver has to be loaded manually to address 8192 at RAM or
programmed in flash ROM and supports 3 entry points:
8192 (BASIC interaktiv)
8195 (BASIC program)
8198 (machine program /USR)
The syntax for all 3 entry points identically and supports following commands:
L FILE.P
L DRIVER.BIN,32768
S FILE.P
S MEMORY.BIN,$8000,$4000
V1.9 - 06/2016
ZXmore & ZXmaster – user manual
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