Björn's Blog

Very quick update... Progress is a bit slow right now, mostly because I've been pretty busy with job and lectures, and putting mouse support into the FUSE widget library has proven to be quite a big task, simply because there are so many widgets that need to be touched, one by one. Also, I'll be on holiday starting tomorrow until Monday, so no work until then.

I guess I'm about 80% through with the widget mouse support; once I'm finished, sound and Kempston support need to be fixed, the title screen put in (thanks Mr_Nick666!), and ICEknigh7's excellent control suggestions need to be put in. After that, I'm done

I've withdrawn the huge patch to the regular FUSE codebase (too large, touched too many different areas and contained some bugs) and will re-submit the parts one by one once I'm completely done.

Sorry for the delay, folks.

Last night I integrated my changes with the SVN version of FUSE and sent a patch to Richard Kendall. This means that

• if the patch is accepted, the sources will soon be available from the main FUSE site
• TZXs and TAPs should load at maximum speed; haven't tested that
• all subsequent FUSE development will be in the Wii port as well.

Just thought I'd share those good news. Currently I'm working on getting Wiimote pointer support for the menus, then I'll make different controller schemes (Wiimote sideways left-handed and right-handed, Wiimote+Nunchuk, Classic Controller), then I'll fix the sound issue, and then I'm ready for a final release.

BTW, if somebody wants to help, you can:

• make a pretty loading screen (in SCREEN$ format) or
• give me a Classic Controller because I don't have one and writing support for it without being able to test it is a bitch :-)

I'm releasing a preview of FUSE for the Wii. It still has a couple bugs and lacks a couple features, but it's very useable.

FUSE is the Free Unix Spectrum Emulator by Philip Kendall, an emulator for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a home computer that was very popular in the 80s. For more information (and thousands of games!), see World of Spectrum.

You can download it here. Just unpack the archive under /apps on your SD card and run it.

Most Spectrum software assumes you have a keyboard attached (since the original Spectrum is an all-in-one home computer). FUSE for the Wii supports USB keyboards. You will probably need one.

When you run FUSE, you get the Spectrum 48K boot screen. You can now attach a USB keyboard and write BASIC programs!

You can also push the HOME button on your Wiimote. This brings up a menu that you can use to load Spectrum games from SD card. The A button selects a menu entry, the B button brings you up one menu. You should also tell FUSE to use your Wiimote as a Sinclair Joystick: Options->Joysticks->Joystick 1->Sinclair Joystick

Now, when you start a game, tell the game to use the Sinclair interface. Hold the Wiimote sideways so the 1&2 buttons are on the
right. The directional pad is your joystick, 2 is Fire button 1, 1 is Fire button 2.

To quit FUSE, bring up the menu and select File->Exit, press A on the question whether you really want to quit.

Have fun and direct any and all questions to me!

Just a quick update on the port of the FUSE port to the Wii. Shagkur helped me get sound running yesterday, which also fixed the annoying pause in emulation every couple seconds. Next, I'm going to take my modifications (made to FUSE 0.9.0) and port them to SVN FUSE. Then I'll fix some remaining crashes on some menu entries and post a preview release.

For the final release, I'll implement menu control via Wiimote pointing (already kinda working), tweak some cosmetics and put in a splash screen.

Since the name WiiFuse is already taken, should I call it Spekko?

I've started to port FUSE, the Free UNIX Spectrum Emulator, to the Nintendo Wii. What's it do? It emulates a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (or Timex, or 128/+2/+3/...) Here's a video of the first results: