DivTIESUS 4.0 Pijus Magnificus Edition

Description

DivTIESUS is an independent design that implements the famous DivMMC by Mario Prato in its very own way.

It has a dedicated webpage, at http://www.zxprojects.com/divtiesus/

It is a DivMMC compatible interface with 8 KiB of EEPROM and 512 KiB of RAM. Standard utils for EEPROM flashing, as provided by the ESXDOS team, are compatible with DivTIESUS.

It features model autodetection. This means you don’t need to put a jumper, or flip a switch to change from using it with a Spectrum 48K/128K to a +3 and vicerversa.

Tested with ZX Spectrum 48K issue 1, 2, 3, 3B, 4A, 4B and 6A. NEC and Hitachi ROM chips. Also tested on Inves Spectrum, Spectrum 128K (both english and spanish versions), +2 grey, +2A, +2B, +3 and Harlequin 48K. Reported compatible with TK90X also.

It uses its own fast clock (25 MHz). It does not need the CPU clock at all.

Rear expansion port continuation, allowing the user to plug another device. Note that ROMCS and other signals are not filtered.

NMI button to call file browser in ESXDOS, and handy RESET button. The RESET button is placed so that it won’t be accidentally pressed while operating the interface.

Uses a MicroSD socket. Most popular SD format for bigger capacity cards.

NEW in v4.0! Now you have a second MicroSD card socket that can be used in both ESXDOS and +3e. Just boot ESXDOS with two cards inserted. From the BASIC prompt, you can issue CAT hd1 (CAT is obtained switching to EXT MODE, then SYMBOL SHIFT + 9). To make the second MicroSD card the default one for dot commands and NMI browser, issue GO TO hd1

A single switch is used to indicate DivTIESUS that the EEPROM can be flashed (JP2 equivalent) and the automapping feature is disabled.

Visual feedback for SD activity (blue LED), update EEPROM mode (red LED), and Wifi send/receive.

ESXDOS shadowing does not collide with all-RAM feature in +2A/B/3 machines. If the system is in all-RAM mode, ESXDOS ROM mapping is disabled.

128K BASIC compatible. It is possible to enter 128K mode (using the dot command .128) and enter 128K BASIC, issue direct commands, run dot commands, load and save programs, invoke NMI file selector, etc, in a stable way. No reset/crashing the computer.

Soft +3E feature: DivTIESUS is able to load +3E ROM images from the SD card, install them as the system ROM (using its own RAM), and make them available to the computer, while disabling the automapping feature (needed for ESXDOS but not for +3eDOS). This, effectively, allows the user to operate his/her +2A/B/3 machine as a +2e/3e one, all without having to open the case and exchange ROMs. A new DivTIESUS exclusive dot command, “.go3e” makes this possible.

Soft ROM feature: the soft +3E feature can also be used to load any 16K, 32K or 64K ROM and make the computer to boot with that ROM (the dot command currently supports only 16K ROMs). This means that ROM images for some util/games available for the Spectrum can be run in their original form. No need to have a +2A/B/3 machine to use them.

DB9 male joystick connector, located at the right of the interface. It is wired as Atari joystick port with support for two fire buttons (pins 6 and 9). The joystick is read as Kempston joystick.

The joystick interface supports Sega Megadrive pads (buttons B and C are available).

PS/2 connector for a mouse, emulated as Kempston mouse. Emulation can be disabled (for games that use weird ports for reading Kempston joystick), and L/R buttons can be interchanged (for some russian software that uses the R button as primary mouse button). A dot command “.mouse” can be used to configure Kempston mouse emulation if needed.

Wifi module, software compatible with the ZX-UNO wifi module and Nihirash utilities/network clients. A new dot command, “.wconf”, specially written for DivTIESUS, allows for easy configuration and wifi hotspot searching.

ESXDOS supported RTC module, and utilities to set the current date both manual way, or by using the .ntpdate dot command, which retrieves the current time and date from a NTP server (the wifi module must be configured and connected to the internet to allow this).

Hard rubber feet for more stable operation.

CMOS circuits. Very low current comsumption.

NEW in v4.0: a nice colourful fiberglass cover for the electronics, featuring the DivTIESUS logo, the ZX Projects logo in gold (ENIG coating), and the “shut up and take my money” meme with Fry, but replacing the wad of bills for a few coins, symbolizing that you may want DivTIESUS badly, but won’t have to spend a lot of money on it.

Designed and manufactured by Miguel Angel Rodríguez Jódar, aka McLeod/IdeaFix, in his own facilities (i.e. a small work room at home), at the city of Xerez de la Frontera (home of Sherry), in the sunny Andalusia, southern Spain.

McLeod/IdeaFix is known in the Spectrum community for being one of the core members of the ZX UNO team, which brought the ZX-UNO 4.1 FPGA board to you. He is the author of the ZX Spectrum core. Besides, he wrote the SAM Coupé, Amstrad CPC 464 and Jupiter ACE cores. DivTIESUS has, in its small CPLD heart, some of the advanced technology that brought ZX-UNO to life. Some of the very last recent additions to both ZX-UNO and ZX-TRES (Wifi and RTC module) have been adopted by DivTIESUS.

ESXDOS is (c)2005-2021 Papaya Dezign.

DivMMC is (c)2013 Mario Prato, a derivated design from the work by Alessandro Dorigati, Miguel Guerreiro and Mario Prato himself. The complete history can be read from Ben Veersteg, here: https://www.spectrumforeveryone.com/features/history-esxdos-divmmc-divmmc-enjoy/

Rest of trademarks are property of their respective owners.