Full screen ZX Spectrum on the Raspberry Pi (2016 version)

The Recreated Spectrum and the ZX Vega are both kind of cool, but you can make a much better modern Spectrum at a much lower cost with a Raspberry PI and a iPazzPort mini keyboard.

If you do this, you get all the keys, and it's wireless and HDMI (unlike the Vega) and you don't need a phone (unlike the Recreated Spectrum).

The challenge is how to get your Spectrum emulator to run in full screen, rather than in a window on the Pi, which rather ruins the effect/

I first posted how to to this in Sept 2012. Things have moved on since then a bit, so here's some updated instructions:

Here's how to get Fuse running full screen.

First thing to say is that it only runs full screen outside of the Pi Desktop (ie via the command prompt).

Step 1) Get a fresh Noobs install.

Set up a new SD card with a fresh NOOBS install. I assume you know how to do this.

Step 2) Download Source

First you need to download the Fuse and libsprectrum source. Do this from the Web browser in on your Pi. Sourceforge is a bit of a pain on the Pi, so at some point I'll add a better direct link.

You can get them from here:

libspectrum: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-emulator/files/libspectrum/1.0.0/libspectrum-1.0.0.tar.gz/download

Fuse: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-emulator/files/fuse/1.0.0.1a/fuse-1.0.0.1a.tar.gz/download

Download them into your home directory. You'll need to unpack them. Just double to open XArchive, and then unarchive each directory.

Step 3) Turn of the desktop

Once you've done this , set you Pi not to boot into the graphical interface (it's in the settings)

Step 4) Change the memory allocation

The next thing you need to do is change the memory allocation so Fuse will compile. Exit the desktop, so your are back at the command prompt.

cd /boot

now you need to edit config.txt.

sudo nano config.txt
add the following line anywhere:

gpu_mem=32

and save.

If you don't know how to use Nano then do a bit of googling!

Step 5. Reboot

Reboot your Raspberry Pi.

Step 6. Get libdl1.2dev

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev

This gets the graphics libraries that are need to run outside of the desktop.

Step 7. Compile it!

cd Downloads (assuming that's where you saved it)

cd libspectrum-1.0.0

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ../fuse-1.0.0.1a

./configure --with-sdl

make

sudo make install

The last step may take a while to run - be patient!

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib

Step 8 Run Fuse

fuse --g 2x

It should start up Spectrum!

Use the function keys to access the menus to load games etc.

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