Threetwosevensixseven / ZeusNexFileExample

ZX Spectrum Next demo demonstrating creating .NEX files in the Zeus Assembler

ZeusNexFileExample

ZX Spectrum Next demo demonstrating creating .NEX files in the Zeus assembler.

Introduction

This ZX Spectrum Next demo demonstrates:

• Creating .NEX files in Zeus
• Running NextBASIC commands from asm
• Calling the esxDOS and NextZXOS APIs
• Tokenizing plain text into NextBASIC from asm
• Executing tokenized NextBASIC from asm
• Printing using NextBASIC 51 column mode from asm
• Using Zeus to append some private structured data to a .NEX file
• Keeping a .NEX file open after loading for use in the program
• Reading that private data from asm
• Several other neat Zeus features.

Note that the NextZXOS IDE_BASIC API call has slightly changed since this example was originally written. It used to accept tokenized numbers without six byte embedded floats, but now requires the embedded floats to be present.

The example has been rewritten to call the IDE_TOKENIZE API call with a plain text version of the BASIC statements, and pass the result to IDE_BASIC. This has the advantage of always using the same tokenization rules the current version of NextZXOS uses.

Screenshot

Assembly

Currently assembles with a pre-release version of Zeus for Windows, available here.

.NEX File Loader

NOTE: This .NEX file uses V1.2 format features, and requires a recent version of the NEXLOAD dot command to load it. Obtain this from here. Copy it into the DOT directory on your Next SD card, overwriting the file already there.

TZX_Display

Parse and inspect the .NEX file with Simon Brattel's tzx_display.exe. Latest version is always available here.

Thanks

Garry Lancaster, Simon Brattel, Allen Albright, Jim Bagley and W B Yeats.

Licence

Apache 2.0