01 апреля 2001

           Zm_Polyhedron - Speccy of the future ???

                  Phoenix  Interviews Raydac

 Where do you live?
 I living in St.Petersburg city (in Russia).
 How's the spectrum scene there nowadays?
 ZX-Net 400. Chaos Construction'99.
 At us many people are engaged in a Spectrum. In ZX-Net the
      approximately   400   men. The   summer   will carry   out
      (spent) a festival Chaos Construction'99.
 Seems like it is still a cool scene!
 How does zx-net work?
 Has not understood. Set a question more correct.
 Shite...
 Is it BBS-driven?
 Yes
 Ok ...
 There are modems available for which computers?
 Scorpion and Pentagon.
 Modem have type is Vicomm.
 What is the maximum baud rate?
 Approximate 2400-3000 bits per second.
 Fast huh? ;)
 Where do you plug it?
 Does the pentagon have a comm (rs-232) port?
 Vicomm modem is connected in tape port of the spectrum.
 In pentagon, scorpion and polyhedron not have comm port.
 Ok.  The  polyhedron ...  That's  your  new speccy  clone
      project, right?
 This project is saving for a platform a Spectrum.
 It essentially new implementation of a platform.
 This platform will allow  of the game on a Spectrum colour
      without change of the code.
 How do you do that????????????
 It will be given  with the new concept of  construction of
      home computers.
 Erm... ok.
 It is very  a pity, that I  while poorly know the  English
      language.
 That's ok, please continue ...
 Now we select element base for implementation and I  think
      that all will be ready to summer.
 Can you estimate a price for the finished product?
 40$ - mother board
 In it computer 256 kB RAM
 In full construction it computer ~60-70$
 That's very cheap!
 What processor will you be using? 
 Z80 frequency 7 meghertz.
 Like scorpion?
 Yes.
 in the next models it will have a Z380.
 That sounds interesting...
 What sound chip? Just AY?
 While that just AY8910.
 It computer work in scorpion mode , 48 mode, 128 mode  and
      in ZM_Polyhedron mode.
 What's the difference in zm_polyhedron mode?
 All your black-white games will become color.
 I can't see how you can do that without re-programming the
      game ...
 There is a possibility, but it nobody knows.
 Ok ... i get the picture. (nurse! ;-)
 It  very powerful  construction of  the home  computer and
      such yet were not.
 Oh... i see. (not!)
 We  now want  to open  the corporation  for manufacture of
      this computer.
 Our corporation will be named "Fenix computers".
 Nice name ... ;)
 Will polyhedron be in a tower or desktop case?
 Mother board of the  polyhedron is very small and  it will
      be in what the buyer wants in.
 Cool.
 And the keyboard? PC like?
 It is very a pity,  that I have not the direct  channel of
      delivery of details because of a boundary keyboard by  and
      PC and ZX.
 ????????
 Keyboard will by ZX, and possible connect PC over  special
      card.
 Ok ... 
 Will it be tr-dos based?
 Yes it be tr-dos based.
 5 1/4" or 3 1/2"?
 I think, that will be 5 1/4 " .
 Will it have pentagon or scorpion timings?
 In my computer , CPU will by work without steps of  delay,
      so will be as Pentagon.
 I here  recently have made  slightly colour After  the War
      game,  and  it was  very   interesting to  play  in colour
      variant of this game.
 I  still  can't  figure  out  how  it's  done  without re
      -programming the whole game ...
 To know how it is necessary :)
 Then everyone learn (find  out) as it easily color  on the
      spectrum it is really.
 Ok - thanks for everything!!!

If anyone wishes to contact Raydac, here's his e-mail address:
 Raydac@usa.net