ZX Baremulator 3.2 in a LO>>Profile keyboard

A Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator, running on a Raspberry PI that emulates the ZX Spectrum almost like the real machine. Not only ythe 48K model, but also the 128 K and The plus 2 model. That is what ZX Baremulator is. Now with version 3.2 it is compatible again with the older single core Raspberry PI like the zero and the A and B, but alas without sound over HDMI. Running on a Raspberry PI 2, 3 or 4 it does have sound over HDMI though.

The emulator works directly on the hardware of the PI without any linux running. That's the reason it boots as quick as a real ZX Spectrum.

I downloaded the files from: http://zxmini.speccy.org/en/index.html and put them on an empty micro SD card.

I added my favourite games to a separate folder on the same SD card and voila. (no image burning needed).

It runs with a normal USB keyboard. It runs with the recreated ZX Spectrum, but from version 3.2 a very special feature is added:

From this version you can connect the original keyboard to the GPIO connector of the Raspberry PI. An article in The magic PI issue 67 describes how to do that. You can download the article here. Start to read at page 24.

I connected the ZX Spectrum keyboard to the GPIO connector with a cable that connects nicely on the Raspberry and has male connectors to solder on a piece of connector card, together with the keyboard membrane connectors sold on Sell my retro.

I used these connections: (READ here the numbers of the connector of the PI)

GPIO pin Keyboard PIN Line

26 KB1 1

19 KB1 2

13 KB1 3

6 KB1 4

5 KB1 5

25 KB2 1

24 KB2 2

23 KB2 3

22 KB2 4

27 KB2 5

18 KB2 6

17 KB2 7

4 KB2 8

The switch that is mentioned in the article is NOT neccesairy for the ZX Baremulator v 3.2

And the result is fantastic: It starts within 7 seconds and runs all the games I like and the keyboard is usefull again.