ZX Spectrum Next on the Internet: Xberry Pi ESP01 and Pi Zero Upgrades

Summary

Getting my ZX Spectrum Next onto Wifi and the Internet, plus Pi Zero AcceleratorI’m enjoying my Xberry Pi ZX Spectrum Next, but I have to say the ‘simple’ upgrade of getting it onto Wifi via the cheap and cheerful ESP 8266 was not fun.While I had every intention of setting up my Speccy keyboard on the board’s matrix connector, I need to wait for a socket of the correct pitch. It turns out the Xberry Pi needs 0.2mm spacing and I have none in my parts box. Instead I figured do the other main upgrades, namely add a Pi Zero “accelerator” and the Wifi upgrade.ZX Next Pi Zero Accelerator UpgradeFully expecting the Pi Zero to be the thing that caused me trouble, I was shocked that not only my soldering had gone perfectly but also the flashing of the SD card.So many community members had advised to use a highly specific Pi Zero, I thought my spare board would be wrong. But it worked first time!My pin header made the soldering trickier than usual, maybe it soaked a lot of heat? Just remember the header needs to go on the ‘wrong’ side and take your time.The Pi Zero upgrade is hardly used currently but the ZX Next team keep hinting at future utility, and at least one game is in development that uses it as a kind of math coprocessor.Loading a TZX tape on the ZX Spectrum NextSo after running a TZX file and some SID tunes, I moved on to the ESP figuring I would have everything done quick as a flash. Pardon the pun.Adding Wifi to the NextThe Next can come with Wifi already installed apparently, and some Xberry bundles come with one as standard, but the chosen module is an ESP 01 / 8266 which is something I have on hand.There’s precious little documentation for this kind of thing out there, but I did find YouTube videos that made everything look very straightforward. That should have been the first red flag!None of them showed installing the correct ESP firmware, what baud rate the Next expects, or even attaching the ESP.I picked out a board I was confident was working fine, attach...