Configuration
Spectranext provides a configuration menu that allows you to customize various settings. This menu is accessible via the Magic button (NMI).
Configure network settings menu is kept for backward compatibility with Spectranet and otherwise is irrelevant. Any IP changes made there will not be applied in practice. IP/Hostname/DHCP configuration is done automatically and is not configurable at this time.
Spectranext settings
Enable Spectranext (A)
This option allows you to disable the Spectranext cartridge while it remains physically plugged in. When disabled, the cartridge will not respond to memory or I/O requests from the ZX Spectrum, effectively making it inactive.
Note: The debugger remains active even when Spectranext is disabled. This allows you to use debugging features without the full cartridge functionality.
Temporarily Re-enabling Spectranext
If Spectranext is disabled, you can temporarily re-enable it by pressing the Magic button again. When pressed, Spectranext will be re-enabled for the current session until the next reboot. The ZX Spectrum will automatically reboot to activate the temporary enable.
Important: This temporary enable does not persist across reboots. To permanently re-enable Spectranext, you must use this configuration menu and toggle the "Enable Spectranext" option back on.
Enable Launcher (B)
- Enabled: Upon boot, launcher menu is executed instead of just 48K basic.
- Disabled: Upon boot, the system drops straight into 48K basic.
Since, when disabled, there is no Configuration menu to enable it back, use the Magic button (NMI button) to configure that back.
When in Filesystem Mounts, Autoboot option is enabled, that is a resource on slot 0 is configured to boot automatically, the launcher is not executed despite being enabled.
Filesystem Mounts
The Filesystem Mounts screen controls which filesystems Spectranext should mount automatically during startup. It is also where the autoboot flag is configured.
You can also open this screen from BASIC with:
%fsconfig
Configured Filesystems
The top of the screen lists filesystem slots 0 to 3. Each slot can contain one filesystem URL, or be shown as unset.
Spectranext follows these mount-point conventions:
- Filesystem 0: Default local XFS filesystem, normally
xfs://ram/. - Filesystem 1: Commonly used for loading Spectranext programs from HTTPS resources.
- Filesystem 2: Spare filesystem slot.
- Filesystem 3: Preferred for application, business, TNFS, HTTP(s) data, and other long-lived external resources.
These are conventions rather than hard restrictions. Any valid filesystem URL can be configured in any free slot, but keeping slot 0 for local XFS and slot 3 for application data avoids conflicts with common Spectranext behavior.
Set a Filesystem
Use Set a filesystem to assign a URL to one of the four filesystem slots. The menu asks for a filesystem number, then for the URL. The URL is parsed before it is stored. If it is invalid, the menu asks again.
Configured filesystems are mounted automatically on the next boot. For manual mounting from BASIC, see Setting Up Mounts and the Filesystem Overview.
Remove a Filesystem
Use Remove a filesystem to clear a configured slot. This prevents Spectranext from trying to mount that URL at startup.
Removing a mount entry does not delete files from the remote server or from local XFS storage. It only removes the saved startup configuration.
Autoboot
Set or unset autoboot toggles the global autoboot flag shown at the bottom of the screen.
- Autoboot: Yes: After startup and automatic mounts, Spectranext tries to boot slot 0.
- Autoboot: No: Spectranext still mounts configured filesystems, but it does not automatically load the startup resource.
This flag also affects the launcher behavior described above. If autoboot is enabled, the launcher is skipped even when Enable Launcher is enabled.
Saving Changes
Use Save and exit to commit mount and autoboot changes to Spectranext configuration. Use Abandon to leave without saving changes made in this screen.