ESP32Rainbow preliminary feedback

[06GitHub]

I received my ESP32Rainbow 2 days ago, please see some preliminary feedback, if it can help.
Cheers

1) OVERALL :-)
Impressive ! Very good project done 1 year, congratulations

2) BOARD :-)
Very nice, WOW effect

3) SITE esp32rainbow.com :-)
Nice and useful

4) START :-|
Rainbow must be started with switch SW1 located right to USB connector. If one does not set switch to ON position, rainbow does not start.
Information is available in documentation :
"To power on, slide the switch to the left after connecting the USB cable."
But information does not seem to be available on board.
Proposal : on board, add printed "ON/OFF" silk information next to SW1 switch

5) FIRST USB CONNECTION :-)
Rainbow is visible on computer without problem, once connected to computer (Windows 10) with USB cable

6) SD CARD :-)
SD Card (not provided) is inserted smoothly in SD card slot and its contents is visible on esp32rainbow.com, once connection is triggered

7) FIRST GAME TZX :-)
Game (pacman) is downloaded from https://www.esp32rainbow.com/games/3581 to SD Card and can be played OK on Rainbow
Another pacman version is also OK https://www.esp32rainbow.com/games/42679

8) GAME Z80 FORMAT :-(
Games (pacman) translated from TZX to Z80 format using tool https://www.esp32rainbow.com/tools/tap-to-z80 do not work properly (blank screen with logo "1982 Sinclair Reasearch Ltd").
Maybe incorrect use of Z80 format ?
Nevertheless, not critical since TZX format is OK.

9) PACKAGING :-)
Very nice and professional, with paper documentation in the box

10) COMPLIANCE
I would be interested to know what are the key lessons learned (technical and process related) for compliance (Union harmonisation legislation and UK statutory instruments). I will post a dedicated issue regarding this.

11) SD CARD ACCESS FROM COMPUTER
I would also be interested to know how SD Card access can be provided simultaneously (very useful feature) from computer (using site esp32rainbow.com) and ESP32 (I thought that ESP32 would "lock/prevent" access to SD Card for its own usage). I will post a dedicated issue regarding this.

[andypiper]

Funny you mentioned the Pac-man versions. The first one that I tried (I forget which link) loaded and I could move around but Pac-man and the ghosts did not appear so it was very challenging! ha. The ones you linked to appear to be fine.

Regarding the power switch, there is text on the reverse side of the board that shows the correct on/off locations for it, but that's not ideal when you are looking at it face forwards.

[cgreening]

@06GitHub Would you mind moving this to the discussions section - I think it's very valuable feedback for others.

[andypiper]

@06GitHub I moved this to discussion (it should be a transparent change) as I think there's more here for general chat rather than problem reporting.

By all means open issues if they relate to bugs or improvements in the code!

[grue-some]

Very exciting! First thing I tried is writing & running a short BASIC program. A few observations:

1. The quick start guide and the project page on crowdsupply should provide a link to ZX Spectrum keyboard basics; after over 40 years I did not remember how to switch between the (five?) different keyboard overlays.
2. The SAVE command does not seem to work at the moment (i.e. with the current firmware, with an SD card installed). This should be mentioned on the project page. Apparently there is a workaround (see https://github.com/atomic14/esp32-zxspectrum/wiki/Software#loadsave); I haven't tried it yet.
3. Last but not least: the Wiki https://github.com/atomic14/esp32-zxspectrum/wiki and this discussion forum need to be made easier to find, from https://www.esp32rainbow.com/faq for example.

[andypiper]

Agreed to all of these - the wiki and discussions were only enabled after the Crowd Supply shipments arrived (i.e. in the past week). I'll see if I can add a PR to add them on the website, with Chris' approval!

The keyboard thing was one of the first barriers I hit. I put a link on the wiki for a resource I found useful.

[n4ppy]

For save i just use the boot key snapshot option :) Works great and instant back where you were