Share My Creation Sinclair ZX Spectrum Emulator

Here is an emulator for the 48 K Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which was my first computer back in the early eighties. There are already several much better emulators available (like Fuse and ZXSP to name a few), so I made this just for fun. And it really has been fun, though quite a lot of work to find all bugs in the Z80 processor emulation (there are still a few bugs lurking I'm afraid). Anyway, here it is. Any hints to make it better is much appreciated. Read the attached text file for notes on known issues, dependencies etc.

There are a few games included, and if you want to try them, you should select "Kempston joystick" when possible (in-game), which allows control via the arrow keys and space bar. Otherwise you have to figure out which keys to use. You can find lots of more games on the Internet, but the emulator only loads .sna snapshot files currently.

Magnus

 

[Peter Simpson]

You just have to be kidding me.
This is great, takes me back to the 80's

Cheers...

 

[sorex]

I bought myself a VideoPac 4700+ (Odessey 3?) 2 weeks ago to program on for fun (it's an Intel 8048 thus minimal opcode set & ram (64 bytes)).

What I found interesting is that the first game I flashed to my flashcart amuzed me for more than half an hour
even while it was just a 1 level homebrew it was hard enough for me for some playtime.

With most of today's games I'm already bored from just looking at the screenshots or videos, nice gfx but sucky gameplay especially the first person type of games.

 

[TheJinJ]

Some of the best games with most longevity are stuffed into 16kb Lots of old skool games have stood the test of time for sure.

 

[Troberg]

Some of the best games with most longevity are stuffed into 16kb Lots of old skool games have stood the test of time for sure.

Actually, much less than 16kB, as screen memory and system memory ate almost half of that.

Is it even possible to compile a running application that small today?

 

[sorex]

yes, a com file written in assembler is the shortest you could do on a pc since it's missing stack & seperate data block but it's limited to 1 64Kb segment if I recall right.

with FreeBASIC you can create a file packer in 15Kb as console/dos app but that's because it contains a lot of (unused) functions in it. (only needs <1K in ASM tho)
VB6 produces quite small exe's too (starting from around 16Kb)

 

[Troberg]

Yep, all in all I have great admiration for what they did on computers like the Spectrum and the C64, especially the later games like Fairlight, Elite, Glider Rider, the Lords of Midnight series and so on. Face it, those devices had much less computer power than my optical mouse...

 

[TheJinJ]

Gameplay was more important than fancy graphics. Going to dig out my old Plus/4

 

[sorex]

yes, it's always a challenge to code on older systems that's why I bought that old console

 

[specci48]

For more information, games and all the other stuff according to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, this is doubtless the best adress available.


specci48 ;-)

 

[Swissmade]

Like this,

I have repair ZX Spectrum's for years and still have some Parts of it.

Nice I like this

 

[bovilid]

Hi, I'm sorry for replying to an old thread I need some suggestion for ZX Spectrum Emulators that can be played retro games on my Android phone or if there is no such kind of emulator, then it would be nice if I found some emulator for PC. I try on the internet find the RetroArch but I was unable to play the games, I don't know why. pls, share some of the emulator's names.

 

[Swissmade]

Hi, I'm sorry for replying to an old thread I need some suggestion for ZX Spectrum Emulators that can be played retro games on my Android phone or if there is no such kind of emulator, then it would be nice if I found some emulator for PC. I try on the internet find the RetroArch but I was unable to play the games, I don't know why. pls, share some of the emulator's names.

Maybe you can find something here.

About the ZX Spectrum Emulator for Windows

Download the free ZX Spectrum emulator for your Windows PC! Loading original Spectrum games and programs. Emulates all the Sincalir models 16k, 48k, 128k,+2, and +3 Including flopy disk drive. Joysticks and interface

www.zxspectrum4.net

 

[Beja]

Actually, much less than 16kB, as screen memory and system memory ate almost half of that.

Is it even possible to compile a running application that small today?

Yes, you can write and compile a 20k game in QBasic4.5 compiler running in DOS window (CMD), compile it to exe standalone file then run it in Windows.

 

[Troberg]

Yes, you can write and compile a 20k game in QBasic4.5 compiler running in DOS window (CMD), compile it to exe standalone file then run it in Windows.

Which is not really what I would consider "today". I'm talking about modern OS, modern dev tools, not some shoe-horned in backwards compatibility.