Spectral

Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator from the 80s.

About

Spectral is an experimental emulator that has been randomly assembled since the pandemic days. Accuracy and performance are long-term goals, but the primary focus is just having fun with this thing. Hardcore ZX users will find little value in this emulator right now, but I hope newbies may find its ease of use somehow appealing to try. That being said, Spectral has a very compatible TAP/TZX loader and some other interesting features that provide me some fun in these days. Code is highly experimental and prone to change in the future. I will keep altering/breaking things randomly for good sake.

Roadmap and features

• Extra accurate Z80 backend.
• Cycle accurate (border, multicolor, etc).
• RZX support.
• MP3s.
• Netplay.
• Optimized.
• Unlicensed.
• Single executable.
• Z80. Z80 Disassembler.
• 16, 48, 128, +2, +2A, +3, Pentagon128 models.
• Issue 2/3 keyboards.
• ULA/ULA+ graphics.
• Beeper/AY chips. Turbosound (Turbo-AY).
• Kempston mouse.
• Kempston/Fuller/Cursor/Sinclair joysticks. Gamepad support (Windows, Linux).
• RF/CRT experience (not physically accurate though).
• TAP/TZX/PZX/CSW tapes. Z80/SNA/SZX snaps. ROM/IF2 roms.
• DSK/EDSK/TRD/SCL/FDI/MGT/IMG/HOBETA disks.
• SCR/PNG screenshots. MP4/MPG video recordings (no sound).
• ZIP/RAR/GZ archives.
• AY tunes player.
• Nec µ765/Betadisk interfaces.
• Auto load games. Auto play/stop tape. TurboROM.
• Graphical tape browser.
• 25/30/50/60Hz fps lock.
• Run-Ahead.
• POK support.
• Gunstick, Lightgun.
• External shaders support.
• Internal savestates.
• Graphical User Interface.
• Portable: Windows, Linux, MacOS.
• Embedded ZXDB.
• ZXDB Browser. ZXDB Gallery.
• Can translate game menus from some languages into English.
• Games can be appended to executable and get a standalone game viewer.

Downloads

Download any binary release from Releases section.

Alternatively, you can build the emulator yourself:

• Windows users double click MAKE.bat file.
• Linux/MacOS users can run sh MAKE.bat instead.

Usage

Spectral can be configured with a mouse.

Here are some keyboard shortcuts, though:

• ESC: Game browser
• ALT+ENTER: Fullscreen
• TAB+CURSORS (or GAMEPAD): Joystick

Hold any F1..F12 key for 2 seconds to redefine it.

Credits

Andre Weissflog, for their many single-header libraries! (Zlib licensed). Peter Sovietov and wermipls, for their accurate AY chip emulator (MIT licensed). Ulrich Doewich and Colin Pitrat, for their uPD765A floppy disk controller (GPL licensed). Marat Fayzullin for their WD1793/FDI controllers (Proprietary). Sean Middleditch for their gamepad code (MIT licensed). Sergey Bulba for their ay2sna tool (Public Domain). Potapov Vsevolod Viktorovich for their rusfaq website. Andrew Owen and Geoff Wearmouth for their custom ROMs. Simon Owen for their DSK technical websites. Santiago Romero, Philip Kendall, James McKay for their FOSS emulators. Damian Vila for their BESCII truetype font (CC-1.0). lalaoopybee, for their lovely tube shader. Günter Woigk, Juan Carlos González Amestoy and David Colmenero for their floppy sound recordings. The ZXDB devs. The ZX Spectrum Discord folks. All the ZX community!

Unlicense

This software is released into the public domain. Also dual-licensed as 0-BSD or MIT (No Attribution) for those countries where public domain is a concern (sigh). Any contribution to this repository is implicitly subjected to the same release conditions aforementioned.

Links

• Introduction to the ZX Spectrum, entry on Wikipedia.
• SpecEmu, my favourite ZX emulator on Windows. Also, see other alternatives.
• SpectrumComputing, WorldOfSpectrum, ZXArt, Virtual TRDOS and ZXInfo are the best online resources (imho).
• Crash, YourSinclair, SinclairUser and MicroHobby(ES) are great old paper magazines.
• ZXDB, game maps, game cheats, RZXreplays and game longplays.
• Daily ZX videos, on YouTube.