Speccy: Portable Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Sam Coupe Emulator

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Speccy

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Windows

Android

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Portable Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Sam Coupe Emulator
by Marat Fayzullin

News | Manual | Downloads | Screenshots

News

[Picture] The Latest Version of Speccy is 5.9
The latest Speccy version for Windows and Linux, released on March 17 2021, fixes automatic tape startup, loading Pentagon .Z80 snapshots, pasting text into ZX128 BASIC, sound issues in Windows, and a few other issues. I am no longer loading joystick configuration from .SZX snapshots to avoid messing up user-supplied input settings. Make sure you check out the Android version which has built-in World Of Spectrum browser and many other useful features. I had to discontinue MSDOS and Symbian ports, as there was no more demand for them, nor tools to build them on modern platforms.

For a complete list of fixes, changes, and additions, check the documentation. If you would like to report a bug, suggest a feature, or get help, use the discussion group.

What is Speccy?
Speccy emulates 16kB, 48kB, and 128kB versions of Sinclair ZX Spectrum, as well as Spectrum +2, +2A, and +3, as well as Timex Sinclair models. Although I had done some ZX-related work in the past and even maintained comp.sys.sinclair FAQ at some point, for many years I abstained from writing a Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator. It was mostly due to the fact that there are so many other Spectrum emulators around, so writing another one seemed redundant. On the other hand, the lack of a Speccy emulator felt like a gaping hole on my resume :). So, here it is, yet another Spectrum emulator, trivially named Speccy. If you find a bug, have an idea on the further Speccy development, or would like to port Speccy to a new platform, please, let me know.

At the moment, Speccy supports all types of ZX Spectrum joysticks and the Kempston mouse. The AMX mouse support is not yet complete. Both ZX printer and the Timex (aka Alphacom 32) printer are supported and will print to a file using ASCII "graphics". AY8910 PSG chip is obviously supported, in both 128k and Fuller modes. Only BetaDisk/TR-DOS disk interface is currently supported, although other disk, wafer, or microdrive devices appear on the menu. These are being worked on.

[Picture] Speccy will load files in .Z80, .SNA, .TAP, .TZX, .FDI, .TRD, and .SCL formats. It will also load screenshots in the .SCR format. You may save files in .Z80, .SNA, .FDI, .TRD, .SCL, and .SCR formats. Please notice that F4 starts/stops tape while F5 invokes the platform-independent configuration menu. Some options on this menu are not available from Windows menus. Use ALT+ENTER to switch between windowed and full screen modes. ALT+PGUP increases audio volume while ALT+PGDOWN decreases it. Finally, pressing PGUP will fast forward the emulation to skip over lengthy operations like tape loaders.

Speccy has an interesting feature of automatically converting ZX beeper sounds into MIDI score and storing the soundtrack to a log for later playback. Choose "Audio | Convert Wave To Melody" and then "Audio | Log Melodic Sound" menu options to enable this feature.

Licensing Speccy
Speccy is written in portable C language and will work on any sufficiently fast computing platform, be it a computer, a videogame console, a PDA, a cell phone, a DVD or MP3 player, or even a digital camera. If your company considers using ZX Spectrum emulation in its products, you can license the Speccy source code from me. I am also available for consulting work in the software emulation, embedded programming, and other fields. See my resume and contact me if interested.