zx

ZX Spectrum Emulator written in a mix of Python and C++.

More screenshots

Features

• Designed to be suitable for research and development purposes such as unattended testing of Spectrum software, timing analysis, etc.
• Meant to be easy to customize and re-use via Python interfaces.
• Fast and accurate emulation.
• Based on the fast and flexible Z80 emulator.

Development status

• General status: working pre-alpha.
• Supported machines: 48K only for now.
• Display: multi-colour effects, accurate timings.
• Sound: not supported yet.
• Tape: TAP and TZX formats supported as well as conversion to WAV.
• Snapshots: Z80.
• Playback recordings: RZX.

Installation and running

For the latest release:

$ sudo pip3 install zx

Or directly from the repository for current development version:

$ sudo pip3 install git+https://github.com/kosarev/zx

Local development setups are also supported:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/kosarev/zx
$ cd zx
$ python3 setup.py develop --prefix ~/.local

Running:

$ zx

Controls

F1 displays help.

F2 is to save snapshot.

F3 is to load snapshot or tape file.

F6 pauses/resumes tape.

F10 and ESC quit the emulator.

F11 and double click switch between fullscreen and windowed mode.

PAUSE and mouse click pause/resume emulation or RZX playback.

Any Spectrum key stroke resumes emulation and leaves the RZX playback mode back to the regular emulation mode.

Running snapshots, recordings and tapes

$ zx elven.z80

$ zx exolon.rzx

$ zx https://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games/e/EricTheFloaters.tzx.zip

Supported formats

Snapshots: .z80.

Tapes: .tap, .tzx, .wav.

Playbacks: .rzx.

Screenshots: .scr.

ZX Basic compiler sources: .zxb.

Archives: .zip.

Converting files

$ zx jack.tzx jack.wav

$ zx eric.tap eric.z80

Dumping files

$ zx dump rick.z80
OrderedDict([('id', 'z80_snapshot'), ('a', 213), ('f', 66), ...

On the dump command, zx parses the specified file (that can be of any supported format) in the form of raw Python data.

Reference papers

• Screen timings