Contents of Other emulators

Other emulators

There are several other Spectrum emulators, both for the PC and other computers. The list below is partly due to Carlo Delhez (the QL emulators) and partly copied from Arnt Gulbrandsen's documentation of his JPP. I don't think the list is complete, so if you know more Spectrum emulators, for any computer, please let me know.

For the PC:

– JPP, by Arnt Gulbrandsen (Norway). Faster than mine (but according to an OUTLET review slower on some boards), by using a very smart decoding technique, but requires a 80386 or '486 processor. Is less compatible than Z80. Uses the .SNA snapshot format. Needs VGA. Not many extra features.

– VGASPEC, by Alberto Olloqui (Spain). Needs VGA and 80286. Quite slow, and crashes on quite a lot of programs. Uses the .SP snapshot format. Allows ROM pokes. This program is an illegal pre-release of SPECTRUM, by Pedro Gimeno.

– SPECTRUM, by Pedro Gimeno (Spain). Uses another .SP snapshot format. Has a tape interface. Also quite slow. Allows changing the rom.

– SP, by J. Swiatek and K. Makowski (Poland). Cannot load or save snapshots, but can load programs using LOAD "" via a file called TAPE_ZX.SPC. Crashes many programs; even basic behaves weird sometimes. Has a built-in monitor, but no documentation. No border.

– SPECEM, by Kevin J. Phair (Ireland). Also allows rom changes. Displays the registers on screen. Can save and load directly from disk using LOAD/SAVE "filename" in BASIC. Loads .PRG snapshots, but cannot save them. Emulates a Multiface I.

– ZX, by L. Rindt and E. Brukner (Czech Republic). Haven't tested its compatibility thoroughly, but one of the games supplied didn't respond well to the keyboard, while it did work on Z80 after conversion. Good tape file support including headerless files, almost identical to the multiple .TAP file mode of Z80. Somewhat slower than Z80. Includes program to load from tape and convert to tape file. No documentation at all.
For the Sinclair QL:

– SPECTATOR by Carlo Delhez, The Netherlands; shareware; supports tape-files, Microdrives, RS232, Z80 snapshots, MBF snapshots and Disciple (SNP) snapshots; utilities to convert Disciple, Beta and Opus disks enclosed.

– ZM-1/2/3/4 by Ergon Development, Italy; ZM-1 is shareware, ZM-2/3/4 are commercial. They all support tape-files and Z80 snapshots, some support Microdrives and RS232; contain a utility to transfer programs from tape via a Spectrum to the QL.

– ZX by Andew Lavrov, CIS; shareware; supports tape-files, MBF snapshots en Z80 snapshots; utility to read from Spectrum tapes (and write them).

Spectator, ZM-1 and ZX are all about as fast (approximately 30 to 40on a 16 MHz MC68000 machine). ZM-2/3 are faster, but this at the cost of compatibility. ZM-4 is not an emulator, but a real-time Z80-compiler: very fast and seems to be compatible as well.

For the Amiga:

– Spectrum, by Peter McGavin. Very good, JPP is based to a large extent on it. Needs about a 25MHz machine to run at full speed. Has tape support.

– KGB. I haven't seen it. A bit slower than Peter's, and the version Peter saw wouldn't work on the Amiga 3000.

– An Italian emulator which I don't know the name of. Excellent compatibility, rather fast. May be shareware.

– Several unreleased emulators. Peter knows more about them.
For the Atari ST/TT:

– One, called Spectrum. Don't know anything about it, but the doc file is written in quite the worst English I've seen. [This is Arnt speaking — I've seen worse! GAL] Available by anonymous ftp from terminator.cc.umich.edu.

– There's another one in the make, to be released very soon as one of the programmers told me, written by Markus Oberhumer and other(s).
For the Acorn Archimedes:

– A company called Arxe wrote one, intended to be commercial but never released because Amstrad wouldn't permit Arxe to enclose the ROM.

– Someone called D. Lawrence wrote another, or maybe the same. This one is floating around but nobody has any documentation. I don't know what its status is. Runs at about 70% of Spectrum speed on an ARM2, not quite perfect graphics emulation.
For the Commodore 64:

– The Whitby Software Spectrum simulator is a rewrite of the Spectrum Basic. It will not run machine-code programs. I don't know whether it's PD, shareware, or commercial. Quite good. (Responds nicely to a POKE 23659,0)
All emulators for PC, and some for the Atari, Amiga and QL are available on the support BBS.

There are also emulators available for the ZX81. Carlo Delhez, who also wrote a Spectrum emulator for the QL, wrote the ZX81 emulators XTricator (for the QL) and XTender (for PC's). These programs can also be downloaded from the support BBS.

–	JPP, by Arnt Gulbrandsen (Norway). Faster than mine (but according to an OUTLET review slower on some boards), by using a very smart decoding technique, but requires a 80386 or '486 processor. Is less compatible than Z80. Uses the .SNA snapshot format. Needs VGA. Not many extra features.
–	VGASPEC, by Alberto Olloqui (Spain). Needs VGA and 80286. Quite slow, and crashes on quite a lot of programs. Uses the .SP snapshot format. Allows ROM pokes. This program is an illegal pre-release of SPECTRUM, by Pedro Gimeno.
–	SPECTRUM, by Pedro Gimeno (Spain). Uses another .SP snapshot format. Has a tape interface. Also quite slow. Allows changing the rom.
–	SP, by J. Swiatek and K. Makowski (Poland). Cannot load or save snapshots, but can load programs using `LOAD ""` via a file called TAPE_ZX.SPC. Crashes many programs; even basic behaves weird sometimes. Has a built-in monitor, but no documentation. No border.
–	SPECEM, by Kevin J. Phair (Ireland). Also allows rom changes. Displays the registers on screen. Can save and load directly from disk using LOAD/SAVE "filename" in BASIC. Loads .PRG snapshots, but cannot save them. Emulates a Multiface I.
–	ZX, by L. Rindt and E. Brukner (Czech Republic). Haven't tested its compatibility thoroughly, but one of the games supplied didn't respond well to the keyboard, while it did work on Z80 after conversion. Good tape file support including headerless files, almost identical to the multiple .TAP file mode of Z80. Somewhat slower than Z80. Includes program to load from tape and convert to tape file. No documentation at all.

–	SPECTATOR by Carlo Delhez, The Netherlands; shareware; supports tape-files, Microdrives, RS232, Z80 snapshots, MBF snapshots and Disciple (SNP) snapshots; utilities to convert Disciple, Beta and Opus disks enclosed.
–	ZM-1/2/3/4 by Ergon Development, Italy; ZM-1 is shareware, ZM-2/3/4 are commercial. They all support tape-files and Z80 snapshots, some support Microdrives and RS232; contain a utility to transfer programs from tape via a Spectrum to the QL.
–	ZX by Andew Lavrov, CIS; shareware; supports tape-files, MBF snapshots en Z80 snapshots; utility to read from Spectrum tapes (and write them).

–	Spectrum, by Peter McGavin. Very good, JPP is based to a large extent on it. Needs about a 25MHz machine to run at full speed. Has tape support.
–	KGB. I haven't seen it. A bit slower than Peter's, and the version Peter saw wouldn't work on the Amiga 3000.
–	An Italian emulator which I don't know the name of. Excellent compatibility, rather fast. May be shareware.
–	Several unreleased emulators. Peter knows more about them.

–	One, called Spectrum. Don't know anything about it, but the doc file is written in quite the worst English I've seen. [This is Arnt speaking — I've seen worse! GAL] Available by anonymous ftp from terminator.cc.umich.edu.
–	There's another one in the make, to be released very soon as one of the programmers told me, written by Markus Oberhumer and other(s).

–	A company called Arxe wrote one, intended to be commercial but never released because Amstrad wouldn't permit Arxe to enclose the ROM.
–	Someone called D. Lawrence wrote another, or maybe the same. This one is floating around but nobody has any documentation. I don't know what its status is. Runs at about 70% of Spectrum speed on an ARM2, not quite perfect graphics emulation.