Emulating the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
AT LAST, WE’RE FEATURING the machine we’ve been teasing for months: the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. To anyone outside the UK, this name may be meaningless, but in Britain the machine was a cultural icon. Far cheaper than anything Americans were exporting, the homegrown Spectrum was a working-class hero that spawned a generation of influential British coders.
Although the machine had cheap graphics and primitive sound, its rock-bottom price spawned a phenomenal budget gaming scene.
For anyone willing to look past its shoddy presentation, an anarchic game culture awaits, with classic titles unlike any other system. –JOHN KNIGHT
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DEVELOPMENT
The ZX Spectrum was developed under the leadership of British inventor Clive Sinclair, who was renowned for making electronics affordable through ruthless simplification.
>> Originally code-named the ZX82, the Spectrum built upon the ZX80 and ZX81—machines that helped establish budget UK computing—but brought a wave of improvements.
>> Depending on the model, Spectrums had either 16 or 48KB of RAM, and were powered by Zilog’s Z80A CPU. The microcomputer now had a color display; the name Spectrum was chosen to advertise its new eight-color palette.
>> Unfortunately, it still had an awful keyboard. Its cheap rubber keys were unresponsive, with an infamous “dead flesh” texture. Sound was also primitive, with just a single-channel beeper. Due to memory constraints, games were usually plagued by color clash whenever sprites crossed.
>> But heavens, it was cheap. Launching in April 1982, initial prices were £125 (16KB) or £175 for the 48KB model ($200 and $280 at 1982 exchange rates). However, prices soon dropped to the point where Spectrums were around half the cost of a Commodore 64, or a third of the price of Amstrad’s CPC.
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GAMING
While console owners had to continually save for new games, British shelves filled with £2 Spectrum titles. A thriving magazine culture featured cover tapes packed with games. Add in the system’s rampant piracy, and Speccy owners soon developed large game collections. What Spectrum games lacked in style, they made up for in substance. They were often highly innovative and a goldmine for anything weird and different.
>> Although its graphics looked ghastly compared to the Amstrad or Commodore, the machine did have some tricks up its sleeve. It could outperform the Commodore in 3D games, and often had much sharper sprites compared to the blockier characters on rival systems. This sometimes resulted in richer environments, if you could look past the primitive coloring.
>> As for some gaming highlights, ManicMiner and JetSet Willy are perhaps the most famous, and the Dizzy series was ubiquitous in Britain. Exolon,AntAttack, and Silkworm are awesome. And for something a bit more punk, how about Advanced Lawn Mower Simulator?
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HISTORICAL IMPACT
The Spectrum truly brought computing to the masses, spawning more bedroom coders than ever before. This era put Britain at the forefront of programming talent and earned Clive Sinclair a knighthood.
>> Despite strong sales, issues with other products brought financial problems. Sinclair Research sold off its computing division to Amstrad in April 1986. Amstrad continued to sell Spectrums with improvements such as better keyboards, an improved sound chip, more RAM, and built-in tape or disk drives.
>> Spectrums were also heavily cloned. Timex was officially licensed to build clones, with poor sales in the US but strong sales in Poland and Portugal. Countless other clones were produced in Eastern Europe and South America, and some clones are still being produced.
>> By the early ’90s, sales were still much stronger than expected, with Amstrad focusing on 128K models as budget game machines. The Spectrum was eventually discontinued in 1992, with sales of around five million.
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HOW DO I EMULATE IT?
There are many Spectrum emulators. We like Retro Virtual Machine (RVM), an emulator for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
>> Head to the “Downloads” page, where there are packages for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Windows users are given a ZIP file containing a stand-alone executable. Linux users are given a Debian package and a binary tarball, or can install RVM from the Snap store.
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STARTING WITH TAPES
When you first open RVM, there will be a blank interface, but don’t panic. Click the hamburger menu in the topleft of the screen to open the sidebar menu. Click the “Create machine” button.
>> A menu now appears with a choice of Amstrad or Spectrum. Choose “Spectrum,” and click “Next.”
>> The following screen has a selection of Spectrum models. The easiest choice is the +3e model, which has both tape and disk drives attached. After selecting a Spectrum, click “Create.” You will return to the main screen with your model ready to launch.
>> Clicking on the new Spectrum opens a new window with a blank emulated monitor. Press the power button located in the slide-down menu at the top of the screen.
>> Newer Spectrum models have a boot menu with the option “Loader” or “Tape Loader.” Press Enter and the Loader waits for you to load a cassette.
>> Back in the slide-down menu at the top-right is a cassette icon. Press this and a large tape drive appears. Press the “Eject” button to select a tape image, then press the “Play” button to get started.
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LOADING DISKS
To load a disk, first restart your machine with the “Machine Reset” button in the slide-down menu. Click the floppy icon in the top-right of the screen, which reveals two floppy drives.
>> You need to insert the disk in the bottom drive. Press the drive’s “Eject” button, which opens a disk menu. Click “Insert,” which opens a file browser. Select your disk image and click
“Open.” Then, with your virtual disk inserted, press Enter to select “Loader” from the Spectrum’s boot menu. If the Loader program finds your disk image, it loads automatically, otherwise it prompts you to load a tape instead.
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LOADING MEMORY DUMPS
Memory dump files (normally .Z80 files) are easy to start and load instantly. Click the hamburger menu button at the top-left of the screen, and click “Load State.” Select your image file and click “Open.”
>> If there is any glitching, try loading the image with an older 48K model.
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MANUALLY LOADING TAPES
Original Spectrums don’t have boot menus, so you need to enter commands in BASIC.
>> First, you need to know the name of your program. Load a tape as above, but look at the tape in the deck—on the label will be the name of the program in quotes, such as “TRAIL” for Trailblazer.
>> You can flick between programs with the “FastForward” and “Rewind” buttons, which display different programs on the cassette label.
>> Power on your machine if you haven’t already done so, and at the BASIC prompt, press J, which brings up the Load command. Enter the name of your program in quotes, but do not press Shift! The “character will appear, but the ‘ won’t. If you have entered the command correctly, your tape will load as soon as you press “Play.”