Spectaculator 7.0 released!

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Version 7.00 is now available for download.

Please note: This is a free upgrade for all registered users. Just download and install it over the top of your existing 6.x installation to upgrade.

What’s new in version 7.00

  • New display options
    • User-selectable resolutions for full screen mode. Asus Eeepc users can now use 800 x 480 to avoid having to scroll.
    • LCD friendly refresh rates. CRT users can still use 100Hz for a more authentic display.
    • Support for widescreen (16:9) display modes. Spectaculator will maintain the correct aspect ratio when using these modes.
    • Support for 16 bit (high colour) full screen display modes.
    • Significantly improved performance on Windows Vista in full screen mode.
    • Fixed initial flicker when Spectaculator first loads and the user’s display settings are applied.
  • On-screen virtual keyboard
    • Spectaculator now has an on-screen virtual keyboard.
    • The layout can be switched between the original rubber-keyed Spectrum and the Spectrum +/128K
    • All keys are clickable.
  • MGT/Datel Plus D emulation
    • Emulates standard G+DOS and Uni-DOS variants.
    • Supports two virtual disk drives.
    • Reads, writes and formats standard .mgt and .img disk image files. Support for extended .mgt and .img files which have 81 tracks, e.g. AlchNews 20.
    • Reads, writes and formats real Plus D / DISCiPLE 3½” disks (Windows 2000 and Windows XP only).
    • Disk drive sound effects.
    • Disk drives window for easy management of disk images. Disk images can be write protected, formatted, ejected, inserted and written to real floppy disks.
    • Capture the Plus D’s printer port output to a file, the Windows clipboard or any serial or parallel port attached to your PC.
    • Emulation of the snapshot button to write snapshots to disk images or real floppy disks.
    • Added new blocks to the zx-state (.szx) format to support state loading and saving.
    • Support for loading and saving .z80 snapshots with Plus D information. Unfortunately the .z80 format knows nothing about the contents of the Plus D’s RAM, the number of drives attached, state of the printer port, type of ROM installed etc. Use zx-state (.szx) instead.
  • Disk Wizard (Windows 2000/XP only)
    • Backs up Plus D formatted floppy disks (including Uni-DOS) to .img and .mgt disk image files.
    • Writes .img and .mgt Plus D disk images back to real floppy disks (including Uni-DOS disks which have a mangled Head ID field in the sector headers).
  • New Action Replay (RZX) features and fixes
    • Added support for rollback with multiple bookmarks.
    • Disabled the debugger when in tournament mode.
  • Spectrum +2A/+3 emulation
    • Improved emulation of these models thanks to information gained from running Kio’s hardware test program on real hardware. Thanks Kio!
    • Fixed crash when inserting a blank, double-sided disk image into any +3 drive.
  • Spectrum 48k/128k/+2 emulation
    • Implemented contention on refresh cycles when the I register is pointing to ULA address space. (Thanks Woody and Philip Kendall).
    • Added memory and I/O contention to upper RAM area on the Spectrum 128k/+2. (Thanks Patrik Rak and Philip Kendall).
    • A read of port $7ffd on the Spectrum 128k/+2 now correctly writes the floating bus value back to that port. (Thanks Fredrick Meunier and Marat Fayzullin).
  • Pentagon 128 emulation
    • Fixed floating bus values being returned for all unattached ports, not just $ff. (Thanks Philip Kendall).
  • Enhancements to the Z80 core
    • Added the rest of the more esoteric undocumented instructions.
    • Fixed a bug that could possibly crash the emulator.
    • Added a fast instruction fetch monitoring system for hardware that needs it (e.g. µSpeech, Interface 1, Plus D).
    • Fixed IM 0 interrupt acknowledge timing.
    • Fixed INTREQ timing for all UK models after running Woody’s test program on real hardware. (Thanks Woody).
    • Fixed undocumented flags in BIT n,(IX+nn) instruction.
    • Maskable and non-maskable interrupts are now not accepted during $dd/$fd sequences.
  • Spectrum 128/+2/+2A/+3 communications ports
    • The Spectrum 128/+2/+2A/+3 communications ports output can now be redirected to a file, the Windows clipboard or any parallel or serial port attached to your computer.
    • Fixed deadlock when redirecting output to LPT1 when there was nothing physically connected to it.
  • Favourites list
    • Broken links can now be fixed.
    • The favourites list is not lost when running multiple copies of Spectaculator at the same time. You will receive a warning if you try to change the list using two or more concurrently running copies.
  • Audio cassette files
    • Support for v1.20 of the TZX Format (Set Signal Level and Generalized Data Blocks).
    • Fixed the off-by-one-byte bug in skipping unknown blocks in ZX Tape (.tzx) files.
    • Added support for CSW version 2 files that are not Zlib compressed.
  • Currah µSpeech
    • Re-wrote the emulation to use memory mapped I/O ports rather than ROM traps.
    • Fixed the speech when in Sinclair BASIC (this was broken in 6.25).
    • Extracted the allophones from a real µSpeech for a more genuine sound.
    • Fixed intonation (broken since 5.0)
  • ZX Interface 1
    • Removed the ROM traps as they are no longer needed. As a side-effect, games and other programs which do a crude CRC on the 48K ROM (e.g. Fairlight) now load with the Interface 1 connected. Dr. Logan’s diagnostic test program now works correctly.
    • Fixed the Eject Microdrive Cartridge keyboard short cut (Alt+J) when using Ctrl as Symbol Shift.
    • Spectaculator can now use .mdr files that have the write-protect byte missing from the file.
  • ZX Interface 2
    • Spectaculator can now load 8KB ROMs such as the Parker prototypes. The second 8KB block in the ROM space is a duplicate of the first 8KB.
  • New joystick options
    • Added emulation of the Comcom programmable joystick interface. This joystick allows mapping of the directional controls as well as the fire buttons to keys on the Spectrum keyboard. You can map all 32 buttons on your real joystick/gamepad, if you have that many.
    • Removed the Always return valid Kempston joystick data option. This only existed for compatibility with some old .sna snapshots that assumed a Kempston joystick would always be present.
    • Changed the port decoding for Kempston mode to default to $df since that’s what nearly all the various Kempston clones that were made respond to. This gets the Kempston option on various games such as Nonamed and Jungle Warrior working. You can change the decoding back to Genuine Kempston ($1f) in the Advanced tab of the Options property sheet.
    • The joystick configuration dialog has been redesigned so it is now possible to completely disable joystick emulation, even when you have a real joystick attached.
  • Debugger fixes
    • Displays (IX/IY-128) correctly.
    • Correctly decodes redundant $dd and $fd prefixes.
    • Fixed display when memory is paged during single-stepping.
    • Changed SL1 opcode to SLL as this mnemonic is more common, if incorrect.
    • The decimal/hex setting is now respected by the register(s) editor.
  • Cassette Recorder
    • Fixed incorrect triggering of auto stop when loading the following TZX files:
      • Sailing
      • Lode Runner
      • Vega Solaris
    • Fixed auto play not working with Striker.
  • Multiface
    • Several users reported random crashes in TR-DOS when emulating the Pentagon 128 and Scorpion ZS 256. This is due to the Multiface being enabled when it is not compatible with the Beta 128 disk hardware. The Multiface is now disabled when emulating these machines.
    • The Multiface emulation has now been completely re-written. The Disable switch on the Tools->Multiface menu now only works for the Multiface 1 (since it was the only model which had a physical disable switch).
    • Triggering an NMI (Control menu->Generate NMI) when the Multiface 128 or Multiface 3 is disabled (they are both disabled at power-on) will now correctly just generate the NMI and not activate and page in the Multiface.
    • The Multiface red button (Tools menu->Multiface->Activate) is required to activate and page in the Multiface 128 and Multiface 3
    • Saved Multiface 3 snapshots will now reload.
    • The contents of the ROM are now saved to zx-state (.szx) snapshots if Enable writes to Multiface ROM is selected.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Spectaculator’s plug-ins are no longer UPX packed since a few incompatibilities have been found which can cause crashes.
    • Tidied up the menus, adding access keys (mnemonics) where they were missing.
    • Startup error dialog boxes no longer appear behind the splash screen.
    • View->Border->Small now correctly sets the correct window size when the menu bar wraps.
    • Copying the screen image to the clipboard now works in fullscreen modes.
    • Saving the screen image now works if Spectaculator is in fullscreen mode.
    • The Quick load dialog box now lists the snapshots in the same order as described in the online help (newest at the top).
    • Imported machine code can now be immediately executed.
    • The File->New dialog box can now be navigated correctly with the keyboard.
    • Double-clicking the title bar now enters full screen mode, just like the maximise button.
    • Fixed ZX Printer listings having lines cut-off at the bottom of a page.
    • Tape sound is now recorded when using the audio recording.
    • ZS Scorpion .z80 snapshots are now saved with the correct page numbers.

I would like to personally thank Steve Parry-Thomas for the loan (and subsequent refusal to have back) a Plus D and disk drive. It was his generosity that made the Plus D emulation in this release possible.

Sincere thanks also go to Paul van der Laan of type invaders for supplying the images of the Spectrum 48K and Spectrum 128K+ used on the virtual keyboard.

Finally, to all those people who supplied bug reports, comments, suggestions and feedback – a big thank you to you all 🙂

Jonathan Needle
June 2008