About external ROM files

Spectaculator can use external ROM files in place of the built-in standard Spectrum ROMs.

This allows you to use national language versions of the ROMs such as Spanish and French, as well as ROMs from projects such as Sinclair Extended Basic (SE Basic).

ROM sizes

All models later than the original 48k Spectrum have multiple ROMs - for example, the Spectrum +3 has four ROMs of 16 KB each. You will need to join them together in the correct order to form one big file for use with Spectaculator.

Let's assume you've downloaded the Spectrum +3 Spanish ROMs named esp3-0.rom, esp3-1.rom, esp3-2.rom and esp3-3.rom.

At a command prompt, enter the following command to combine the separate ROMs into one file:

copy /b esp3-0.rom + esp3-1.rom + esp3-2.rom + esp3-3.rom esplus3.rom

This creates one 64 KB ROM file called esplus3.rom which can be used with Spectaculator as described here.

Spectrum models and combined ROM sizes

Spectrum Model	ROM Sizes
16k/48k Spectrum	16KB (1 x 16KB ROM)
Spectrum 128	32KB (2 x 16KB ROM)
Spectrum +2	32KB (2 x 16KB ROM)
Spectrum +2A/+3	64KB (4 x 16KB ROM)
ZX Interface 1	8KB (1 x 8KB ROM)

Spectaculator also supports Ian Collier's 16KB modified ZX Interface 1 ROM available here.