Spectaculator overview

Spectaculator is the world's premier Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator for personal computers running Microsoft® Windows®.

Spectaculator emulates the 16K/48K/128/+2/+2A/+3 Spectrums, the Pentagon 128 and Scorpion ZS 256 clones, and a variety of expansion hardware.

Highlights

  • Play your favourite Sinclair ZX Spectrum games on your PC.

  • Play full screen complete with TV-style picture on any monitor.

  • High fidelity 48K ZX Spectrum sound. Will even play the multi-channel music on games such as Fairlight and Arkanoid correctly.

  • Choose Kempston, Cursor, Fuller, or Sinclair Interface II joysticks and use your PC game pads to play (up to two players simultaneously). Any supported joystick can be emulated through the PC keyboard's arrow and tab keys.

  • Assign the extra buttons on modern joysticks to key presses on the Spectrum keyboard.

  • Kempston and AMX mouse emulation.

  • Recording and playback of action replays (.rzx files)

  • Fast emulation mode - up to 20x normal speed.

  • Supports SNA and Z80 snapshot formats (loading and saving).

  • Supports the new zx-state (.szx) snapshot format for true state saving, even down to which audio cassette file is in the cassette recorder.

  • Support for virtual audio cassettes (TAP and TZX files):

    • The flashloading system reduces load times to almost zero, even for games which utilise special loaders such as Speedlock and Alkatraz.

    • Save your game progress or other programs and data.

    • Listen to the infamous loading noise when loading from these types of file.

    • Use the virtual cassette recorder for complete control when loading multi-load games.

  • Read and write Spectrum +3 disk images (.dsk files).

  • Fast disk mode to load +3 disks as fast as possible.

  • Emulates the ZX Interface 1 and up to eight Microdrives.

  • ZX Printer emulation. Output can be saved to disk, copied to the clipboard or sent to a real printer.

  • Load games from audio samples of original Spectrum cassettes.

  • Turns your emulated Spectrum into a drum machine by emulating the Cheetah SpecDrum hardware.

  • Emulates the Currah µSpeech allophone speech synthesizer.

  • Enhanced sound for the 48K Spectrum through emulation of the Fuller Box sound system.

  • Load your own programs and data from external audio sources such as Minidisc or a real cassette recorder.

  • Customisable CPU speed - run your emulated Spectrum at upto 100MHz.

  • Play games released on Sinclair Interface II ROM cartridges.

  • Cycle-accurate display renderer to emulate the colour effects produced by games such as Zynaps, Uridium and demos such as MDA, NMI3, Shock Megademo and Hercules.

  • Cheat at games by entering pokes or download cheat files.

  • Emulates the Multiface 1, Multiface 128 and Multiface 3 (includes ROM code licensed from Romantic Robot).

  • Open games contained in zip archives without first having to extract them.

  • Load and save Spectrum screenshots (.scr) files.

  • Download more games from Spectrum Computing (currently about 11,000 titles available) or the TZX Vault.

  • Full online help system.

  • Intuitive user interface - designed for users of all abilities.

  • Uses the Microsoft® Windows® Installer service for a robust, reliable installation.