Z.com - Spectrum-128K and Spectrum-48K emulator for MS DOS.

Copyright (C) Vladimir Kladov, 2003

Z.com - is a really working and playable smallest Spectrum-48K/128K emulator. Rather then other pretending to be smallest Speccy emulators (bacteria.com), it play without problem most of programs written for Spectrum-128K and also the same is true for Spectrum-128K. A size of Z.com emulator is so big (6bytes without compressing it by external compressing tools) just because its code contains a lot of tables, which are necessary for exact emulation of all the Z80 instructions and the most of apparature of Spectrum. These tables are packed therefore though without using serious packing tools, i.e. manually. I done this, since those tables contains mainly repeated values or values, which can be calculated using simple formulas.

Download:

z.zip 

Usage:

1. In the directory where z.com is located, Spectrum's ROM image must be placed (48.rom of 16K size if option SPECTRUM_128K was off while compiling, otherwise 128.rom of 32K size).
2. It is possible to pass a name of sna-image in a command line. Common command line format is:
   z [/s] [filename[.sna]]
   (Key /s - turn sounds off initially).
3. Keys:
   F1 - Help,
   F2 - Save (always to a file Z.SNA);
   F3 - Load a snap from file Z.SNA (normal) or from SNA-file selected from a list (bigger) - depending on option LOAD_SELECT while compiling;
   F4 - Reload file, loaded initially (if it was passed in command line);
   F5 - Toggle sound on/off;
   ESC - Exit from the emulator.
   Some of operations above become unavailable if correspondent option is turned off while compiling.
4. Arrow keys (including NUMPAD keys) emulate Kempston-joystick. Fire can be pressed with Ins, Del and Tab. Also, some additional keys (',', '.', '"', '-', '+') are emulated.
5. To recompile it is enough to have TASM5 by Borland (TLINK and MAKE are in its distributive).

Requirements:

• Hardware: Intel 486/66MHz, 1Mbyte RAM, VGA.
• OS: MS-DOS 6.22

The emulator Z.com normally works also under Windows9x/Me/NT/2K/XP. Sound always outputs to PC-speaker. Its quality is better a bit under Windows9x, and even better under DOS.

Reprogramming of timer is not used. Instead, I designed simle and effective algorithm, which adjusts emulation speed to real time dynamically.

Z.com is published with all sources (see Z-src.zip in this archive). Commercial usage is prohibited. All rights are reserved.

18-Oct-2003

History:

• 26-Oct-2003 (simplified, but most correct DAA emulation. Minimal size now is 4396 bytes).
• 20.10.03 (load SNA-file on F3 selecting from pop-up directory list, option LOAD_SELECT, adds ~0,6K of code).
• 18.10.03 (the first publication, minimal size of Z.com is 4520 bytes for 48K without any additional options).

mailto: v1kladov@mail.ru

See also EMUZ - the first my (one of the first in the World) Spectrum emulator, made by me in 1995.

See also EmuZWin - the best my Spectrum emulator for Windows (at least, fastest), 2003.