MAME4droid Files

Xpectrum

ZX Spectrum 48K, 128K, Plus2, Plus2A, Plus3 emulator derived from gp2xpectrum by Hermes/PS2Reality and continued by Metalbrain & Seleuco & SplinterGU.

xpectrum is ZX Spectrum emulator that could be easily port to various hand-held devices.

The purpose of this project is to bring together the develop efforts to port to differents platforms.

Currently it includes support for SDL (WIZ, Linux), Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and gp2x.

Android version is called Xpectroid. iPhone, iPad, iPod touch version is called iXpectrum. othe version are called GP2Xpectrum.

If you want to port to some device you can join this project.

If you like my whole work for the community, please consider donating something. I am releasing everything for free but it would feel really nice to see a little show of support from the community, and all donations will be greatly appreciated.

iXpectrum latest release can be easily installed from Cydia.

Xpectroid latest release can be easily installed from Android Market.

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INSTALLING

You can download the debian package and install via SSH using the following command:

"dpkg -i iXpectrum.deb"

or more easily: install from Cydia.

Place your .z80, .sp, .tap, .tzx, .sna and .dsk in /var/mobile/Media/ROMs/iXpectrum/

To copy files to the iphone you can install SSH from Cydia and use a SFTP or SCP client.

To use SSH after jailbreak, you can go up to Cydia and search for OpenSSH to find the package. Tap the Install button to install it on your iPhone. Once installed, restart your iPhone. You wont find an icon for SSH on the home screen. But after restart, the SSH tool will be automatically launched and listens for remote request in background.

scp is a nice and powerful file copier for osx and linux, the best command we need to copy files between our pc and our iphone. Just go to the terminal and type:

scp /source/ -F root@ip:/var/mobile/Media/ROMs/iXpectrum/ (where ip is the WIFI iPhone IP)

this copy is done via ssh to the ip of the phone.

You can also use a rich GUI client like Filezilla to do a SFTP copy or maybe WinSCP if you prefer.

iPHONE & iPad

Tap over the options label (in portrait mode) to change the following options:

-Landscape Keeps Aspect. 'Enabled' keeps the aspect ratio in landscape mode; 'Disabled' will use all available screen.

-Portrait original size (iPad only). Enable to draw spectrum screen at its original size.

-Smoothed Landscape or Smoothed portrait. Enable to apply a image filter over the emulator screen.

-Safe Render Path (iPhone only). Enable at the expenses of performance for maximun compability. Slow in 3G.

You can tap in the speccy screen (in portrait mode) to change from the controller to the touch keyboard. Tape it again to go back to the controller.

Also, you can tap in the top of the screen to show the transparent keyboard while in landscape mode. The landscape keyboard can be hidden touching in the "hide" label. When hidden, you can touch in any position of the screen to show it again. Touch in the "Back to Controller" label to go back to the controller.

You can load a ula+ palette and insert a new tape to load a game with this palette applied, or you can set the option "ula+64 without reset" (in the configuration menu) to load a snapshot or tape from the standard menu. This doesn't reset the colours loaded previously, even if you reset the speccy (it makes testing games with palette colours easier).

Also, at the options screen you can press donate button to open a browser and donate some cash though Paypal. It's simple and reliable; just click the button and enter your credit card information (or PayPal account info if you have a PayPal account). Help me to support the emulator is you liked it, so i can develop more emulators and improve this one.

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GAME FORMATS

Allows .z80, .sp, .tap, .tzx, .sna and .dsk (+3 disks) Spectrum formats. The files can be compressed in BZIP2 (you'll be able to choose if there are several files with valid extensions inside the archive). You can load the save states (.sav) directly, too.

GAME SELECTION

Use the stick (UP/DOWN) to browse, stick (LEFT/RIGHT) to move page, L & R to go to first or last entry and B to select.

X exits resetting the speccy to 128K mode. (you can reset to another model in the virtual keyboard, see later)

Press SELECT to return to the main menu (or Tape Browser).

PLAYING A GAME

The emulator will works full speed in iPhone 3G in landscape or portrait mode (depends on frames emulated and contention options), with mono or stereo sound between 11025-44100Hz. Both beeper and AY chip are supported.

Button layout:

Stick, A,B,X,Y,L,R -> programmable with the virtual keyboard (not from the touch keyboard). In joystick emulation B button is assigned as joy fire button.

SELECT (called "m2" in iPhone) -> access to the config menu

START (called "m1" in iPhone)-> show the virtual keyboard

VIRTUAL KEYBOARD

In the virtual keyboard, the buttons are disabled, except for L, R and B.

The B button, press the key currently selected in the virtual keyboard

Pressing START we can exit the virtual keyboard.

BUTTON PROGRAMMING:

Push SELECT (the key selector will flash) and press the stick direction or button (A,B,X,Y,L,R) you wish to assign to this key. You may abort the programming mode by pushing SELECT again.

SPECIAL FUNCTIONS:

In the virtual keyboard, 5 special functions are included:

RESET: by pressing B, a new submenu appears to select the Spectrum model you want to reset to. By default, the emulator resets to the 128K model. If a game in .tap or .tzx format, doesn't load in this mode, reset the enulator using the 48K model.To abort the operation, use X button.

LOAD: if a game requires the 48K mode, push B in this option to get the LOAD "" spectrum command to load a game in .tap or .tzx format.

KEYBOARD/JOYSTICKS: use this option to assign the stick and buttons to spectrum keys or differents spectrum's joysticks interfaces.

MKEY: this function "pressess" the keyboard sequence previously programmed like a simultaneously key press and then erase all the programmed keys. To program the keys, go to the desired key and push A to add this key to the key program. Up to up to 8 keys are supported. There is an alternative function. You can use B button instead A button to get Multikey programming, but with this method the multikey combination won't be erased (this is useful in e.g.: ABU SIMBEL Profanation, where pushing the 'VICTOR' key combination you can get tricks)

TAPE: here we can access directly to the tape browser.

CONFIGURATION MENU

In this menu, you can access several options:

Load State -> loads the previously save state of a game

Save Keyboard -> saves the currently programmed keys for the current game. This way you won't have to define controls again each time you load the same game.

Save State -> saves the state of a game

Spectrum Screen or Full Screen -> activate/deactivate the full screen mode.

Show FPS [on/off] -> show/hide the current frames per second.

POKE Manager-> shows the POKE menu (modification of spectrum memory values)

"Ula+64 disabled", "Ula+64 with colour reset" and "Ula+64 without color reset" disable ULAPlus emulated HW or enable it keeping the palette colours between resets or not.

New +3 Disk (only appears while emulating the +3 model) -> Put a new formated +3 disc Use SIDE A for +3 Disk (only appears while emulating the +3 model) -> Side selector (for double side discs)

Save +3 Disk (only appears while emulating the +3 model) -> Save the current disc in the directory /roms/spectrum/saves with a new name (if you write new data in the disc, use this to save).

Draw all (50fps) , 1/2 (25fps) or autoskip frames. -> ZX Spectrum works in PAL mode so 25fps should be enough in most cases, but if you want to see all ULA effects enable "50 fps" option at the expense of losing performance.

Contention [on/off] -> Enable/disable contended memory emulation.

Emulation Speed to 175% -> Allows you to change the orginal Spectrum speed, which can be useful to vary the difficulty of games or to observe a detail more slowly. While this option is selected, the stick buttons (LEFT & RIGHT) will vary this speed.

Sound [OFF/Mono/Stereo Beeper/Stereo ABC AY/Stereo ALL] -> sets sound mode.

Sound Rate [11025/22050/32000/44100] KHz -> sets the sound frecuency quality.

Fast Loading [ON/OFF] -> enable/disable fast loading mode.

Flash Loading [ON/OFF] -> enable/disable instant load of standard tape blocks.

Edge Loading [ON/OFF] -> enable/disable edge detection mode that may accelerate non-standard tape blocks.

Auto Tape Play/Stop [ON/OFF] -> enable/disable the tape autoplay/stop.

Tape Browser -> access the tape browser.

Exit from Game -> exit from the game to the game selection screen.

Return to Game -> returns to the game.

Note: If you want to load a game in high compability mode, or just as original spectrum did, disable Fast & Flash & Edge loading. If you still have problems loading the game, remember to reset to 48k mode.

Tape Browser

Entering this menu, if a tape is inserted, we'll see the blocks inside the tape, and current block will be marked with an asterisk sign. Moving the joystick up and down we can select other blocks. Pressing B while the current block is selected we'll manually start or stop the tape. Pressing B while another block is selected, that block will become the current one.

"A" will allow us to load a differnt tape (or even a snapshot). With "X" we'll exit the Tape Browser.

POKE Manager

Entering in this menu, the .pok file of the game will be loaded (if it exists) and shows up to 5 poke options. You can edit them with A button and use them with B button. On exit, the .pok file will be stored in /saves/ directory.

POKE TITLE EDITOR:

Poke's name editor, it allows up to 29 characters using the virtual keyboard. Pressing ENT in the virtual keyboard, you access to value edition.

POKE VALUE EDITOR:

Poke's value editor, allows the edition up to 10 pokes which will be fixed by pushing B button in the Poke Manager. Addresses under 16384 are ignored.

Game formats and use

.TAP, .TZX -> Use the 128k loader, and if it fails, try reseting in 48K mode (with RESET in virtual keyboard) and use LOAD "" (pressing LOAD in the virtual keyboard) .Z80, .SNA -> Direct load .DSK -> Use the +3 loader