What is the difference between the various tape formats like .tap, .tzx, etc?

I wanted to drop a quick update.. The feedback from the Wild Bunch crowd has been awesome, so I’ve been hard at work adding a stack of new features and polishing things up based on what you all suggested. Here’s a quick look at where the game’s at now:

If you grew up playing The Wild Bunch by Firebird Software on the ZX Spectrum, Wild Justice was made for you. I spent endless hours as a kid playing The Wild Bunch over and over again, and that’s the exact feeling I wanted to recreate here.

The idea is to give you a sandbox western experience with tons of variety. You can walk into a saloon for a drink, play a hand of poker, take on bar bets, stock up on gear, mount up on a horse, capture outlaws, or just get into random street duels.

What’s new in the latest update:

• Devil's Canyon: A mysterious, haunted canyon that’s procedurally generated, making the layout different each time you venture in.
• Train Diversions: When outlaws make a break for it on the train, you now have to man the Signal Station and throw levers to change the track forks before they get away.
• Mini-games & Extras: Added a barrel-toss challenge and a zip wire alongside overall polish and performance fixes.

It’s an ongoing project that I’m constantly refining, but it's loaded with content and replayability right now. Would love for you guys to check it out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5033960/Wild_Justice/

I would say fight me, but if you don’t use ZXKO you would lose

This is a rather useless fun project.

The Spectrum was my second computer after the ZX81. With recent advances in AI, writing yet another emulator is boring. So I decided to write a simulator instead.

My simulator implements all of the Spectrum‘s ROM and Basic interpreter, but does not emulate the Z80. That makes it super fast in Basic, but it can not run games.

Instead of a graphics screen, it runs in a terminal window and adapts to the terminal size. You can edit and run Sinclair Basic Programms at 80x45 characters or whatever other terminal size you like.

The repository is here:

https://github.com/MatthiasWM/ZX-spectrum-on-vt100

It’s tested on MacOS, but you have to compile it yourself. If anyone is interested, I can release Mac, Linux, and Windows binaries.

Not sure why this never got ported back in the day, hard as it is I love it.

https://someoneat.itch.io/the-castle-zx

My retrospective game review of all the versions of DARKMAN from Ocean Software. Anybody else remember playing these games? Did you think that the levels were repetitive, difficult, bland with wonky controls? Interested in your thoughts and memories to see if was close to the general consensus. 😉

Batman: The Caped Crusader is an arcade adventure which uses a unique style, innovated by Jonathan Smith and Charles Davies, to display the action as though it takes place in a comic book.^\2]) This technique involved having each game location set in its own panel, often with a comic book style caption in the upper-left corner, with inactive panels faded out behind the current active location. This concept was expanded upon by Sega's Comix Zone seven years later.^\3])

The game was split into two independently playable parts in which Batman is faced with two of his most well-known adversaries: "A Bird In The Hand" featuring the Penguin) and "A Fete Worse Than Death" which involved the Joker). The gameplay involves Batman using punches and kicks and his batarang (a thrown weapon) in order to fight the villains' henchmen as well as solving puzzles

Forgive my lack of knowledge on the subject but I was wondering if anyone can tell me what's wrong with my Spectrum. I bought it off Facebook Marketplace last week and it booted up absolutely fine. Yesterday and today, however, when I set it up and plug it in, it fails to boot, creating all sorts of patterns on the boot screen. After about 5 minutes it reaches the Sinclair Research screen (firstly with some cyan and magenta blocks) before settling down and acting normal thereafter.

Is this a known issue? If so, what can I do to resolve it? Many thanks!

Hi!

I created a Scorpion ZS-256 computer emulator for the ESP32-S3 platform with the help of Claude (Opus 5.5).

Project code on GitHub:
https://github.com/mikedeblin/ESP32-Scorpion

A Scorpion ZS-256 emulator (a ZX Spectrum-compatible computer with 256 KB of RAM) based on the ESP32-S3 board. It supports VGA monitor output, USB keyboard connection, audio playback (AY-3-8912 and beeper) via an I2S DAC, and TR-DOS operation using disk images stored on an SD card.

Features:

Scorpion ZS-256: 256 KB RAM, ROM version 2.95 (menu, BASIC 128/48, Shadow Monitor via the "Magic" button, TR-DOS 5.03).

VGA output: 640×480 at 60 Hz or 50 Hz (frame rate synchronized with emulation), 15 colors (including the BRIGHT attribute) and support for the FLASH attribute.

Beam-accurate video output: each line is rendered at the exact same moment (CPU cycle / T-state) as on a real TV; this enables effects such as "beam-racing," multicolor, and colored border stripes.

USB keyboard support (Boot Protocol mode) via OTG.

Audio: AY-3-8912 + beeper, stereo (ACB configuration), 48 kHz sample rate (PCM5102 DAC). TR-DOS: WD1793 (VG93) controller emulation, drives A and B, and support for .trd and .scl images.

Disk images are stored on an SD card; data written within the TR-DOS environment is saved back to the .trd file on the card.

File menu (accessed via the F9 key): management of folders, disks, tapes, and memory snapshots.

Tape support: .tap and .tzx formats (loading from SD card).
Standard blocks load instantly (via interception of the LD-BYTES subroutine); turbo blocks and non-standard game loaders receive a real signal, just as if reading from a cassette player (all TZX block types are supported, except #26/#27 and CSW with Z-RLE compression).
Automatic start/stop of the "tape player" is implemented.

Snapshot support: .z80 (versions v1–v3, including Scorpion 256K), .sna (48K/128K), and .slt (with level support).

Keyboard volume control (Ctrl+Alt+↑/↓, 3 dB step).

USB drive mode: when connected to a PC via USB, the device is recognized as a flash drive (providing access to the SD card or internal flash memory).

I have also uploaded the case design file in STL format for 3D printing.

The project is not yet complete, but the device is already fully functional.

A little update on Tower 48, my skyscraper management game for the ZX Spectrum 48K.

V1.5 isn't really a gameplay update. This time I've been working on something rather more Spectrum-specific: restructuring how the game is stored and loaded from tape.

Until now, the main BASIC program also contained the entire opening menu and quite a lot of initialization code. That worked, but once the game had started all of that code was still sitting in memory doing absolutely nothing useful. So in V1.5 I've split things up. The tape now begins with a separate small BASIC starter program whose only job is to handle:

NEW GAME / LOAD GAME / QUIT

Once you've made your choice, the actual game program is loaded separately. That means the complete opening menu no longer needs to live inside the main game, which has saved roughly 1.7 KB of memory in the active program.

On a 48K Spectrum, suddenly finding another 1.7K feels rather luxurious.

I've also moved the initial tower state out of BASIC initialization code and onto the tape as two number-array blocks:

T48MAP – starting tower/map data
T48ST – starting game-state data

Instead of running a long sequence of LETs and loops to reconstruct a new game, the program simply loads the prepared arrays. An added benefit is that NEW GAME and LOAD GAME can now use essentially the same rebuilding routine. A new game loads the default arrays; a saved game loads the player's arrays instead. So the tape itself is actually larger now because it contains more individual blocks, but the important part is that the BASIC program sitting in RAM while you're actually playing is smaller.

I've also changed the loading feedback a little. The old static LOADING message has been replaced with a flashing indicator, and loading a saved game now gives a clearer prompt telling the player when to start the tape. This also fixes an annoying emulator situation where cyclic tape playback could accidentally feed the NEW GAME arrays into a LOAD GAME attempt.

There are a couple of smaller fixes as well - including an old debug line that could crash the options menu and some mistyped variables that meant a few routines weren't actually doing anything.

The LOAD GAME option from the new starter program still isn't quite where I want it to be, so that's something I'll continue working on.

But the main reason for doing all of this was simple:

I needed more room.

Tower 48 keeps growing, and I'd rather spend memory on simulation and new gameplay systems than on a menu that the player sees once at startup.

Full devlog / download:

https://haabb001.itch.io/tower-48/devlog/1700603/tower-48-v15-tape-structure

I'd be curious how other people handled this in larger BASIC games back in the day. Did you tend to split programs/data across multiple tape blocks, use overlays/multiloads, or eventually just start moving more and more of the game into machine code?

You can give the new version a go in your browser on my webpage:

http://haabb.xf.cz:8080/play-tower-48.html

My retrospective video review of the Thundercats games from Elite released for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and Atari ST. Who remembers or played this game and what’s your thoughts?

A rainy afternoon not dampening Speccy Spirits!

These old hands struggle with joysticks, but I can confirm a Master System controller works fine with speccy +2, when used with an adapter like this one from Cool Novelties (eBay.) Original hardware and software, games tested were Chase HQ and Renegade.

Ad Astra is a classic space shoot-'em-up video game released in mid-1984 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K by Gargoyle Games.

Key Details

• Developer / Publisher: Created by Roy Carter (coding) and Greg Follis/Frys (graphics), published by Gargoyle Games. It was the studio's debut release.

• Genre: Arcade shoot-'em-up / action simulation (behind-view perspective).

• Platform: Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.

• Players: 1 or 2 players (alternating).

• Gameplay: You pilot a spaceship, dodge asteroids and enemy fire, and shoot down increasingly varied alien craft as you survive through waves.

• Reception: Won 1st place in the "Best Shoot'Em Up" category at the Crash Readers Awards 1984

The original ( https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/14503/ZX-Spectrum/Alien_Fiend ) is a great little game and if it had come out 3 years earlier I'm sure it would be more well known. It's almost like a Basic super-demake of Alien: Isolation. My remake ups the graphics and sound effects to add more horror and scares, and I've added a bit more strategy.

https://roman126.itch.io/scuba-dive-next

The 2068 was Timex's take on the Spectrum, with proper plastic keys and a three-voice sound chip instead of the beeper. But the ROM was changed as well, so from what I've read fewer than one in ten commercial Spectrum titles would run on it unless you added a Spectrum ROM cartridge.

Did anyone here try Spectrum games on a 2068? Would perfect compatibility have saved it?

So I’ve jailbroken the DSi, installed ZXDS on an SD Card, and I have things configured so that the DSi boots straight into ZXDS from the SD Card on startup. All good so far.

Now when I go to the Loader it says “NO DLDI DEVICE FOUND”. I’ve read around this for some time now and I think I have got my head around what DLDI is and why you need to patch the .NDS file to work with your memory card. My question is, when using ZXDS, can you load games from the SD card? And if so, what DLDI Device would a Samsung SD card be? I would need to know this to patch it correctly, right?

Or do I need to be running everything from a DS Flash Card?

I have never seen or heard of these, it was before my time, but I feel lucky!

My old grey ZX Spectrum +2 had a maddening fault: press play, the tape turns for a second, then stops dead. No grinding or anything, just a sad little twitch and then stop. Fast-forward and rewind worked fine, only play died. I went down the whole rabbit hole, including a couple of wrong turns, before I got it loading off its own Datacorder again.

The TLDR: the culprit turned out to be the big rubber belt after all, which needed changing. I'd ruled it out early on because fast-forward and rewind still worked, so I spent time cleaning other parts before I came back to it. The other surprise was how hard it was to get a £3 belt shipped to me in the EU.

Full write-up, with photos:
https://mastorakis.com/blog/zx-spectrum-plus2-datacorder-repair/

Nether Earth was one of the games for me on the Spectrum.

On 22 December 1989, while Ceaușescu was falling, my best friend and I were both playing it at home on separate Spectrums, keeping a phone line open and narrating our games to each other.

There was no multiplayer, so for the next 36 years I had this vague idea that one day I should build it.

I finally did.

It’s a modern remake with PvP, but I tried to treat the original Spectrum version as the authority. An annotated Z80 disassembly turned out to be invaluable: we recovered things like the original map and terrain, projectile behavior, sprites, sounds, and even some wonderfully obscure quirks.

I used coding agents for the implementation, which became an interesting experiment in its own right, but the part I enjoyed most was effectively doing software archaeology on a game I’d known since I was a kid.

And yes, after finally building the multiplayer version, I played my old friend again.

He absolutely whooped my behind.

Project:
https://github.com/AndyTheFactory/nether_earth

Longer retrospective:
https://medium.com/@andy_p_/i-built-a-zx-spectrum-remake-in-3-weeks-without-writing-a-single-line-of-code-1445aab7474e

Im trying to save to tape properly, but it just gives me "Tape loading error." What do i do?

Avalon is set in Britain in the year 408, during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The player controls Maroc, a "lore-seeker") who has been given a staff and map by a strange old woman and pointed in the direction of a place called Glass Hill on the isle of Avalon, where a quest to defeat the Lord of Chaos begins.

Avalon involves controlling Maroc the mage in his quest to destroy Avelach, Lord of Chaos.^\3])#cite_note-avalonadvert-3) The player's character cannot be killed. The game world is explored by an astral projection of Maroc; if Maroc's energy is depleted the projection returns to Maroc's "physical" body on the start screen, from which the game can be continued