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SPECCY EMULATORS FOR APPLE MAC

This page last updated on 11 Aug 2000

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[Benchmarks]

5 emulators listed:

[MacSpeccy] [Mac Spectacle] [PowerSpectrum] [ZX Spectrum] [zxsp]

MacSpeccy v1.1 (Danny Keogan)

  1. Emulates 48K Spectrum.
  2. Loads .SNA and (probably) .Z80 snapshots.
  3. Saves?
  4. No real tape support?
  5. Requires 68040.
  6. Seems to be extremely slow.
  7. Freeware?
  8. Allows copying of Spectrum screen to clipboard.
  9. No flash attribute emulation.
  10. The oldest emulator for the Mac.
  11. Available from World of Spectrum.

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Mac Spectacle v1.9.7 (Günter Woigk aka kio)

  1. Emulates 48K/128K Spectrum, joystick (type?).
  2. Loads .SNA and .Z80 snapshots, .SCR screens, and from .TAP tape images.
  3. Saves .SNA and .Z80 snapshots, saves .SCR and .PICT screens.
  4. No real tape support; but there is a program called ZX-Loader to enable the use of PowerSpectrum's facilities for this.
  5. Needs MacOS 7.0 or higher, Color QuickDraw and at least a 68020 CPU or a PowerMAC.
  6. Read Speccy speed on 68020/33 or above.
  7. BSD-ish license.
  8. Single/double/quadruple sized window, all monitor depths (2 and 4 bit slow). High-res screen & border effects. Background or exclusive execution. Better emulation than other emulators for the Mac - so more games run on this one than the others.
  9. Bad points?
  10. Has had support for version 3 .z80 files since v1.8.8. The author is now working on zxsp instead of this emulator.
  11. Available from the author's Spectrum pages.

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PowerSpectrum v1.0 (Bo Lindbergh)

  1. Emulates 48K Spectrum, Kempston joystick.
  2. Loads .SNA snapshots.
  3. Saves .SNA snapshots.
  4. Does realtime tape I/O through the microphone jack (this probably requires 44 kHz sound hardware).
  5. Requires a PowerMac - won't run on a 680x0 machine.
  6. Runs at true Spectrum speed.
  7. Freeware?
  8. 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 screen emulation. Has perfect sound. Supports all undocumented Z80 instructions.
  9. Bad points?
  10. No other comments.
  11. Available from World of Spectrum.

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zxsp 0.2.2 (Günter Woigk aka kio)

  1. Emulates the 16K, 48K, 128K and +2 machines.
  2. Loads .SNA and .Z80 snapshots, .TAP tap files, .SCR screenshots and rom images.
  3. Saves all of the above.
  4. According to the author, "Real tape support currently only for output".
  5. Requires any PowerPC.
  6. Runs at real Speccy speed.
  7. BSD-ish license.
  8. Good points?
  9. Bad points?
  10. Still very much alpha code, so might not be the most stable emulator ever.
  11. Available from the author's Spectrum pages.

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ZX Spectrum 1.0.0 Beta f (Lorenzo José Ayuda Serrano)

  1. Emulates 48K Spectrum.
  2. Loads .SNA and .SP snapshots.
  3. No saving.
  4. Real tape support?
  5. Nothing special needed.
  6. Much faster than MacSpectacle.
  7. Shareware: $20 or 2000 pesetas.
  8. Dragging snapshots onto the main application icon will fix the snap type.
  9. No sound or saving or documentation and is fixed at one window size. Also, opening a new snap opens a new window, which can be annoying.
  10. Thanks to Chris Young for the above details.
  11. Available from World of Spectrum.

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