The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is a computer that caught on extremely well in Europe. It has a vast following on the Mac, as evidenced by the sheer number of emulators written for it. Its popularity can be accounted for in two ways: one, the ZX was incredibly cheap for its time, and two, its simplistic hardware is easy to emulate. For both reasons, it's got some quality emulators behind it, and its games seem fun, albeit primitive at times.
 | MacSpectacle 1.9.7 for classic MacOS, 68020+ and PowerPC cpus. |
| ZX Loader 1.0.6 for classic MacOS, 68020+ and PowerPC cpus, which records and converts real program tapes to .tap files for any
emulator. |
The most flexible Spectrum emulator, MacSpectacle mimics even the tiniest nuances of the ZX Spectrum. It will run more Spectrum games than either of the other two emulators, and surpasses even Power Spectrum in flashiness. It can even decode ZX tapes read in through the microphone jack. Most importantly, it is the only one of these emulators to support the ZX Spectrum 128 and its powerful sound chip.
| the source code to MacSpectacle 1.9.2. |
 | the MacSpectacle home page. |
 | to Günter Woigk, author of MacSpectacle. |
| zxsp 0.7.1 for OS X 10.3+. Version 0.7.1 adds the following features: Kempston mouse interface emulation, ability to save flashing and high-res screenshots as .gifs, record movies as animated .gifs and improved file handling. |
| zxsp 0.5.10 for any Mac OS X version, from 10.0 on up. |
| zxsp 0.2.2 for classic MacOS (PowerPC only). |
Known as the "ZX Spectrum Simulator," this emulator is capable of emulating every known Sinclair model. This emulator also supports multiple ZX computers running simultaneously.
| the zxsp home page. |
| to Günter Woigk, author of zxsp. |
| Power Spectrum 1.0. |
Power Spectrum is the second best Spectrum emulator. It has many bells and whistles, including the ability to load Spectrum tapes into the Macintosh by plugging the cassette player into the microphone jack. Although not as ZX compatible as MacSpectacle, it is a very slick, polished machine which ZX fans should try. Check out the About box--even that is emulated! (A small Spectrum BASIC program pops up which lists the credits.)
| to Bo Lindbergh, author of Power Spectrum. |
| MacSpeccy 1.1. |
Another ZX emulator on the list is MacSpeccy 1.1. The oldest of the emulators, it is also one of the least impressive Spectrum emulators for Macintosh. That's not to say that it's bad, though, just a little dated--it's certainly worth mentioning.
| the source code to Jasper 1.1. |
Jasper is a Java-based ZX emulator designed so that it can run as a very compatible web-based java applet.
| the Jasper Home Page. This page also has links to many Spectrum games playable right from the web site via Jasper. |
| Fuse 0.8.0.1. |
Fuse (the Free Unix Spectrum Emulator) was orginally, and somewhat unsurprisingly, a Spectrum emulator for Unix. However, it has now also been ported to Mac OS X.
Fuse features:
* Working 16K/48K/128K/+2/+2A/+3/TC2048/TC2068/Pentagon emulation, running at true Speccy speed on any computer you're likely to try it on.
* Support for loading from .tzx files.
* Sound (on systems supporting the Open Sound System, OpenBSD/Solaris's /dev/audio or SDL).
* Kempston joystick emulation.
* Emulation of the various printers you could attach to the Spectrum.
* Support for the RZX input recording file format, including 'competition mode'.
| the Fuse homepage. |
| the Fuse 0.8.0 OS X utilities software. |
| version 0.2.1 of the libSpectrum library, for use with Fuse. |
| the Fuse 0.8.0.1 source code for OS X. |
 | of Tetris. |
| of Paperboy. |
| of Commando. |
| of Gryzor (also known as Contra). |
| of Arkanoid. |
| ZX Spectrum Widget 3.0. Requires Mac OS X 10.4. Follow the directions carefully if you are updating as it will overwrite the previous version's game file directory. |
Emulation.net has generally not tracked emulators written with Java. However, with the introduction of Dashboard in Mac OS X 10.4, Apple has provided a convenient way to leverage this type of emulator. The simply-named ZX Spectrum Widget, is one such emulator. Based on the Qaop Java emulator and provided as a Dashboard Widget, ZX Spectrum Widget offers ZX Spectrum emulation that is always available with just a click of a button.
| the ZX Spectrum Widget home page. |
| the author of ZX Spectrum Widget. |
| the ZX Spectrum File Search Engine site. |
| the ZX Spectrum Technical Specifications page. |
