ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

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kolbeck
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ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

Post by kolbeck »

This question pops-up now and then, so I would like to start out by giving my list of emulators I use on macOS, now Apple has made sure that Wine does not work any more one newer version of macOS (so no more EightyOne on Mac - at least not the easy way).

* sz81 - http://rullf2.xs4all.nl/sz81/index.html
* ZEsarUX - http://sourceforge.net/projects/zesarux/
* Clock Signal (CLK) - https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK/releases (This has a very nice CRT emulation)
* zxsp - http://k1.spdns.de/Develop/Projects/zxsp/Distributions/
* JtyOne - javascript emulator working in a browser http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html

I can for sure say that I haven't tried every one available, so leave a comment if you have other suggestions :-)

/Thomas
https://api.zxinfo.dk/v3/ - ZXDB API for developers
zxinfo-file-browser - Cross platform app to manage your files
https://zxinfo.dk - another ZXDB frontend
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TMD2003
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Re: ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

Post by TMD2003 »

My Mac no longer works for more than a few seconds, so I can't load it and check what I was using. I get the impression it might have been something running through DOSBox, though. It wasn't ZEsarUX, though I did try one of its older versions (early 2018) when the Mac was working.
Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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kolbeck
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Re: ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

Post by kolbeck »

DOSBox - sounds like a really old emulator :-)

I only remember XTender for DOS

/Thomas
https://api.zxinfo.dk/v3/ - ZXDB API for developers
zxinfo-file-browser - Cross platform app to manage your files
https://zxinfo.dk - another ZXDB frontend
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

Post by Ast A. Moore »

zxsp is generally a pretty good emulator. Back in the day it was the only Spectrum emulator for Classic Mac OS. Fuse came much later. Günter also authored zasm, an excellent Z80 assembler for *nix systems, for which I developed my syntax highlighter (and gave him a couple of ideas for improving the assembler). I believe it’s the only Spectrum-oriented assembler that gives you fine control over creating TZX files directly in your source code.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
bwinkel67
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Re: ZX80/ZX81 Emulators for macOS

Post by bwinkel67 »

kolbeck wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:12 pm This question pops-up now and then, so I would like to start out by giving my list of emulators I use on macOS, now Apple has made sure that Wine does not work any more one newer version of macOS (so no more EightyOne on Mac - at least not the easy way).

* sz81 - http://rullf2.xs4all.nl/sz81/index.html
* ZEsarUX - http://sourceforge.net/projects/zesarux/
* Clock Signal (CLK) - https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK/releases (This has a very nice CRT emulation)
* zxsp - http://k1.spdns.de/Develop/Projects/zxsp/Distributions/
* JtyOne - javascript emulator working in a browser http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html

I can for sure say that I haven't tried every one available, so leave a comment if you have other suggestions :-)

/Thomas
I was recently able to post my ZX81 emulator (started this year in March as a COVID stay-at-home project) on the web similar to JtyOne. It's only a ROM emulator called ZXSimulator, similar to Whitby's ZX Spectrum emulator for the Commodore 64 back in the late 80's but it works pretty well. It's implemented on a Sinclair QL (unexpanded, as that was the aim of the project -- i.e. see if I could get a ZX81 to run realtime without extra memory or acceleration) so by its nature has a pretty small audience. It was really just for the fun of doing it.

But getting it on the web gives a few more people reason to play with it. It's a ZX81 emulator running in a QL emulator (QLAY) running in DOS emulator (DOSBox) running in JavaScript on a browser. It runs faster than a stock ZX81/TS1000 on the web (on an unexpanded QL it's about 20% faster). It can't run machine code stuff, unfortunately, though eventually I aim to add some peek and poke functionality but not the full Z80 instruction set. I might upgrade it to a Whitby-like ZX Spectrum one eventually (depending on how long this pandemic lasts I suppose). On the plus side, you can touch type in BASIC programs as it doesn't use the keyword entry format.

In any case, you can find it here:

http://zxsimulator.epizy.com/

I hadn't planned on posting anything about it here since this forum is for Spectrum stuff and there is a similar forum for ZX80/81 stuff. But I saw this small section and your post so I thought, why not. In fact, this forum looks so similar to the ZX80/81 forum that, as I stumbled on this via Google and tried to post and it wouldn't let me, I was so confused I tried to unsuccessfully log on a couple of times until I realized this was a different forum :-/ I had found a thread about a vinyl game converted to a wave file for a ZX81 created in the 80's and wanted to see if it would run on my emulator.
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