RZX files for the ZX81/ZX80 - how to do it

[TMD2003]

Crossposted from Sinclair ZX World, where they like this sort of thing...

The "M" page of the RZX archive lists RZXs for three ZX81 games - Mazogs, 3D Monster Maze and Manic Miner ZX81 - but these are Russell Marks' 128K Spectrum ports. And by that I mean, the tapes will load on a completely normal 128K Spectrum, no questions asked - they are, for all intents and purposes, Spectrum games that look identical to their ZX81 originals. Russell was good enough to include the source code in the packages hosted on ZXDB, and by the looks of things it's a very involved task to include all the ZX81 emulation on the Spectrum tape.

Surely there has to be a better way to record action replays of your finest moments on the older machines... and there is. It's slightly convoluted, but it works for me.

(1) Open the relevant .P or .O file in EightyOne.
(2) No need to load it, just click the floppy disc icon and save as a .TZX file.
(3) Open Fuse, set it to 128K Spectrum with the Interface 2 attached.
(4) Insert Paul Farrow's ZX80-on-128K or ZX81-on-128K emulation ROM into the Interface 2.
(5) Select the model (preferably 16K whether it's ZX81 or ZX80), and insert the .TZX file.
(6) LOAD, select the CASSETTE from the menu, and hit F8 to start the tape. And that was a genuinely new experience - a .TZX making ZX81 sounds!
(7) When the game has loaded, record your RZX exactly the way you'd do it for a Spectrum game.
(8) Stop the recording when you're done, make a backup copy then finalise it.

Within the next few days, you'll see the first evidence. I've just sent Daren an RZX of all four levels of Domin8tr1s, the ZX81 down-conversion of the original Spectrum Dominetris. Russell Marks has never had his hands on this one - it's all been done from the ZX81 file. I can further confirm that the RZX files don't need to be run specifically on Fuse - I've had them all running on Spectaculator, which doesn't have an explicit Interface 2 facility.

The RZX format has existed for 18 years, and I am somewhat surprised that this wasn't thought of before. Or, if it was, it was kept very quiet.

[TMD2003]

And just in case anyone thought I was making up FAKE NEWS...

I wasn't. Behold the magnificence, in all its... silence, and black-and-whiteness.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP0W_apE2Ms[/media]

[bobs]

I haven’t seen that beauty in a few years