SpecEmu or another emulator with a good Debugger?

[SparkyNZ]

Hi. I have tried a few Speccy emulators out but I am struggling to find one that has a good debugger. I tried Fuse etc but the debuggers only seem to contain a disassembly, stack and register views.

What I am looking for is an emulator that has a debugger that can view blocks of memory or write out blocks of memory to a (Windows) file.

What would you recommend?

SpecEmu seems to have what I may need .. but I can't get SpecEmu to load anything. I'm actually wanting to do some hacking with a Nodes of Yesod .tzx file. I've managed to load the .tzx on all other emulators.. but not SpecEmu.. and I can't seem to find any help/manual/instructions or even official website for SpecEmu. It looks ike there is a memory Dump button on the debugger.. but how would I save a block of memory to file?

[Dr beep]

zxspin allows writing to file

[ParadigmShifter]

ZXSpin can do that?

EDIT: Not asking a question to Dr. Beep

ZXSpin can dump memory to a file and the debugger is "not bad" although would be better if you could import symbol files from sjasmplus

[SparkyNZ]

zxspin allows writing to file

Sure does! There's a Save Binary menu option on the Memory window.. I better find out how to change the viewer to hex as well..

Thanks @Dr beep

[ParadigmShifter]

In the debugger window

View -> Hex Numbers

Can also switch between 8 and 16 bit representation.

You can't set an arbitrary width for memory window though without much resizing the window nonsense (if I want to see 11 bytes per row instead of 16 - lot of effort to do that lol).

[Bedazzle]

EmuzWin (free, but no more supported by author) or ZX Miracle have a tons of features.
Debugger/Assembler in the latest is much more than you can see on provided screenshots.

[TomD]

I use FUSE to do this. It’s not in the debugger but once you’ve paused in the debugger you can access the other menus and view memory or save blocks.

Tom

[crabfists]

You could use Spectrum Analyser. The debugger in it is quite powerful.

Are you reverse engineering a game? If so, that is what it is designed for.

https://colourclash.co.uk/spectrum-analyser/

[XoRRoX]

To save a block of memory in SpecEmu do File/Save binary file.
From the debugger you can also display blocks of memory.

With InkSpector you can also use SjasmPlus symbol files.

[deanysoft]

I recommend Zeus. You can view RAM, watch it update in real time and save/load binary to a file. Single step debugging, breakpoints... for me it nearly has everything I need.

https://www.desdes.com/products/oldfiles/zeus.htm

It has it's own editor but you don't have to use it and I don't.

[SparkyNZ]

You could use Spectrum Analyser. The debugger in it is quite powerful.

Are you reverse engineering a game? If so, that is what it is designed for.

This looks pretty cool! I fried my brain today but tomorrow I'll give the tutorial a go. I'm stealing bits and pieces from Speccy games to play with on the Vic 20. Today I've been extracting the spaceman graphics from Nodes of Yesod.. I had a bit of help since the disassembly/memory map details are available on the net.. but it would be good to locate and extract some more "sprites" from other games. I'm just having fun at the moment - no major plans here. One minute I'm playing with the Vic.. next minute I'm getting to know the Speccy a little better.

[Stu]

UnrealSpeccy has a really nice debugger

http://dlcorp.nedopc.com/viewforum.php?f=27

[crabfists]

If you convert graphics from the Spectrum to the VIC-20 bear in mind the sprites will look extra fat, as the VIC-20 had a much lower width screen and fat pixels. This may or may not bother you. For example miner willy on the VIC-20 looks like he's been bulking up.

[SparkyNZ]

If you convert graphics from the Spectrum to the VIC-20 bear in mind the sprites will look extra fat, as the VIC-20 had a much lower width screen and fat pixels. This may or may not bother you. For example miner willy on the VIC-20 looks like he's been bulking up.

It used to bother me massively when I was 9! When I got my Vic I thought it would be the same as my uncle's C64. I nearly cried when I saw the baby 22x23 character screen on my Vic.. Nah.. doesn't bother me. Its all good fun

[PeterJ]

@SparkyNZ

@TMD2003 converted one of his Spectrum games to the VIC:

viewtopic.php?p=93481&hilit=Vic#p93481

[TMD2003]

@SparkyNZ
@TMD2003 converted one of his Spectrum games to the VIC:
viewtopic.php?p=93481&hilit=Vic#p93481

That's the PET version. The VIC-20 is at the top of the thread: viewtopic.php?p=92833#p92833

I spent longer on the VIC-20 version as it needed a rudimentary form of user-defined graphics to make everything fit onto the very restricted screen and not look awful. Tricky, but possible. It's almost as if I found that the VIC-20 had this strange and unidentifiable charm because it was so obviously flawed with that screen and that dearth of memory (he says, ZX81 in hand...) and was more fulfilling to program than its bigger and younger brother.

Maybe that's why there's been an upswing in ZX81 software recently as well.

[PeterJ]

Thanks @TMD2003, I searched for you and VIC and forgot to remove the post ID from the URL before posting. Just scroll up to the top of the page on my link to get to the VIC screens.

The green screen PET was the first computer we had at secondary school. Only the children in the top set for maths (not me) were allowed to touch them!

[SparkyNZ]

I spent longer on the VIC-20 version as it needed a rudimentary form of user-defined graphics to make everything fit onto the very restricted screen and not look awful. Tricky, but possible. It's almost as if I found that the VIC-20 had this strange and unidentifiable charm because it was so obviously flawed with that screen and that dearth of memory (he says, ZX81 in hand...) and was more fulfilling to program than its bigger and younger brother.

Yeah, I think that is what is so appealing I love those VizNut demos on the Vic - and hearing VicTracker music is very heartwarming. The poor Vic can't even hit notes at the right frequency.. It definitely has charm. I have 4 of them in my bedroom cupboard.. only one breaths.

The nice thing about the Vic (and possibly the Speccy's??) is that you get to feel as though you can know the entire machine. What you do with it is limited by your imagination (okay.. and limited by everything else lol).

Tinkering with BASIC on the Speccy lastnight, I couldn't help but think "wow". I would have had so much fun playing with the BASIC graphics commands - we had nothing like that on the Vic - and SuperExpander cartridges were discontinued when I really wanted one.

[TMD2003]

Yeah, I think that is what is so appealing I love those VizNut demos on the Vic - and hearing VicTracker music is very heartwarming. The poor Vic can't even hit notes at the right frequency.

It's in good company. Looks like this... sounds like this.

What a wasted opportunity...