jangocheng/zero-emulator

Zero is a ZX Spectrum emulator for Windows, written using C#.

IMPORTANT

If you're unable to launch the emulator or the emulator crashes immediately on launching, you may need to install an additional DirectX component, which can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Using the Emulator

The entire emulator can be controlled and configured via the menu bar at the top. Additional tools can be found under the Tools section in the menu.

Using the Keyboard

Zero emulates the speccy keyboard faithfully and provides some additional functionality via the PC keyboard.

The Shift Keys on the PC keyboard act as Caps Shift for the speccy, while the Control keys act as Symbol Shift. For example, to enter LOAD "" on Zero: First press J to bring up the LOAD keyword and then press Ctrl+P twice (J, Ctrl+P, Ctrl+P).

To enter extended mode press Shift and Ctrl key together.

In addition, you can type in symbols like + , - ? etc directly from the PC keyboard as usual. Of course, the normal speccy entry method will work as well.

If you're in the habit of forgetting what key does what on the speccy (like me!), I recommend you use the SEBasic ROM or the Gosh Wonderful for the 48k, which support full typing (i.e to do LOAD "" you would actually have to type it in one letter at a time like on the PC).

The following key combinations are used by Zero:

Emulator Window

Shortcut Key	Function
F2	Tape Browser
F3	Debugger
F4	Search Infoseek
F5	Pause Emulation
F6	Acquire Mouse (May first need to enable mouse emulation in Options)
F7	New RZX Recording
F8	Finalise RZX Recording
F9	Stop RZX Recording
Ins	Insert RZX Bookmark
Del	Rollback RZX to previous bookmark
Alt+F8	Discard RZX Recording
Alt+F4	Exit emulator
Alt+F5	Reset Emulator
Alt+F6	Unacquire mouse
Alt+O	Open File
Alt+S	Save snapshot
Alt+Shift+S	Save screenshot
Alt+K	Show 48k Keyboard helper
Alt+0	100% window size
Alt+ +	Increase window size by 50% of original speccy size
Alt+ -	Decrease window size by 50% of original speccy size
Alt+Enter	Full screen toggle

Debugger

Shortcut Key	Function
F5	Resume Emulation
F10	Step Over
F11	Step In
F12	Step Out
Alt+B	Show Breakpoints Editor
Alt+S	Show Machine State
Alt+V	Show Memory Viewer
Alt+R	Show Registers
Alt+L	Show Execution Log
Alt+P	Poke Memory

Command line options

Zero can be fully configured via the command line by passing parameters in the following format:

zero [-option:[value]]

Multiple options can be passed by separating each with a space, like so:

zero -fullscreen:on -model:128k -scanlines:on

The following options are available:

Option	Parameters	Function
fullscreen	on/off	Launches the emulator in full screen mode
model	48k/128k/128ke/plus3/pentagon128k	Selects a spectrum machine model
speed	-10 to 500	Sets the emulation speed
renderer	gdi/directx	Selects the renderer
smoothing	on/off	Enables or disables pixel smoothing
vsync	on/off	Enables or disables vertical syncing
palette	ula+/ulaplus/grayscale/normal	Selects a colour palette
scanlines	on/off	Enables or disables display interlacing (scanlines)
timing	early/late	Selects timing model of the machine
windowsize	multiples of 50	Selects a window size as a percentage increment of speccy size (0 = no increment, 50 = 50% increment, etc)
bordersize	mini/medium/full	Sets the emulated border size

Uninstalling Zero

If you installed the emulator using the Setup, simply run the uninstaller to uninstall the emulator.It's generally a good idea to uninstall a previous version of the emulator before installing a new one.

If you used the .zip version, simply delete the folder in which Zero resides.

Building the project using source

The project currently uses Visual Studio 2013 Community edition (free). It may not be compatible with older Visual Studio editions. I recommend downloading VS 2013 Community as it's almost like the professional version (supports plugins for example) and is free to download from here: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/vs2013-community-vs.aspx

About Zero

Zero is a spectrum emulator written entirely on the .NET platform, using C#, and requires .NET framework 3.5 or above.

The philosophy behind Zero is to provide a highly accurate emulation of the various Spectrum models while also providing a nice, user friendly experience.

Many thanks to Woody for his patient and detailed technical advice on various aspects of emulation,and to karingal for his help and feedback. This emulator wouldn't have been possible otherwise without their considerable encouragement and support.

I must also thank my wife Purnima for putting up with my obsession with the speccy and even providing encouragement and help with this project!

Thanks also to Patrik Rak for permission to use the various PZX conversion tools that Zero uses to support other tape format. You can find more information on them on Patrik's site: http://zxds.raxoft.cz/pzx.html.

Thanks to Alex Makeev for permission to use his DirectSound routines from ZXMAK 2.

Additional contributors whose feedback have helped in shaping the emulator can be found credited in the What's New file.

License & Copyrights

Copyright (c) 2009-2015 Arjun Nair. See the LICENSE file for license rights and limitations (MIT).
Zero uses various public domain icons. Copyright rests with their respective authors.