
Does it not sound mysterious these days that those strange noises recorded on an audio cassette may actually be a computer program? Games for ZX Spectrum did seem somewhat magical decades ago - when people explored the possibilities of this simple text-mode enhancer, making use of its scarce colours and inbuilt beeper for their immense curiosity and imagination. However, there is no point nowadays in digging up the attic, fighting for a TV set and tolerating several minutes of horrible loading noise to play a tiny game of yore: all we need is our PC and Spectaculator.
Spectaculator is capable of emulating all major ZX platforms, among which are Spectrum 48K and 128K, Pentagon 128 and Scorpion 256 - this enables you to play virtually any game for Speccy you may think of. Speaking of which, most of these games are now available free of charge (e.g. on http://worldofspectrum.org/), being several hundred Kb in size at most. Still, Spectaculator allows you to connect an external cassette recorder and load your games in an old-fashioned way; or it can generate loading noises itself to suit your nostalgia best.
What we may also find extremely useful is the ability to record occurring events in different formats. We can export our audio output to a WAV file, dreaming to make a ringtone of our favourite in-game melody. We can brag about our achievements by showing somebody an AVI file of beating a big boss, or by uploading an RZX file (which is, simply put, a record of one's keypresses) to an internet resource, where our exploits will be admired, and our new friends will keep asking, 'How did you pull this off?'
Moreover, Spectaculator allows saving a snapshot of present memory state - it basically means that we can save our progress and continue playing whenever we want, or try different approaches on a difficult level without having to play a game all over from the very beginning. Now, where on earth is that last cherry Daisy asked me to find?..
v8.0.0.3092 [Dec 28, 2012]
Render plugins
Spectaculator now supports Kega Fusion Render plugins. Any RPI scaler that supports 2x scaling be used. Support for 3x scalers will be added at a later date if there is any demand for it.
Overlay Filters (RGB Triads)
Popularised by the MAME emulator, overlay filters attempt to simulate the physical displays of many old televisions and arcade monitors.
Support for Windows 8
There were a few issues installing Spectaculator 7.5 on Windows 8 along with problems with full screen mode. These have been resolved in Spectaculator 8.
Quick Save/Load Enhancements
The file name format has changed to make it easier to see which snapshots are for which games.
Choosing a snapshot to load now loads the correct snapshot
Quick-loaded snapshots now move to the top of the list.
Deleted snapshots are automatically removed from the list.
F2 now loads the last quick-saved snapshot. Ctrl F2 now shows the list of quick-saved snapshots.
Other Changes
Minimum requirements are now Windows XP /w SP3 and hardware-accelerated Direct3D 9 graphics. It will no longer install on older versions of Windows.
Added Dynamite Dan and Dynamite Dan 2 to the Game Pack courtesy of Rod Bowkett.
Added manual controls for the TV simulation (brightness, contrast, colour bleed, sharpness etc.)
Added option to pause Spectaculator when the main window is minimised. This is off by default.
Added support for modern game controllers such as the Xbox 360 controller.
The Escape key can now be configured to exit Spectaculator rather than sending CAPS SPACE to the virtual Spectrum.
Added progress indicator for Action Replay (RZX) playback.
All binaries and the installer are now digitally signed.
Bug Fixes
Enter key can now be mapped to one of the joystick/game pad buttons.
Fixed AY noise generation (although you probably won’t be able to tell any difference). With thanks to Patrik Rak.
Fixed crash when clicking to the right of Custom ROMs on the Advanced tab.
Fixed Action Replay (RZX) finalisation crashing in some rare situations (thanks Pavel Plíva).
Fixed errors when writing to TRD/SCL disk images under certain situations (thanks Shadow Maker)
Fixed recording of SpecDrum output to AVI and audio files.
Fixed recording of Covox output to AVI and audio files.
Fixed selection of COM ports used by the ZX Interface 1 serial port emulation.
Great platform for gamers who want to have access to all their favorite Electronic Arts games in one place