Importing ZX Spectrum games onto iPad/iPhone.

After yesterdays fun with loading ZX Spectrum games via an iPhone onto a real ZX Spectrum computer I’ve been having lots of fun playing around with the old classics again and long for something a little more portable. What would be fun is getting some of these retro Spectrum games running on my iPad via an emulator.

Apple doesn’t have nearly the huge library of open emulator apps like Android based tablets & Phones therefore it makes things very difficult to import your own games without Jailbreaking – which isn’t something i want to do.  Of the emulators I looked at, most are pre bundled with a few games that don’t really generate much excitement. There’s a few lesser known games & homebrew games that play quite well but I want to play the classics like Manic Miner, Exolon & Target Renegade. I didn’t think it was possible on the iPad but thanks to the power of the Google gods and a bit of experimentation, I’ve managed to get them working.

Here’s how i did it (..although I still have a few tweaks to complete to get it perfect).

Firstly, you’ll need the ZX emulator called ZX Spectaculator. You can get this from the Apple app store for £1.49 although you might like to try out the free Lite version first (I couldn’t the Lite version to work with my own games though).

ZX Spectaculator running in 128k mode and simulated a touchscreen ZX keyboard. Geek heaven!

Secondly you will need another app installed on your PC to allow you to transfer files  between your computer and your iPad/iPhone. For this I used iPhone browser – http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/

Thirdly, you will need a few games in either .tap ot .tzx format. One of the best online source is http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

In this example i’m going to use one of my favorite Spectrum games called Exolon.

You may also wish to pick up a few support files for each game such as artwork and instruction text. This is optional but it certainly looks better.

With my iPad connected to my netbook via USB I opened iPhone Explorer and browsed to the location where ZX Spectaculator keeps its games files – Apps/Spectulator/Spectulator.app/Gamepacks/

Copy one of the .TZX game files to your desktop and open it. I found it easier to use the game called ‘The Fantastic Mister Fruity’ as this already has standard joystick mapping for , down, left, right and Fire.

Inside there will be the game file xxx.tzx or xxx.tap. Delete this and copy over the game file you wish to import – i.e Exolon.tzx

Open up the ‘config’ file and locate the line that reads the game name and change this to your new game name i.e Exolon. You can also change the information about the game author, developer and year etc but it’s not a neccesity.

If you have downloaded the game artwork and screenshots you copy these over too. Just ensure that you name them Artwork and icon and that they are .png files. This will ensure the correct artwork is shown for your imported game.

In you’re handy with HTML you can also edit the Instructions & Addedum files to include replacement text specific to your imported game. For this I’ve copied the Txt file for the Exolon game from the World of Spectrum website and copied over a portions using MS Wordpad.

Once you have all of the files ready, you need to rename the folder from its original name to that of your new game (this should be exactly the same name you added to the config file) i.e Exolon.tzx

Finally copy the renamed folder from your desktop to the Apps/Spectulator/Spectulator.app/Gamepacks/ folder on you iPad/Iphone.

That’s it. Fire up the emulator and see if it works.

Imported game Exolon now shows in the list with custom icon graphic (icon.png)

Exolon artwork when the game is selected (Artwork.png). Note that the developer name is wrong and should have been changed in the config file. I’d left it unchanged to illustrate that the leaving it as it is won’t stop the game from working.

Yay it works. Tapping the top half of the screen flips between virtual Spectrum keyboard and virtual Joystick.

I love this game in all of its garish retro colors and on the iPad it looks so crisp. Time to kick some alien ass.

Playing Pheenix again (see yesterdays post).

I hope the above is of use to you, feel free to post any comments or questions you might have.

Here’s a quick video of ZX Spectaculator and my imported game in action.