Zen

A Z80/ZX Spectrum emulator. This is an evolution of my previous project ZXE.

The Z80 is properly decoupled from the Spectrum emulation, so can be reused in other projects requiring Z80 emulation.

See screenshots below.

While ZXE was certainly “good enough” (it runs most games I’ve tried, and emulates the main Spectrum model lineup), some architectural decisions were starting to make it hard to maintain and extend. Also, it didn’t deal with nuances such as contention and accurate timing for display output.

This project aims to take the lessons learned from ZXE and build upon them.

Any feedback appreciated, get me on Twitter / X

Pre-built Binaries

Releases can be found here.

The pre-built Linux binaries are experimental, i.e YMMV. Probably better off building it from source.

Press Tab for the menu once running.

For macOS and Linux, extract the files somewhere and execute with ./Zen.Desktop.Host.

For Windows, extract the files somewhere and run Zen.Desktop.Host.exe.

Solution Structure

Zen.Desktop.Host

The fun bit most people are probably interested in. This is the UI that you can run to emulate a Speccy.

Compatible with Windows and macOS (and in theory, Linux, but I haven’t tested that).

Press Tab for the menu once running.

Open Zen.Desktop.Host.sln and build it with your favourite tool(s).

I did have one issue building on macOS on an M1 processor. Solved by https://stackoverflow.com/a/74317078. You may or may not need to do the second step. On my M1 MacBook, I didn’t need to, but on my new M3 MacBook, I did.