Emulator:UnrealSpeccyPPC 1.02PocketClive v2BSpectrumAnyWhere 1.1FuseSP 0.22
PlatformPPC; can be hacked onto Smartphone, where it, to some degree, works. On QVGA Portrait devices, it’s pretty cool – except for, of course, the main menu / settings dialogs. It’s only the drop-down menus (for example, the switcher between the different key / button bindings and joystick emulation) that don’t work; therefore, you will want to pre-create the two configuration files (unrealspeccy.ini for generic and action_map.ini for input binding parameters) so that the emulator, for example, allows for external keyboard use. (Note that, even then, it’ll use the numeric keys on the Vox’s keyboard)PPCPPCSP (both 176*220 (screenshot of menu, The Pawn running in Landscape and Portrait mode ) and QVGA Portrait / Landscape (screenshots: main menu, Pawn in LS and stretched Portrait. The latter uses full resolution and needs no hacking, unlike with PocketHobbitSP2003, the C64 emulator
VerdictBy far the BEST and pretty much the same as the desktop version, except for the lack of the debugger (see THIS for the reasons of leaving it out), which SOME ZX freaks may need. Also may be worth trying to install it on the Smartphone if you don't mind the usage problems.Not really recommended: UnrealSpeccyPPC is much more versatile and usable. Only use it if you MUST stick to Portrait orientation – for example, if you’re sensitive to the polarization problems of your Pocket PC (see THIS for more info on this q).Not recommended: not directly installable on WM5 (albeit, after extracting the largest file from the CAB install file, renaming it to sawpda.exe and directly transferring it to your PDA, it’ll work); under pre-WM5 OS’es, ridden with major keyboard bugs; in some games (for example, Boulder Dash - but not, say, R-Type) and, when using the Turbo mode, at loading tape images definitely slower than UnrealSpeccyPPC (if they load at all)If you don't need the additional features of UnrealSpeccyPPC (emulating new hardware, reading disk images etc), then, stick with this version as it works flawlessly on the MS Smartphone platform, as opposed to the non-native UnrealSpeccyPPC.
Documentation qualityNo PPC-specific documentation at all, only some Russian forums. As far as the desktop Unreal Speccy is concerned, its documentation (which is a plain text file) is available for download HERE.Pretty good: Manual; install guideGoodIncluded readme.txt; not very good: requires a lot of additional experimenting
Compatibility issues--
  • Not installable on WM5. This, however, is easily fixable by just manually decompressing sawpda.exe from the CAB install and transferring it to the PDA
  • Under Pocket PC operating systems prior to WM5, major problems with the on-screen keyboard on all platforms: screen taps are registered either on the left or on the right of the button, depending on the graphics mode, after going to the menu (pressing the MENU button). As the difference of the actual and registered tap coordinates is just the task bar height, this bug MUST be related to for example H/PC vs. P/PC differences and could be easily fixed. Again, this bug does NOT affect WM5 / WM6!
    		• -
    Emulated platforms48, 128, TR-DOS; all Russian clones48, 128, +2, +3 48 only 48, 128
    VGA usage?+--n/a
    Turbo mode?+, quickly switchable with a (reassignable!) button press, VERY convenient- (!!!)+; dedicated on-screen icon (see the mouse cursor; easy to switch); doesn't result in so big a speed increase than UnrealSpeccyPPC-
    Other vTR-DOS (new) peripherals?Modem + IDE HDD / CD + mice (!!!!) emulation. The latter is touchpad-mode dragging (like in n0p's DOSBox port or the CastCE Atari ST emulator) but is still better than D-pad based mouse emulation. Really useful for example on TR-DOS disk loading screens like THIS ---
    Recommended non-default settings?Frameskip of at least 1 instead of the default 0 to completely get rid of the major sound problems and slow execution. FPS is shown; that is, you will always know whether the Spectrum is fully emulated---
    File compatibility? : Reading Tape formats; are files are immediately auto-loaded without having to enter LOAD""TAP, TZX, CSW TAP, TZX (1 2 3)TAP, TZX (1 2 3)TAP, TZX
    Disk formatsFDI (ZX CHIP), TRD, SCL, TD0, UDI; No DSK - see disk version of Turrican!---
    Snapshot formatsSP, SNA and Z80 (all versions, 48k and 128k)SNA and Z80 (128k included) SLT, SP, SNA and Z80 (see screenshots above)SNA and Z80
    Writing: Tape formats(WAV, VTX)---
    Disk formatsTRD, FDI, UDI, TD0 (the last one only unpacked)---
    Snapshot formatsSNA (48k and 128k)Z80 SNA ( Menu / Save ) Z80 (Menu / 3 Save Snapshot)
    Real tape emulation with loading screens and sound?+-; this has both advantages (orders of faster loading) and disadvantages (for example, with some games, the loader graphics is only shown for a fraction of a second)+See the PocketClive-related remarks
    Frameskip settable?+; it's right in the main menu so that, should you find out a game runs too slow / the sound stuttering, you only need few taps to set a higher value (and vice versa).+ (see SPEED FULL vs. SPEED n FRAME SKIP in settings; no shortcut)- (!); on a 400 MHz iPAQ 2210, Harrier Attack ran about 35 fps, which means cracky sound. BTW, the FPS can be seen in the About screen in Options + (1 2)
    Screen modesLandscape only (left-handed too); NO Portrait!!Portrait only; because of the 240 vs 256 difference, four different downscaling / rendering modes: SHRINK (drops every 16th column), ALIGN MIDDLE, LEFT and RIGHT (not showing the left/rightmost 8, the rightmost 16 and the leftmost 16 pixel columns)Landscape only (left-handed is the default; returning to right-handed mode is done in Menu / Options / Invert Screen); NO Portrait!!Both Landscape and Portrait supported. In Portrait, it uses column dropping (you can’t just zoom in using a configurable sliding window, as in PocketClive, to avoid this). Note that, on QVGA devices, it also allows for stretched Portrait mode to fill in the entire screen area. This option doesn’t exist with 176*220 devices as can be seen in HERE
    Joystick: supported keyboard layouts? Most common ones are as follows:
  • Kempston (5 functionalities assigned to JOY_ events)
  • Sinclair (6…9+0)
  • QAOPM (Q: left, O: down, P: up, A: right, M: fire)
  • QAOP +Space (like above, but fire is Space, not M)
  • keyboard + cursor (with internal thumb- / external keyboards)
    		• In addition to all of them (Kempston being the default), you can define any button layout (and quickly switch to it). You can do this from both inside and outside the emulator. The former is done the following way: 1 2 3 4 5 6. Note that you can assign the same functionality to more than one keys (incidentally, the same is done if you don't actively "Empty" an already-existing assignment before assigning a new one. An example of this, still with the just-assigned AutoFire toggling functionality, can be seen in HERE, showing I've not only assigned it to the left WM5 softkey, but also the numeric button '1'. Finally, this screenshot shows I've also assigned the same functionality to the third application button (APP3). Second, you can edit the “action_map.ini” file in the home directory of the emulator. (Make sure you edit it in the original form - that is, don't introduce additional CR (13) characters - LF (10) characters MUST be used to separate lines. Otherwise, the emulator won't start. I've explained how this kind of editing is done in several of my articles - make sure you read them so that you know which ones I'm referring to.)Kempston and user-defined modes are the two available. The latter can assign any original (virtual) buttons to the joystick; just make sure you click, in order, the on-screen virtual keys in the listed order. The result will be shown in the name of the user mode; for example, HERE (note the position of the cursor - it's directly hovering over it) 76580 means the standard cursor keys are assigned to the D-pad. Kempston and Sinclair modes are the two available in menu; you can, however, freely assign any key to the D-pad directions in the CONFIG mode.Kempston can be explicitly set (and is the default); otherwise, keys can be freely assigned. See the “Key assignment to WM hardware buttons?” row below.
    On-screen D-pad?-+, big + (very small though as opposed to that of, say, PocketClive - useless for gaming)n/a (no touchscreen)
    Autofire?+, assignable to any button; frequency can also be set. If you have a WM5+ device with hardware soft key buttons (that is, not the Dell Axim x50/x51 series / the non-phone HP iPAQ's), you will want to quickly press it any time you want it to start / stop. Note that you can safely reassign it to any other button by going to the BUTTONS tab in Advanced Settings, tap-and-holding the entry, selecting Empty to delete the previous content and, then, again tap-and-holding the entry, selecting Assign and pressing the new button you'd like to assign the new functionality to. Note that there is another way of disabling it by holding down 0 on the on-screen keyboard; of course, this may result in some, in cases, serious speed hit, particularly on buggy models like the 2.8” HTC Pocket PC’s, particularly those with the 400 MHz Samsung CPU (see THIS for more info). This means you will want to use the autofire on/off button assignment instead.---
    D-pad usable?+++ (but you MUST reconfigure the keyboard layout to use it by using the CONFIG button (in THIS screenshot, the desktop PC mouse cursor is hovering over it) - by default, it's not assigned, not even for Kempston games. Note that the button configurations are separately saved for each game - definitely an advantage.)+ (if you do assign it)
    Keyboard: Key assignment to WM hardware buttons?+ -+ (any virtual keyboard key can be mapped to any hardware button - see the CONFIG button above)+ (1 2 3 4; of course, any original keyboard key can be mapped as can be seen in HERE and HERE). This is the ONLY way to input individual characters, unlike with the C64 emulator PocketHobbitSP2003. The latter has a much better though-out text input method.
    On-screen keyboard?+; overlay, half-screen one (in Landscape); not having the original command labels+, with all the original imprints. Also has an Ext Mode key for more advanced Spectrums. No transparency.+; at the bottom (no transparency and, therefore, no large size); only the alphanumeric keys (no labels)-; see above
    CAPS SHIFT and SYMBOL SHIFT keys sticky (must be pressed again to stop them?)--+ n/a
    Can make use of built-in keyboards?+ in Keyboard + Cursor mode only --To a certain degree: the number symbols will have a precedence over alphabetic keys and this can’t be fixed. Must be enabled with a separate checkbox
    File: ZIP support?- (and, according to the dev HERE, it’s unlikely he’ll bother adding support for it)---
    File dialog?Standard; compatible with add-ons like Mad Programmer’s toolAs with SpectrumAnyWhere, there's no any kind of advanced file dialog and files must be in the home directory (under the Roms or Tapes subdirectory) Its own (see screenshots at the file type compliance listing section); doesn't even let for switching directories (that is, all files must be present in the home directory)Its own (snapshot, tape; of course, by clicking Action on the selector control, you get a full list as in HERE) – no directory change possible. That is, you must put your snapshot / tape files in exactly the same subdirectories of the emulator home directory as with PocketClive. Note the additional “Auto-load” checkbox with the Tape loader menu: it makes it possible to directly load a tape, not just attaching it. This is of extreme importance with a program with such reduced text input capabilities.
    Game compliance report: Harrier Attack! (16k; keyboard only; up: 6, down: 7; fire: 9)+n/t++
    Archon +n/t++; I, however, couldn't make joystick emulation work
    Boulder Dash + 1 2; the latter shows the several joystick types the game supportsn/tn/t+
    The Pawn (For the 128!) (linked from HERE)+ +- (only supports 48k)+
    Fairlight + n/tn/t+; the 128k version didn't run though: it just displayed a messed-up title screen after the first one
    Lords of Midnight (also see this Wiki entry on this excellent game)+ n/tn/t+
    RAINBOW ISLANDS + n/tn/t- (couldn't get past the loader screen)
    R-TYPE (linked from HERE; also see THIS)+++n/t
    Rebelstar + n/tn/tn/t
    Uridium (Uridium.tzx; Erbe; joystick; fire: 0). Note that Uridium.tap does NOT work in any emulators - use either Uridium.tzx or the Erbe version, they will work.+ n/t+ +
    Wheelie + n/tn/tn/t
    Demos : TR-DOS demos: (also see THIS for good ones and THIS for an English language overview of the Belarus situation): Folly Music Demo; Happy New Year Demo; AND's EXCELLENT 7Up Trackmo (VERY cool with digitised 2-color videos & 3D emulation & even some rudimentary plasma effects!!) and Little Megademo; Unreal! (press Enter + Y at the start) by KSA (also see HERE)+ all demos run flawlesslyn/a (no vTR-DOS support at all)n/a (no vTR-DOS support at all)n/a (no vTR-DOS support at all)
    48k demos: Haluzkynation +n/tn/tn/t
    TRD game demos: HERE: ATOMIC.ZIP CIV_DEMO.ZIP DEMODOOM.ZIP DOOMLEV1.ZIP DOOM_MAN.ZIP DUNEDEMO.ZIP MKDEMO2.ZIP MOFORION.ZIP WOLF3D.ZIP WOLFDEM3.ZIP WORMS_DM.ZIP all worked. Example screenshots: Civilization demo; Wolf3D: 1 2n/an/an/a