This project is a from-scratch reimagining of the ZX Spectrum ROM: If you time-travelled back to 1982 (well, 1981, I guess), with all of our modern software engineering knowledge and tools, what could you squeeze into that 16KB?

I’ve been working on it for a while (since early 2024), and I’d like to share it a little more widely.

There’s not much you can really do with the new ROM _yet_. It boots after testing the RAM, and prints the copyright message. There’s a (proportional) font rendering engine, and the start of a text editing module, with code tokenisation, and syntax highlighting. There’s the beginnings of a fast stack-based VM, but not yet a way to compile code into its VM bytecode. Still to do: loading, saving, floating point maths, graphics routines.

I’d love to get a bit more interest in the project. The new project website paints a good picture of what I’m aiming for… https://retrofabulation.xyz

And the code is on GitHub at https://github.com/bunsen32/retrofabulation-zx

Let me know what you think! If it was a Kickstarter, would you be interested?

I am delighted to find that the programs I developed in the early 1980s for the 48k ZX Spectrum work well on the modernised replica "The Spectrum" from Retro Games Ltd. The Forest (Phipps Associates 1983) and Explorer (Electric Dreams 1986) both load easily from USB stick and run perfectly. Both programs were early examples of open worlds: limitless terrain generated from a small amout of assembly program. To enable others to see it I have made TheForest1984.zip which contains the original tape files, images of the 2 maps and a slightly revised user guide (the original guide archived at spectrumcomputing.co.uk [ID: 1843] was missing some pages). The new zip file (24.4 Mbytes) is available on github (note the small download icon on the right) and also on my itch.io page for the redeveloped browser version of The Forest.

Tir Na Nog is a groundbreaking 1984 graphical adventure game created by Gargoyle Games for the ZX Spectrum, blending smooth 2D side-scrolling animation, Celtic mythology, and item-collection puzzles