What are your favourite ZX Spectrum development tools?

Question

What are your favourite assemblers, compilers, environments, interpreters for the good old ZX Spectrum?

People who are down voting are probably unaware that there are cross compiler environments for retro computers. To the uninitiated, this means there are Windows/Linux/Mac IDE's for programming for older systems. People are still making software for these older systems. — Daniel Auger, Sep 16 '08 at 22:23

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 06 '09 at 12:13

Hisoft Gens and Mons assembler and disassembler for programming/debugging.

The Artist / The Art Studio for graphics:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0007918

The Music Box for sound:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008481

djpowell · Accepted Answer · 2008-09-17T19:58:26.107

5

I always used to use Roybot Assembler - which had you enter your program using the BASIC editor and REM statements. It comes with a decent debugger/disassembler that lets you single-step machine code too.

The Hisoft Gens and Mons assembler and disassembler (aka Devpak) are probably fairly popular.

For high-level compiling, the Mira Modula-2 compiler is very good.

edited Sep 17 '08 at 19:58

answered Sep 17 '08 at 17:05

djpowell

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Martin · Answer 3 · 2014-02-03T16:44:45.887

4

Zeus assembler, was the best.

I'd add a couple of the Spectrum books in there if I could remember the names, still have them at home. One was The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly by Ian Logan and Frank O'Hara (ISBN 0 86161 116 0), which was commented and described as if it was the source, a fantastic piece of reverse engineering, including a suggested bug fix for the known ROM bugs. If only flash memory had been around in those days. I also memorised a tiny book called the Z80 Workshop Manual which was a great summary of the processor.

edited Feb 03 '14 at 16:44

answered Dec 23 '08 at 08:51

Martin

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Z80 Workshop Manual is fantastic. Easy to read and still packed with useful informaiton. – Umber Ferrule Feb 03 '14 at 15:41

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 22:18

3

Just programming in BASIC, the commands are right there on those rubbery keys. Now if only PC's could have key-legends with while, case, switch etc. on them :-)

answered Sep 16 '08 at 22:18

tovare

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score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 17 '08 at 18:45

3

ZX ASM 3.0

It had the best user interface and good feature set compared to other assemblers at the end of the twentieth century.

answered Sep 17 '08 at 18:45

Linulin

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Sep 17 '13 at 00:30

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For contemporary development, TommyGun is an excellent choice.

It has a built in assembler, map editor, graphics editor and other goodies. It also supports multiple 8-bit platforms.

It works well in conjunction with the excellent ZX Spin emulator for debugging.

edited Sep 17 '13 at 00:30

Tommy

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answered Dec 04 '09 at 15:22

Andrew Rollings

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 09 '10 at 21:47

2

BASin, TommyGun, ConTEXT and the Pasmo cross-compiler. Works great with the ZXSpin emulator too,,

answered May 09 '10 at 21:47

polomint

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Ray Hayes · Answer 8 · 2010-01-20T12:09:19.177

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I used to type in hex-tables from a magazine and then a a short basic application to unpack the data into assembly code. I couldn't make heads nor tails of it for ages until I discovered I wasn't actually coding at all!

I then moved onto Z80 assembly on a College owned CP/M mini computer system. Programming the Speccy was never the same after that and I never went back!

edited Jan 20 '10 at 12:09

answered Sep 17 '08 at 16:54

Ray Hayes

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score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 17 '08 at 17:21

Devpac (a blue cassette) comes to my mind, even after all these years.

Sure, it was #1. I don't miss the cassette loadings, though. Nice question!!! :D

http://www.clive.nl/detail/22916/

I think I had v.3. It sure looked much more home-made than the this pic. But it worked and didn't have a single bug. Beat that, current software!!!

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 17 '08 at 01:33

1

ZX-Asm v3.1 + patched HiSoft-C v1.1 / figFORTH / BetaBasic 3.0

answered Nov 17 '08 at 01:33

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 23 '08 at 08:42

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There are some good PC-based packages too. For Sinclair BASIC based development the excellent BASin package for Windows gives you a good syntax highlighter, runtime virtual machine, built-in editors for fonts and UDG's etc.

answered Dec 23 '08 at 08:42

DamienG

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score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 27 '09 at 12:57

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Assembler Prometheus from Proxima Software.

answered Apr 27 '09 at 12:57

yep I used it too a lot :) even the Disc D40/D80 version and plus DEVASTACE onscreen disassembler – Spektre Feb 10 '14 at 12:00

score 0 · Answer 13 · edited Jan 16 '10 at 19:29

0

Well outside of GEN80, HiSoft Pascal and Hisoft C were pretty impressive. Proper high level languages, way cool. Before I learnt Z80, and was frustrated by the speed of BASIC, I also loved MCODER, though more on the ZX81 than ZX Spectrum.

edited Jan 16 '10 at 19:29

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 27 '08 at 13:57

SmacL

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 09:24

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I'm using Z88DK, but I think also SDCC may be of interest.

answered Jul 11 '13 at 09:24

liftarn

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What are your favourite ZX Spectrum development tools?

14 Answers14