R4 3DS .org

One of our favorite emulators available for the R4 3DS cards and the Nintendo 3DS is the amazing ZXDS emulator.  We were huge C64 fans in the days of 8-bit computing, but think what you will, the ZX Spectrum had a huge impact on computers and gaming back in the Eithies and early 90's as well.

ZXDS is a ZX Spectrum emulator for use with the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi / DSi XL and the Nintendo 3DS / 3DS XL and Nintendo 2DS systems.  It's truly starting to reach a level of development that makes us want to put away our trusty old Speccy and just use this emulator so that we can have a portable ZX Spectrum system at our disposale whenever we feel like some amazing old school goodness.  It's jam packed with features and functions and offers up an accurate emulation of Spectrum 48k, 128k and Pentagon models (including sound), It also offers support for TAP/TZX/PZX tape files, TRD/SCL disk files and RZX playback files, easily making ZXDS The very BEST ZX Spectrum emulator available.  

It is also perfectly suited for on the go play.  Unlike using a Speccy emulator on your computer, ZXDS makes playing your games a breeze.  The 3DS / 3DS XL and 2DS screen and resolution offers up what is possibly the best way to play your Speccy games on new hardware.  We know purists will argue that playing games on the original hardware is the best - and we actually agree... but with the hardware getting older and older and harder to find, having access to your ZX SPectrum games on the go can't be beat.  If we could take our Speccy with us and play it whenever and wherever we wanted to - we'd be using the actual hardware.  There isn't anyting much better though, than being able to have a portable ZX Spectrum system on hand any time we feel like going a little old school.

While we all have our favorite 8-bit spectrum games, one of the most exciting things with this new update to ZXDS is that it offers even more compatibility, and we've had a great time playing some of the NEWLY released Speccy games from homebrew developers.  Games from the Mojon Twins as well as countless other brand spanking new ZX Spectrum games that have come out over the last few years.  It almost seems like there's a new speccy game coming out every other week from developers that are pushing the limits of the hardware to even new heights.

Check out the changelog for an impressive list of fixes and enhancements that will make playing your ZX Spectrum games on your Nintendo 3DS even more fun - and with much better compatibility!

• + ULA+ emulation for all Sinclair and Amstrad models.
• + Support for all types of 3.5″ double sided +3DOS disks.
• + Raw screenshots now support the ULA+ extension for both saving and loading.
• + Current ULA+ palette can be changed simply by loading the appropriate ULA+ palette tape files.
• + Other ULA+ related changes (BMP screenshots, thumbnails, SZX support).
• + The selected ULA mode as well as the display mode are now part of the config file.
• + You can now keep your desired custom configuration persistent separately in custom.cfg.
• * Sector viewer now displays bottom side track addressing info in inverse colors.
• * Reverted special treatment of full size TR-DOS disks, so padded images work again.
• * Minor +3DOS fixes (gap3 reading, EDSK track padding, SZX disk side selection, motor bit disabling)
• * Loading a POK file now automatically shows the poke screen. Pressing Y switches back, as usual.
• * Reading attributes from unmapped ports on Pentagon now mimics the real hardware mod behavior.
• * Other subtle emulation accuracy improvements (+2A/+3/Pentagon screen timing, 128K/+2 INT duration).
• * Many internal changes (optimized screen sampling, optimized contention, async palette switching).
• * Other subtle changes (UNDO media keeping, CPU stepping prior snapshot save, volume mode order).
• * Minor bugfixes (media slot release, paths set to root dir, filter in root dir, allowed filter chars).

You can download ZXDS 1.3.1 from our 3DS homebrew section and start using it right away on your Nintendo 3DS with any of our our R4 3DS Cards

Check out some of the best new ZX Spectrum games in the videos below!

The Top 10 ZX Spectrum Homebrew / Freeware games for 2013