ZXScreen viewer

[Ian Price]

Amstrad freely released the Spectrum BIOS ROMs to the public domain, so no worries there and World Of Spectrum has been given free reign by IP owners to share Spectrum games - all games on World Of Spectrum are legit and have written permission to be on there (where possible). Certain companies (like RARE and ODIN IIRC) have refused their games to be made available, so they don't appear on WOS.

So no legal minefields here really.

[Crivens]

Ang on. So you are saying proper full priced games (eg. Cybernoid) on WOS have been given permission to be used, as well as the game ROMS?

Hmm. Interesting. Note that Elite systems have a few Spectrum games going on the iOS store and they charge quite a bit. Like a couple of quid a throw.

So do these permissions allow you to sell the game on? Or do they force freeware releases? Perhaps Elite have an agreement.

It's an interesting problem how you get around it if cannot be sold. Perhaps could say the emulator costs money, but then you can add games to it from WOS or yourself using iTunes.

I'm almost itchy to give it a go, but I'm betting would be some project to convert to GLB *and* get it to work well on a mobile device. And then you would have to make absolutely sure all the legal bits are properly dotted and underlined etc.

Main thing for me is getting it to work properly on a touchscreen no-button device (like an iPhone). I haven't seen anything like it yet that I like. Anything with onscreen controls (those Namcom joysticks and fire buttons for example) tend to suck like no tomorrow.

Still it is very interesting....

Cheers

[fuzzy70]

I just had a look on Elite systems site & took a peek at "Auf Wiedersehen Monty: ZX Spectrum HD", the HD part made me giggle then I saw a box at the side stating

Rated 9+ for the following:
Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence

That done it for me, my sides have just stopped aching from the laughter.

Only way I think they can charge is for the emulator or such to run the game, it's not made clear.

I also noticed its a 19.5MB download 

[Ian Price]

Unless you contact the IP owner and get permission, you probably can't sell on speccy games. ELITE owns the rights to loads of Speccy classics nowadays.

[fuzzy70]

I would still like know where the HD in "Auf Wiedersehen Monty: ZX Spectrum HD" is, looking at the screenshot on the site

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/auf-wiedersehen-monty-zx-spectrum/id416365247?mt=8

it looks surprisingly identical to the one on WoS

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0000328

[Ian Price]

HD is bandied around far too readily these days. That's just taking the piss.

[Gary]

I would settle for even that z80 core being ported to GLB, imagine the fun that could be had with a working core

Elite have got agreement with the respective publishers/programmers for the games in their emulator packs. Basically if you ever wrote a spectrum game and it was half decent you can get it included in a pack and still get paid for it!! It really is money for old rope.

Spectaculator has also been ported to IOS as well but unless you are jailbroken then there is no way of adding any extra games and the offering is pretty poor at the moment.

[fuzzy70]

People that create/program emulators quite frankly amaze me. I can break down game logic or apps like a paint program, word processor etc but an emulator I would not have a clue where to begin. Things like WinUAE with all the custom chips & such, also MAME & MESS with more different configurations then I can count lol.

I take my hat off to the people that create such software 

[Mikele]

I would still like know where the HD in "Auf Wiedersehen Monty: ZX Spectrum HD" is, looking at the screenshot on the site

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/auf-wiedersehen-monty-zx-spectrum/id416365247?mt=8

it looks surprisingly identical to the one on WoS

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0000328

Hmm, I have real ZX Spectrum - actually it's a clone (Timex 2048) with extended RAM (144 kb) compatible with ZX128, AY generator (I made it at secondary school) + CF disk but I've bought a few gamepacks from Elite and I'm really satisfied with most of the games. It's nice to have Robin of The Wood or Laser Squad on my iPad. Yes - using HD in the title of the app is a kind of advertising but I'm happy that the games look as should (256x192 pixels 15 colors etc.). 

Does this help?

http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/vbspec/

Thanks for the link. If I remember correctly I have two different sources of Z80 procesor emulator (blitz and C source) so maybe someday I'll try to make it in GLB.

[Kitty Hello]

public domain!? So it's legal to rip the levels?

[Ian Price]

public domain!? So it's legal to rip the levels?

Nope!

Just because something is in the public domain, doesn't mean it has no copyright - the IP owner still retains this and thusly all graphics, level data and other media, unless clearly stated otherwise.

[Crivens]

Hmm. So how about an emulator that then allows you to download a game from WOS, or possibly copy your own files into the app via the usual iTunes upload method? Would that be legal? I'm pretty sure a C64 emulator fell foul of Apple with this method years ago, but don't know how it would stand now. It's pretty much to do with Apples idea of not allowing an app that allows a download to allow it to function differently. But on the other hand I thought that covered things like Adobe Air and the like and thats all ok now apparently...

Cheers

[Ian Price]

You should be able to download any game from WOS and run it in/on your emulator without problem. As long as you don't disassemble the code, rip the media or distribute commercially, all should be good.

Apple's T&Cs may disrupt this though, due to them being Apple.

[Crivens]

Ah the c***s factor. Yeah that can hurt. Wouldn't want to spend months on this with apple screwing me at the end. I'm still smarting after bikini Rotaslider and that only took me a couple of days to do...

Cheers

[Gary]

so dont let apple screw you over and do a decent one for Android none of the spectrum emulators I have seen on there have been just right, they have all had issues one way or the other