Retro File Viewer

Usage

Resources

• Sharp MZ resources (sharpmz.no)

• Sharp MZ archive (https://mz-archive.co.uk)

• ZX80 basic format (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2000925/Book/ZX80_Operating_Manual)

• ZX81 basic format (http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Sinclair_BASIC_tokenized_file)

• ZX81 Utils (https://github.com/ryangray/zx81-utils)

• Detokeniser (https://github.com/tautology0/detokenisers)

• Z80 Opcodes (http://z80-heaven.wikidot.com/opcode-reference-chart)

Why?

Back in 1982, I discovered a Sharp MZ-80K computer at Lasky's shop in Sheffield, UK. While playing on it, I met another boy my age whose father owned the same machine at home. Since Chris lived nearby, I began visiting his house regularly to load games and use his father's MZ-80K.

Four decades later, I purchased my own MZ-80K from eBay, complete with some original tapes. However, loading programs on the actual hardware is time-consuming, and so is starting up an emulator. There was one particular game I remembered playing - written in BASIC, which meant we had to load the BASIC interpreter each time before running it - but I couldn't recall its name.

Since I enjoy examining code, I created this tool to make browsing MZ-80K BASIC programs easier before attempting to run them. After some research, I believe the game might have been Cursed Caverns, though I seem to remember it having a graphical map as well. It's possible I'm conflating memories of two different games.

It was so simple to create this Basic detokeniser, that I decided to have a go at the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81.  Strangely these were more difficult until I found https://github.com/ryangray/zx81-utils

Source Code

The code was written using a variety of LLMs to speed up development (especially the disassembler).  In fact, I'm not entirely sure it got it right, so if you spot errors, put them into the GitHub issues.

• Source Code (https://github.com/CommanderCoder/mzfviewer)