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The .z80 format is arguably the most widely supported by emulators across all platforms. .z80 files
are memory snapshots - they contain an image of the contents of the ZX Spectrum memory at a particular instance in time. As
a result of this, they cannot be used to reproduce the original tape from a snapshot file, but do load almost instantaneously.
The .z80 format was originally developed by Gerton Lunter for use in his Z80 emulator, and three versions of the format, as saved by 'Z80' versions 1.45 (and earlier), 2.x and 3.x (and later) are in use. For ease of notation, these will be referred to as versions 1, 2 and 3 of the format respectively. Various extensions to the .z80 format have also been made by other emulators.
Version 1 of the .z80 format can save only 48K snapshots, and has the following header:
Offset Length Description
---------------------------
0 1 A register
1 1 F register
2 2 BC register pair (LSB, i.e. C, first)
4 2 HL register pair
6 2 Program counter
8 2 Stack pointer
10 1 Interrupt register
11 1 Refresh register (Bit 7 is not significant!)
12 1 Bit 0 : Bit 7 of the R-register
Bit 1-3: Border colour
Bit 4 : 1=Basic SamRom switched in
Bit 5 : 1=Block of data is compressed
Bit 6-7: No meaning
13 2 DE register pair
15 2 BC' register pair
17 2 DE' register pair
19 2 HL' register pair
21 1 A' register
22 1 F' register
23 2 IY register (Again LSB first)
25 2 IX register
27 1 Interrupt flipflop, 0=DI, otherwise EI
28 1 IFF2 (not particularly important...)
29 1 Bit 0-1: Interrupt mode (0, 1 or 2)
Bit 2 : 1=Issue 2 emulation
Bit 3 : 1=Double interrupt frequency
Bit 4-5: 1=High video synchronisation
3=Low video synchronisation
0,2=Normal
Bit 6-7: 0=Cursor/Protek/AGF joystick
1=Kempston joystick
2=Sinclair 2 Left joystick (or user
defined, for version 3 .z80 files)
3=Sinclair 2 Right joystick
Because of compatibility, if byte 12 is 255, it has to be regarded as being 1.
After this header block of 30 bytes the 48K bytes of Spectrum memory follows in a compressed format (if bit 5 of byte 12 is set). The compression method is very simple: it replaces repetitions of at least five equal bytes by a four-byte code ED ED xx yy, which stands for "byte yy repeated xx times". Only sequences of length at least 5 are coded. The exception is sequences consisting of ED's; if they are encountered, even two ED's are encoded into ED ED 02 ED. Finally, every byte directly following a single ED is not taken into a block, for example ED 6*00 is not encoded into ED ED ED 06 00 but into ED 00 ED ED 05 00. The block is terminated by an end marker, 00 ED ED 00.
Version 2 and 3 .z80 files start with the same 30 byte header as version 1 files. However, bit 4 and 5 of the flag byte have no meaning anymore, and the program counter (byte 6 and 7) is zero to signal a version 2 or 3 file.
After the first 30 bytes, an additional header follows:
Offset Length Description
---------------------------
* 30 2 Length of additional header block (see below)
* 32 2 Program counter
* 34 1 Hardware mode (see below)
* 35 1 If in SamRam mode, bitwise state of 74ls259.
For example, bit 6=1 after an OUT 31,13 (=2*6+1)
If in 128 mode, contains last OUT to 0x7ffd
If in Timex mode, contains last OUT to 0xf4
* 36 1 Contains 0xff if Interface I rom paged
If in Timex mode, contains last OUT to 0xff
* 37 1 Bit 0: 1 if R register emulation on
Bit 1: 1 if LDIR emulation on
Bit 2: AY sound in use, even on 48K machines
Bit 6: (if bit 2 set) Fuller Audio Box emulation
Bit 7: Modify hardware (see below)
* 38 1 Last OUT to port 0xfffd (soundchip register number)
* 39 16 Contents of the sound chip registers
55 2 Low T state counter
57 1 Hi T state counter
58 1 Flag byte used by Spectator (QL spec. emulator)
Ignored by Z80 when loading, zero when saving
59 1 0xff if MGT Rom paged
60 1 0xff if Multiface Rom paged. Should always be 0.
61 1 0xff if 0-8191 is ROM, 0 if RAM
62 1 0xff if 8192-16383 is ROM, 0 if RAM
63 10 5 x keyboard mappings for user defined joystick
73 10 5 x ASCII word: keys corresponding to mappings above
83 1 MGT type: 0=Disciple+Epson,1=Disciple+HP,16=Plus D
84 1 Disciple inhibit button status: 0=out, 0ff=in
85 1 Disciple inhibit flag: 0=rom pageable, 0ff=not
** 86 1 Last OUT to port 0x1ffd
The value of the word at position 30 is 23 for version 2 files, and 54 or 55 for version 3; the fields marked '*' are the ones that are present in the version 2 header. The final byte (marked '**') is present only if the word at position 30 is 55.
In general, the fields have the same meaning in version 2 and 3 files, with the exception of byte 34:
Value: Meaning in v2 Meaning in v3
-----------------------------------------------------
0 48k 48k
1 48k + If.1 48k + If.1
2 SamRam SamRam
3 128k 48k + M.G.T.
4 128k + If.1 128k
5 - 128k + If.1
6 - 128k + M.G.T.
[As an aside, the documentation for versions 3.00 to 3.02 of Z80 had the entries for 'SamRam' and '48k + M.G.T.' in the second column of the above table reversed; also bytes 61 and 62 of the format were incorrectly documented up to version 3.04. The snaps produced by the older versions of Z80 follow what is above; it's just the documentation is wrong.]
Other emulators have extended the .z80 format to support more machine types:
Value: Meaning
-----------------------------------------------------
7 Spectrum +3
8 [mistakenly used by some versions of
XZX-Pro to indicate a +3]
9 Pentagon (128K)
10 Scorpion (256K)
11 Didaktik-Kompakt
12 Spectrum +2
13 Spectrum +2A
14 TC2048
15 TC2068
128 TS2068
While most emulators using these extensions write version 3 files, some write version 2 files so it's probably best to assume any of these values can be seen in either version 2 or version 3 files.
If bit 7 of byte 37 is set, the hardware types are modified slightly: any 48K machine becomes a 16K machine, any 128K machines becomes a +2 and any +3 machine becomes a +2A.
The hi T state counter counts up modulo 4. Just after the ULA generates its once-in-every-20-ms interrupt, it is 3, and is increased by one every 5 emulated milliseconds. In these 1/200s intervals, the low T state counter counts down from 17471 to 0 (17726 in 128K modes), which make a total of 69888 (70908) T states per frame.
The 5 ASCII words (high byte always 0) at 73-82 are the keys corresponding to the joystick directions left, right, down, up, fire respectively. Shift, Symbol Shift, Enter and Space are denoted by [,],/,\ respectively. The ascii values are used only to display the joystick keys; the information in the 5 keyboard mapping words determine which key is actually pressed (and should correspond to the ascii values). The low byte is in the range 0-7 and determines the keyboard row. The high byte is a mask byte and determines the column. Enter for example is stored as 0x0106 (row 6 and column 1) and 'g' as 0x1001 (row 1 and column 4).
Byte 60 must be zero, because the contents of the Multiface RAM is not saved in the snapshot file. If the Multiface was paged when the snapshot was saved, the emulated program will most probably crash when loaded back.
Bytes 61 and 62 are a function of the other flags, such as byte 34, 59, 60 and 83.
Hereafter a number of memory blocks follow, each containing the compressed data of a 16K block. The compression is according to the old scheme, except for the end-marker, which is now absent. The structure of a memory block is:
Byte Length Description
---------------------------
0 2 Length of compressed data (without this 3-byte header)
If length=0xffff, data is 16384 bytes long and not compressed
2 1 Page number of block
3 [0] Data
The pages are numbered, depending on the hardware mode, in the following way:
Page In '48 mode In '128 mode In SamRam mode
------------------------------------------------------
0 48K rom rom (basic) 48K rom
1 Interface I, Disciple or Plus D rom, according to setting
2 - rom (reset) samram rom (basic)
3 - page 0 samram rom (monitor,..)
4 8000-bfff page 1 Normal 8000-bfff
5 c000-ffff page 2 Normal c000-ffff
6 - page 3 Shadow 8000-bfff
7 - page 4 Shadow c000-ffff
8 4000-7fff page 5 4000-7fff
9 - page 6 -
10 - page 7 -
11 Multiface rom Multiface rom -
In 48K mode, pages 4,5 and 8 are saved. In SamRam mode, pages 4 to 8 are saved. In 128K mode, all pages from 3 to 10 are saved. Pentagon snapshots are very similar to 128K snapshots, while Scorpion snapshots have the 16 RAM pages saved in pages 3 to 18. There is no end marker.
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