The Archives
Clicking on the Games link from the Archives will take you to a page with links to games with a simple to use filter. Click on the letter that corresponds to the name of the game to go to a page listing all the games beginning with that letter. For example to find the game "Zynaps", click on the Archives link then click on the Games link, which will take you to the games page. Click on the letter Z. You will presently see a list of games beginning with the letter Z. Scroll through the list to find your game. Alternatively, you can simply type Zynaps into the title field.
Alternately, you can use the Infoseek engine to search for a game in the database. See the Sinclair Infoseek section to know more.
Whether you use the Infoseek engine or navigate via the software pages, you will ultimately end up in the Infoseek database page for that particular game. This page, among other things, will give you a number of links (or not depending on the different formats that the game is listed under) to the game in question. Click the "Files" header to list the title related files. Click on one of the links to download the game on to your computer. Tip: Prefer the TZX format links to other formats since it's a more accurate representation of the original data. Snapshots (.z80, and .sna) should be your last options if nothing else is available.
You can also download all files related to a title by clicking the "download all files" link.
Well if you have an emulator, it's easy enough. Just load it in to the emulator and you'll be on your way. How you load it in will vary from platform to platform and emulator to emulator but most of the time it's a simple operation of finding the "Load" option in the emulator, navigating to the folder where you've saved the downloaded game file and opening it. Most emulators support Auto Loading wherein simply opening the game file will automatically load the game. Sometimes you have to type in LOAD "" to load and run the game - just like the old times!
Make sure you are in the correct "hardware mode" while loading in a game in an emulator that emulates different Spectrum models. Some 48k games do not work in a +2 environment while 128k games usually do not work in a 48k environment (unsurprisingly).
The process for loading TR-DOS games is slightly more involved depending on which emulator you are using. You'll be better off reading the emulator documentation to know what precisely you are required to do.
Alternately, you can play the games directly on-line without downloading them on to your computer. To do this, click on the small Spectrum icons next to the links in the files section. This will open a browser window where a Javascript based emulator will run your game. Please note that due to this being browser emulation, it won't be the best experience of the game!
You can find a list of emulators for all kinds of systems here
There could be three reasons for this:
a) We don't have the game in the archive because it's MIA.
b) The copyright holders have denied the distribution of this game.
c) We never heard of it before. Please fill us in!
Simply head to the Upload page in the Archive section and transfer your files to us to process.
Read all about it in the TZXing guide written by one of the maintainers of the TZX Project.
A movie of the proces is available as well: lo-fi (4Mb) and hi-fi (29Mb)
The archive has separate manuals and technical documentation.
Please refer to the relevant Sinclair F.A.Q section for the complete low down regarding the different tape formats.
Thanks to the powerful TZX format, it is possible to store a program in its original form, without taking too much space.
When a game is archived in this TZX format, it's finished and it will no longer be necessary to look out for better versions (there can't be).
If by ROMs you mean games, well, you won't find any such thing here. Except for a tiny selection of games made available on the ZX Interface II, Spectrum games are NOT ROMs! They are either snapshots or tape images and they can be found in the archives.
Certainly! Please consult The Tipshop.
If you have some hints, tips, maps or walkthroughs yourself, please share it with us!
There are a couple of likely reasons for the delay in processing your material. One could be that there are way too many items backlogged already so your material has probably been queued too. Maintainers are subject to the rules and vagaries of life too, unfortunately! The other reason could be that the material you have supplied has been distribution denied by the copyright holder (Ultimate games for example) so it would not be uploaded on WoS. If there is an inordinately long delay, you would do well to get in touch with Lee and check with him.
Each entry on WoS has a change request form. Simply fill that out, and one of the maintainers will check the details. You will be emailed once the request is either approved or rejected.
