Short:        Convert Spectrum Z80 Snapshot->TZX Tape
Author:       Tomaz Kac
Uploader:     aGGreSSor (amitrans narod ru)
Type:         util/conv
Version:      1.1
Requires:     ABIv0; i386; InstallerLG
Architecture: i386-aros
Distribution: aminet

============================== F E A T U R E S ==============================

  This program will let you convert any Z80 Snapshot to a TZX Tape file. This
means that you will be able to play that file into a real ZX Spectrum (or an
emulator) without any special hardware. Both 128k and 48k snapshots (all
versions) are supported. .SNA and other support will come later. You can use
any other snapshot convertor to convert different formats to .Z80 format.
  There have been a few utilities like this, but I felt this needed doing. The
reasons are because most of the previous utilities lack the support for
customizing the resulting TZX file or had too many bugs. TAPER has a really
nice support for the conversion from Z80 to TZX format, unfortunetly it has
so many bugs that it is practically unusable. I could bug-fix it, but it would
take way too much time and it needs DOS to run (Doesn't run on XP !).
  With this utility you are able to customize your TZX file in several ways.
You can change the speed of loading (from standard speed to 400%), all
messages that you see while loading can also be changed and added. Also you
can supply a custom external loading screen. I have gone through a great deal
of testing (around 300 Z80 snapshots which didn't work with TAPER all work
with this).

  There are still some snapshots which rely on the last line on screen to be
original - this line is corrupted because it is used to store all registers,
etc. These include games like Back To Skool and Skool Daze. You will have to
snapshot these at a later time (in-game for instance). Unfortunetly nothing
can be done here...

  There are several ways you can customize your TZX file. You can change the
Loading: Name to anything you want ( 8 Characters only ). You can also change
the Game Name that is shown before the SCREEN$ is loaded. Also you can add
two extra lines of info on the bottom of the screen if you want.

  The converter takes care of several issues when loading the snapshot :
  
- Loader for 48k and 128k Snapshots is the same. Only part that is different
  is the AY and 128k Paging registers setup.
- Each page is checked if it is empty - if so then it is not loaded at all.
- Each page is compressed and if its length is smaller than original size
  it is kept compressed. Also an additional check is done to see if the
  decompression procedure doesn't overwrite the compressed source !
- The first page or the custom loading SCREEN$ is always loaded compressed
  and is displayed instantly.
- If custom loading screen is present then the last page is always loaded
  decompressed so the loading of the screen looks nice (backward loading).
- In the end the 768 bytes long block is loaded with Normal ROM routines,
  and only if it is needed. This overwrites the are where the loader and
  register info is kept before it is moved into the last line of the
  screen area.

============================ R E Q U I R E M E N T ==========================

z802tzx tested and worked fine on the following configurations:

- IcarOS i386               (Kickstart 51.51, Workbench 40.0, AROS ABIv0)
- AROS One i386             (Kickstart 51.51, Workbench 40.0, AROS ABIv0)

================================= U S A G E =================================

This utility req big stack size:

1.AROS> stack 100000

Example of conversion with its own screen-file:

1.AROS> z802tzx Example/bb.z80 -$ Example/bb.scr

================================ S O U R C E ================================

Based on aminet version 1.0 by Tomaz Kac.

version 1.1 added:

  - version and stack support
  - stack size control
  - default loading speed set in 0
  - makefile rewritten
  - source included

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