ZX Spectrum emulator Speculator file
File type: Emulator file
The ZX82 file extension identifies files used by Speculator, a ZX Spectrum emulator for Amiga computers.
ZX82 is Speculator's emulator file format, used for Spectrum data and snapshot files.
File type category:
Emulator file
Date updated: September 28, 2026
Speculator uses the ZX82 format as its own file format. The format is named after the four-byte file identifier at the beginning of the file, which contains the ASCII characters "ZX82".
A ZX82 file has a 12-byte header containing standard Spectrum file information, including the length, type and start address. The header also contains a compression flag, which indicates whether the file uses byte-run compression.
Snapshot files include an additional 32 bytes containing register values and border colour information. Registers and other values use Motorola byte order, with the high byte before the low byte.
The format is specific to the Amiga version of Speculator and is not a general-purpose Spectrum file format.
Open a ZX82 file with Speculator on an Amiga computer.
To convert a ZX82 file, a conversion utility must interpret the ZX82 identifier and header, handle the byte-run compression flag, and, for snapshot files, process the additional register and border information.
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