Two very different pieces of 1980s hardware just became one, sort of. Developer Supratim Sanyal of SANYALnet Labs has released a Game & Watch emulator for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, with version 1.0.0 arriving on November 6th. It supports 18 of Nintendo’s LCD handhelds, plus Munchy, an original LCD-style maze game built for the collection.
This is emulation, not a remake. The Spectrum’s Z80 runs a cycle-accurate emulation of the Sharp SM510 microcontroller inside the handhelds, so the machine executes the original game programs with their logic, timing, LCD segments, sounds, and Game A and B modes intact. The project supplies screen graphics drawn for the Spectrum, but, as expected, the ROMs themselves are not included: each Nintendo title needs a compatible 4 KB ROM from your own collection.
The 18 supported games span the Wide Screen, Multi Screen, and Super Color ranges, including Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Oil Panic, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario’s Cement Factory, Spitball Sparky, and Crab Grab. Munchy, a Pac-Man-style maze game with its own clock, alarm, sounds, and two difficulty modes, runs without any external ROM, and so does the included demo program.
If you want to give Munchy a run and don’t have a working ZX Spectrum, games ship as TZX tape images that work on a real Spectrum 48K or compatible emulators. They also included a Python 3 utility converts ROM images into the extra tape files the Nintendo titles need. Full source and documentation are available for inspection and permitted non-commercial use. The Speccy keeps good company lately, with C64 and ZX Spectrum clamshell handhelds on the way, and there is a lovely symmetry here: Nintendo’s own Zelda Game & Watch got hacked into a tiny emulation powerhouse, and now a Sinclair is the one running Nintendo’s games.
Source: Sprite Fountain | Project: itch.io
