As a Spectrum emulator, ASp stands up rather well compared to other emulators I have used on the Mac & PC. It's been over a year since I last reviewed ASp for the emulator section of TRB (v0.82).

The last version of ASp I reviewed was already well-balanced for features. You can still emulate the same number of Spectrums now as you could then. This means no +3 or TR-DOS machines. After discussions with the author, to add +3 emulation is quite a large task in itself.

The other aspect is that there weren't many +3 exclusive games released. The majority of those games (mainly adventures) are available on WoS as either .tzx, .z80 formats as well as in .dsk. This means that there are very few games you can't play on ASp even without +3 emulation. So by not having +3 emulation, it doesn't mean you're missing much. I don't have a 'real' +3, so I know I'm not missing much.

Version 0.84 (not reviewed, so included within this round-up) had the engine reworked to improve emulation speed. And it has certainly worked! Previously I was experiencing about 85-95%(ish) speed on my 25Mhz '040 Amiga when running demanding 128K games. Now it is most certainly 100%. How do I know this?

I have no "scientific" way of measuring it (I have been advised me how I can measure this however) - the true test is the fact I can have the real Speccy game playing on my real +2a next to my Amiga (which is running ASp). And there's no real difference in speed. This speed increase is also obvious when I run other Spectrum emulators on my Amiga. The other features of ASp which set it out as an excellent emulator remain. Read the previous review to check those features out though it's worth pointing out that no other Amiga Spectrum emulator allows such flexibility regarding controller and sound options.

There are other features which you don't really acknowledge until you start using other emulators. For example, you can change any of the options 'on the fly' and they become into effect immediately. Try adjusting the sound to see what I mean. You see the change immediately, without the usual 'change preference, quit, re-start app, see effect, change pref' circle.

You can also set tooltypes so that ASp knows where the Speccy ROMs and games are on your HD. This may sound like a basic function however it's another great 'nice-to-have' that you really miss when using other emulator. What strikes me about ASp is how well-rounded it is. The whole point of an emulator for me is so you can run old applications (for me on a Spectrum this is to play games) in an authentic manner on your current machine. If it doesn't do this, then all the extras are worthless.

ASp sets out to emulate several Spectrum models and loads/saves several common emulation file formats. It does this primary function very well. The nice-to-have extra functions also operate in a similar way. For example, you can now take screengrabs without using another application. There's also an option for you to emulate a 128K Speccy without using the Amiga's MMU. As my Amiga has an MMU I keep this option checked.

There are various other internal improvements made to Asp to ensure that the end user gets the best out of it. This is what I'd expect of a developing program. I don't want to find out that 'improvements' actually make the app worse.

Overall, ASp is certainly the best ZX Spectrum emulator available on the Amiga. There is room to add extra functionality or features, however if ASp has its' development stopped now it will still remain one of the best all-round Speccy emulators across any platform.