With nearly as good a name as Speculator, this is a fine Speccy emulator for Macs that do not use OS X. Before the introduction of OSX, there were only a few Mac Spectrum emulators listed on the World of Spectrum. This is somewhat disappointing compared to the number available for the Amiga and PC. Although I have upgraded to OSX, Spectacle was the only emulator which I used when I just had OS9.

I'm not a harsh boy, but I expect the programs I run to load, and only occasionally crash. Unfortunately, Spectacle had a habit of crashing when I was using OS9. Funnily enough, this hasn't happened when I have been running it though the Classic Environment on OSX. Perhaps there was a conflict between my version of OS9.x and Spectacle.

As even the most basic of G3 Macintoshes have no problems with emulating a Spectrum, the main issue with the emulator programs is not running speed but features. So what features does Spectacle have?. Firstly, there are three models of Spectrum to choose from, 48K, 128K and +2. This means that you are only not able to access game on .dsk (+3 disk image), .tzx (alternative tape format or .trd (TR-DOS) formats. This may sound a lot, but in all honesty there are still plenty of games available.

As you may have deduced from the paragraph above, Spectacle can load and 48K and 128K .sna, .z80 .tap files. However, it's extremely picky which .tap files it wants to load. For example, it won't load New Zealand Story at all, but it will load R-Type. As the WoS site is now archiving the games it has in either .tzx format (which Spectacle doesn't support) or an alternative (usually .tap), Spectacle users may get a bit frustrated.

.tap loading is accessed via an emulated tape deck. Amusingly enough, instead of displaying a tape in the player, it shows a shiny silver CD. Ah well, it's a nice touch.

Another feature is that you can shoose which screen size you play your Spectrum games in. Obviously for the larger sizes you need to have a large monitor (there's no point in me trying the 3:1 or 4:1 sizes on my 12.1inch iBook). Spectacle also multitasks well with other programs. If you disable the multitasking, then the screen is centred, surrounded by a big black border.

You can either convert the files into Mac-recognisable filetypes or leave them as they are (ie if you've got them off the internet or a CDROM, they're listed as pc files). They'll still load, but you can't double-click the game to load the emulator, and need to hold shift when loading via the menu or short-key combo. The program is included with the archive, so it's up to you. It's a reasonably handy utility.

As emulators go, Spectacle is great for playing .sna or .z80 files, and less useful for loading .tap files, as mentioned earlier. A side 'benefit' of the Mac is that, like the Speccy, joystick ports weren't included as standard. This means that if you want to play any games using a joystick, it's tough as Spectacle doesn't support InputSprocket (which doesn't work under OSX anyway - InputSprocket, that is).

So, as I prefer controlling games using keys, this is a plus for me. However, I know that joystick control should have been included as an option. Luckily, there are no problems using an Apple keyboard as a pseudo Spectrum 'board. You get two keyboard options, one of which is designed for gaming. This means that you can still relive the finger-destroying moments banging the keys playing Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge, Combat School, Hyper Sports et al.

So, for OS9 Mac owners content on playing .sna or .z80 Spectrum games (and occasionally .tap ones if they're lucky), Spectacle will suit them well. The emulator does run in the Classic Environment if you have OSX, but there's another option for those users.... (read the Fuse and ZXSP OSX reviews)