[General Topics] Menneisyys:
As a rule of thumb, if you plan to play a given title but would like to get the best gaming experience, go to Wikipedia, look up the given title and check out what other platforms it has been ported to (it’s listed in the text box on the right, in the “Platform(s)” row). In general, you can safely ignore the Commodore Amiga (as long as you want sound) ports. If there is an Atari ST port (another, more advanced home computer with excellent Windows Mobile emulation capabilities), you may want to check it out; as is the case with most C64, NES, SNES, SMS, PC Engine, Genesis and Game Gear ports. Most of these games / ROM's are available on the Web. In my past articles, I've explained how you can find these titles and what you will need to play them on your Windows Mobile device.

The same stands for games that have a native Windows Mobile interpreter; for example, Magnetic Scrolls titles. Speaking of these excellent games, unfortunately, the ZX Spectrum versions have no pictures at all - as opposed to even the C64 version. Therefore, in no way should you use a Spectrum emulator to enjoy these games – unless you don’t need images, that is.

1.2 Downloading C64 games / apps / demos off the Web

All emulators are common in that they, generally, read standardized file formats. If you're new to Spectrum emulation, you need to know about tape and snapshot images (and, if you would like to access the mostly post-Soviet TR-DOS titles, disk files). All emulators handle both tape and snapshot formats; UnrealSpeccyPPC, THE most recommended emulator, also handles disk images.

The main source of original (non-post-Soviet) Spectrum games and other titles is worldofspectrum.org. It at least lists all the available games. Note that, should it not contain the tape images of a given title because of (C) reasons, you will need to Google around. It’s by doing the same that I've found a source of R-Type, for example. Also, the Virtual TR-DOS main page has almost all old titles; I'd, however, prefer worldofspectrum.org to it because it has a lot of other, great information (game manuals, links to original articles / tips), unless you look for something not available in the latter or, of course, post-Soviet titles.

(Note that, still speaking of worldofspectrum.org, it has a pretty good and up-to-date emulator lists, also with WinCE (PPC) and Smartphone sections. The former still doesn’t list UnrealSpeccyPPC.)

As far as scene demos are concerned, your best friend will be zxdemo.org. It contains a generic, international (not just post-Soviet) overview of the scene, albeit, sometimes, it also contains weird stuff like this article, which, it seems, mistakes Finland for a post-Soviet country ("Q. How active is the demo scene in the UK? A. Well, on the Spectrum there's just a few of us keeping it all together. Over here the Spectrum scene is more focused on the whole retro gaming thing. As far as the wider scene goes, there are a couple of groups, but we're not really as active as other places like Finland. It does make you wonder - do they teach kids C at kindergarten or something?" FYI: it's not for the ZX Spectrum demoscene that Finland is famous for. In this regard, the two ex-Soviet, Russian-speaking countries are WAY ahead of Finland.) The direct Spectrum demo / tune downloads are HERE.