ZX Spectrum

Virtual keyboard

A 40-key virtual keybord located in the workspace provides control over the emulator similar to a real ZX Spectrum keyboard. The left mouse button click over a virtual key makes it pressed. With the help of the mouse wheel a virtual key can be held in the pressed state, either till any next virtual key is pressed (wheel up) or till the explicit repeated press on the same pushed key (wheel down). The virtual keyboard itself (as like as display though) can be draged to any location in the workspace.

Every key (as well as the original one) serves several purposes. The current one depends as on the mode the emulator shell in, as the extra keys Caps Shift (CS) and Sysmbol Shift (SS) pushed at the moment:

• In the keyword entering mode (K) a press on a key adds one of the key words specified under the main symbol.
• In the literal entering mode (L) a press adds the main symbol. Caps Shift gives the control under the case of the entering symbols here.
• A press on Symbol Shift in any of the aforementioned modes let you enter special symbols as well as some key words showed to the right of the main symbol.
• Simultanious press of Symbol Shift and Caps Shift turns on the "edit" mode (E).
• In the edit mode a press on a key (except digits) provides entering key words displayed above keys with the green color.
• In the edit mode a press on a key simultaniously with any Shift key let enter symbols and red key words, which can be seen under keys.
• Above the digit keys you can see commands which are performed by pressing the corresponding digit key with Caps Shift.

The control described earlier usually is used in the standard system shell only. The most of programs and games keyboard keywords and modes don't have any meaning. The table shows the frequently used keys and their typical actions in games:

IBM PC Keyboard

Everything which has been said before can be applied to the physical IBM PC keyboard. Press on the physical key triggers press on one or a few virtual keys (they can be seen by highlight).

The most of IBM PC keys correspond eponymous ZX Spectrum virtual keys. The following table displays the full key mapping:

Virtual Kempston mouse

A ball and three buttons over it, placed to the right of the virtual keyboard, represent virtaul Kempston mouse (or trackball?). The ball can be pulled with the left PC mouse button at the different directions, sending the corresponsing commands to the emulator. The purpose of the buttons is obvious. A short PC mouse button click on the ball emulates a virtual mouse button click as well.

IBM PC mouse

If your browser supports Pointer Lock API, it's possible to click on the virtual display by the left mouse button in order to control virtual pointer inside the emulator by moving the IBM PC mouse. It is worth to remeber, however, that each virtual coordinate is stored as byte. Therefore, fast pointer movements (especially with high DPI) can lead to impossibility of programs to detect valid virtual pointer offset. The virtual pointer will jump over the screen. To exit the pointer lock mode you should usually press Escape button on the keyboard.

Gamepads

Connected gamepads (joysticks) can be mapped to Kempston-joystick interface, as well as to popular key sets often used in ZX Spectrum soft: Sinclair, Cursor, QAOPM, QAOPSpace. The mapping of an already connected controller can be changed in the Properties dialog box.