Introductory Notes

There are many TRS-80 emulators out there for various operating systems. The top few on this list are excellent and any of them will provide you with an accurate emulation experience. Like every product out there, however, not every emulator emulates everything, and there are some features present in one which are not present in the other. This may mean you need to use 2 different emulators if you want to use all the features. The following is a short intro to what features TRS80GP and TRS32 do NOT share; otherwise they are equal.

Feature TRS32 TRS80GP

Operating System Windows Pretty much everything

Operations Mode GUI Command Line

Run at full PC speed No Yes

Model III High Speed Cassettes No Yes

Built-in Z-80 debugger No

Tracing

Disassembling

Profiling

Ranged Breakpoints (Memory and Ports)

Memory dumping Yes – Supports

Support Joysticks Trisstick

Alpha Products Alpha Products

Offer 1MB support in Model 4 mode. Yes No

Convert Epson printer output for use in a real printer and/or on a virtual screen Yes No

Emulate Stringy Floppy Exatron Acculab

Emulate Real Time Clock Smartwatch

Newclock80 No

Emulate TRS-80 Mice Yes No

Emulate TRS-80 Light Pen No Micro Matrix Photopoint

Emulate (i.e. pass through) TRS-80 RS232 commands to a PC serial port. Yes No

Disk Sector Viewer No Yes

User definable macros No 10

Memory and Disk Search No Yes

Capture Output Screencap Screencap

Animated GIF

Flash

AVI

Save Emulator State Yes No

Custom Character Generator Selection No Yes

Model I/II/III/4 Emulator for Windows (Runs on MAC and OSX Catalina under CrossOver)

General Information

Version: 2.3.1

Last Updated: May 30, 2020

trs80gp emulates the “gray” line of TRS-80 computers made by Tandy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are known as the Model I, Model II, Model III, Model 4, Model 4P and Model 4D. It is generally easier to refer to them as the Model 1, Model 2, Model 3 and Model 4. The Model 1, 3 and 4 are a line of compatible computers. The Model 2 has its own line of compatibles including the Model 12, 16 and 6000 which are not yet emulated by trs80gp.

The emulator runs under Windows 10 and probably works on Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP. I’ve also heard it runs fine on OSX and Linux machines using Wine. It should run well on any machine produced in the past 7 or 8 years.

trs80gp provides accurate and near complete emulation with excellent programmer support. The source code is fully organic and hand-crafted by myself and my brother Peter.

Features:

Emulates floppy disk, cassette, Aculab Floppy Tapes, hires graphics, orchestra 80 and printer.

Window scalable to any size with realistic phosphor-dot rendering.

Near perfect video emulation including beam drop-outs, wait states and various other subtle effects.

Can visually indicate Z-80 video memory conflicts.

Cycle perfect sub-instruction Z-80 and video timing.

Built-in Z-80 debugger with source level debugging using zmac .bds output.

Switchable turbo mode for high speed yet still accurate operation.

Auto-turbo modes to go fast during slow operations (e.g., disk, cassette) and back to normal when typing.

AVI and FLV (Flash) video capture.

GIF and animated GIF screenshot capture.

Audio capture to WAV file.

Load programs directly from command line for fast development and testing.

Can both “paste” and send files as input to keyboard (aka “fast type”).

“Cut” to copy the screen in ASCII, Unicode or graphics format.

Keyboard selectable between normal and game mode.

Software keyboard to get around limits of PC keyboards.

Brightness, contrast and display colour controls.

Batch mode and command line input to automate tasks.

Can open files and disk images within .zip archives.

Optional emulator extensions provide memory protection and timing to the Z-80. And emulator exit.

Bus tracing, disassembling, profiling, memory dumping and other features for reverse engineering and debugging.

Can be set to run as fast as your PC can handle, yet keeping drive access and keyboard access functional.

Emulates a Model II

Built in IMPORT and EXPORT to and from PC directory

RUMOR is that TRS80GP will run on macOS Catalina under the latest (paid) version of CrossOver, but NOT under Wine due to the 64-bit requirements of Catalina.

Support for hard drives [Feb 2020]

Model 16 emulation [Feb 2020]

Preliminary support for Model I Percom and Radio Shack double-density disk interfaces. [Feb 2020]

TRS32 Model I/III/4 Emulator for Windows

General Information

Version: 1.28

Last Updated: August 20, 2013

Features:

Is a native Windows application (features such as sound and joystick support will work on all hardware, and you can run the emulator concurrently with other Windows applications without any adverse effects)

Emulates the Model I (Levels I and II), Model III (Levels I and II), Model 4, and Model 4P with a variety of hardware add-ons, including doublers, graphics boards, joysticks, and additional memory

Provides complete and “cycle accurate” hardware-level emulation (even protected disks work without problems)

Includes optional realistic TRS-80 disk drive sound

Supports all popular virtual disk (.DSK) formats

Includes support for the rare Level I Model III

Includes emulation of the Exatron Stringy Floppy

Includes cut/paste of TRS-80 screen contents

Supports true Model 4P Mode

Hovering the mouse cursor over the floppy drive indicator light in the status bar will display the current drive status and position

Unregistered Shareware Version:

Works under all current versions of Windows

Full Windows application – no low-level hardware conflicts!

Model I, Model III, and Model 4 emulation

Four floppy disk drives (with optional realistic disk drive sound)

Cassette tape drive with graphical on-screen controls

Printer support

Serial port for RS-232 communications

Joystick support (using a Windows joystick – TRISSTICK and Alpha Products joysticks are emulated)

Registered Version:

All features included in the shareware version

High resolution graphics (Radio Shack and MicroLabs)

Up to 1 megabyte of additional memory in Model 4 mode

Hard disk support

Orchestra 85/90 music generation

Built-in emulation of an Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer (including graphics and control codes)

SDLTRS (2020) Model I/III/4 Emulator

General Information:

Author: Jens Guenther forking from Mark Grebe

Version: 1.2.12

Last Updated: August 16, 2020

Jens Guenther made bug fixes to SDLTRS v1.1.0

Features:

Runs on BSD, Haiku, Linux, MacOS(X), Solaris and Windows (95 to current)

Included all patches by Alan Cox: support for banked memory, Lowe LE18

Fixed various SegFaults: ROM Selection Menu, Scaling in Fullscreen

Reworked the Interface: new shortcuts and key bindings, help screen

Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V can now be used in the Emulator (CP/M & WordStar)

Access to real floppy disks works now on Linux

Tried to fix reported bugs to the original version

Port to SDL2

Support for Exatron Stringy Floppy …

Select and execute CMD files directly in the Emulator …

Save screenshot of the Emulator window as BMP file …

Show Z80 registers in the window title bar

Display of Z80 speed in window title bar (1.2.9)

“Turbo Paste” function (1.2.9)

Adjust Z80 clock rate on the fly. (v1.2.9)

Fixed crash in parity table on 64-bit systems. (v1.2.9a)

Fixed crash in SDL cleanup. (v1.2.9a)

Fixed crash/garbaled TRS-80 graphics. (v1.2.9a)

Fixed mouse selection on window redraw. (v1.2.9a)

Toggle joystick emulation with NumLock key. (v1.2.9a)

Added Z80 refresh register. (v1.2.10)

Added more accurate Z80 block moves. (v1.2.10)

Added support for Sprinter II/III. (v1.2.10)

Added CPU clock speed selection. (v1.2.11)

Added R register to state file. (v1.2.11)

Fixed issue #2 “Spurious return characters” (reported by David Barr). (v1.2.11)

Fixed issue #3 “Handle CapsLock key in SDL2” (reported by David Barr). (v1.2.12)

Fixed some crashes (Copy Buffer, “SuperMem” option). (v1.2.12)

Fixed bugs and other improvements. (v1.2.12)

Made Z80 debugger an optional feature. (v1.2.12)

XTRS Model I/III/4 Emulator for Unix

General Information

Author: Tim Mann

Version: 4.9d

Last Updated: June 15, 2009

xtrs is a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I/III/4/4P emulator for Unix and the X Window System. It includes lower case, the real time clock, hi-res graphics, serial port, parallel printer, mouse, cassette, sound and music output (requires OSS), 5″ and 8″ floppy disk drives in single and double density, and even hard disk drives. The emulated floppy and hard disk file formats are compatible with the popular MSDOS-based emulators by Jeff Vavasour and Matthew Reed, and (if you choose a capable enough file format), all features of the original TRS-80 floppy disk controller are emulated. Under Linux, physical floppy disk drives are also supported. Physical cassettes can be read and written too.

Features:

Windows and Mac OS X support.

Fullscreen display

Text based GUI on Windows and Linux, and in Fullscreen mode on the Macintosh.

Configuration files.

Disk LED Indicators on screen.

Creation of Disk images inside of the program.

Saving and loading of disk sets.

Saving and loading of emulator state.

Copy and Paste of text to/from host and emulator.

USB Joystick support.

Graphical interface, include Media management with graphical representation of the disk drives and cassette [MAC Only]

Printer emulation of Epson FX-80 and CGP-115 Plotter/Printer, with output to PDF files. [MAC Only]

Debugger in separate program window. [MAC Only]

TRS-80 Model I, III, and 4/4p emulation.

Emulated cassette drive.

Emulated 5″ and 8″ floppy disk drives.

Emulated Hard Drives.

Data Import and Export from Host.

Sound emulation.

Mouse emulation.

Joystick emulation.

Printer emulation.

Debugger.

SHARP-80 Model III Emulator for Windows (Updated 3/9/2017)

General Information:

Version: 1.1.0.99

Features:

Complete and self contained with ROM and DOS built in

Faithful Z-80 CPU emulation (including undocumented opcodes — passes all ZEXALL opcode tests)

Runs at standard 2.03MHz (or run up to 100MHz on a modern PC)

Bundled disk and tape library includes applications, utilities, operating systems, and games

Supports up to four virtual floppy drives, and all major virtual floppy formats (DMK, JV3, JV1)

Tape drive emulation supports high and low speed reading and writing (CAS format)

Windowed and full-screen modes

Built-in Z-80 assembler and disassembler

Real-time monitor of Z-80 registers and state, and floppy controller status

Printer to file support

Support for all video modes, including wide characters and Kanji mode

Bundled disk and tape library includes applications, utilities, operating systems, and games

TRS-80 Emulator for Android

General Information:

Author: Arno Puder

Version: 0.42

Last Updated: Aug 2019

This is the first version of a TRS-80 Emulator for Android. It is based on sdltrs that is itself derived from the popular xtrs emulator originally written for X-Windows.

Features:

Model I & III (text mode only)

Cassette support. A default blank tape is automatically created (a different cassette image can be mounted via the Edit Configuration dialog). Use the rewind button in the action bar to rewind the tape to the beginning

Floppy disks

Sound

Different keyboard types, including a tilt interface where the accelerometer triggers cursor keys (for games)

Game controller support: joystick and DPAD buttons are mapped to appropriate cursor keys. Other game controller keys are mapped to space for now (future version might allow custom mapping)

Define different keyboard layouts for landscape and portrait mode

When an external keyboard is detected, it will automatically be used instead of the configured soft-keyboard.

Use <Ctrl>-B and <Ctrl>-C for <BREAK> and <CLEAR> respectively

Chromecast support: cast your TRS-80 application to your big screen!

SDLTRS (2010) Model I/III/4 Emulator

General Information:

Author: Mark Grebe

Version: 1.1.0

Last Updated: February 15, 2010

SDLTRS builds on XTRS and adds Windows and Mac OS X support, Fullscreen display, Text based GUI on Windows and Linux, and in Fullscreen mode on the Macintosh, Configuration files, Disk LED Indicators on screen, Creation of Disk images inside of the program, Saving and loading of disk sets, Saving and loading of emulator state, Copy and Paste of text to/from host and emulator, and USB Joystick support.

TRS-80 Model III Emulator in TypeScript

General Information:

Author: Lawrence Kesteloot

Download: The most recent version can be found on that site.

Version: 1.0

Last Updated: December 31, 2019

Can be run from a browser — try here.

To run a local build:

% npm install

% npm run build

% npm run serve

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080/

TRS-80 Model III Emulator in Go

General Information:

Author: Lawrence Kesteloot

Download: The most recent version can be found on that site.

Version: 1.0

Last Updated: Jan 23, 2013

This is a TRS-80 Model III emulator written in Go. It uses a web page for its interface. It can read diskettes and cassettes. It uses the Z80 emulation library from Andrea Fazzi.

You can change the contents of the disk drives with the selectors on the right. The red dots represent the drive motors. A few diskettes are included with the source. Add more into the “disks” directory. Only reading is implemented. All diskettes pretend to be write-protected.

You can change the contents of the cassette with the selector on the right. The red dot represents the cassette motor. Put the cassette files into the “cassettes” directory. Cassettes must be WAV files (mono, 16-bit). Both 500 and 1500 baud are supported.

Installation:

go get github.com/lkesteloot/trs80 Go to the source directory, which is probably: $GOPATH/src/github.com/lkesteloot/trs80 . Note: If you have more than one item in your $GOPATH, use only the first one. Execute it with ../../../../bin/trs80 Go to http://localhost:8080/ in your web browser Click the Boot button

TRSEMU v1.4 Model III Emulator for Javascript

General Information:

Author: Peter Phillips

Emulates a TRS-80 Model III using only Javascript.

Level I Simulator for the Web (Java)

General Information:

Emulates a Level I TRS-80 Model on the Web (Java).

Much Older Emulators

Use at your own risk. May not be able to handle DMK images, Windows XP or later.

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

This emulator can map your PC drive as a real TRS-80 boot drive and can aid in transferring data from a TRS-80 Disk to an IBM!

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

The unregistered shareware version emulates a 64K Model 4 with four double-sided, 80-track floppy drives and a parallel printer port. All Model 4 sound can be routed through either the PC speaker or a Sound Blaster compatible sound card, and several international keyboard layouts are available.

The registered version adds support for Model III mode, the 128K memory upgrade, a virtual hard drive, a hardware clock, RS-232 communications, high resolution graphics (Radio Shack and Micro-Labs), snapshots, a Model 4 mouse driver, and file transfer utilities.

In any event, the emulator will use LPTx: for the TRS-80 printer port, and COMx: for the RS-232 port.

I have personally used the registered version of this emulator. I put a real Model 4 disk in IBM Drive A: and set that as my emulator boot drive (:0). This emulator booted off of the physical Model 4 disk and performed flawlessly. To create a .DSK file image of that floppy all I had to do was mount my Model 4 disk as :0 (in A:), and a virtual disk as :1, and run BACKUP. That’s IT!!

Matthew includes a utility which will allow you to import and export from a Model III/4 .DSK file to DOS which supports wildcards.

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Amiga Model I AMITRS80 1.0 Jan 1 2003 Leslie Ayling

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

DOS Model I Model I Emulator v3.02u-g Final) Sep 7 2002 Jeff Vavasour Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Win Model 1/3/4 WINTRS80 2.0 Jul 21 2000 Wade Fincher

Download the Emulator

Download the necessary Windows Fonts (install first)

Download the Voice Synthesizer Add-On

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Mac Model 1 TRS-80 Emulator for Mac OS v1.6 Jul 11 1999 Yves Lempereur Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

AtariST Model III 2nd Life Jan 28 1998 Sander Berents Site

DOS Model I Model I Emulator May 30 1997 Mike Riley

DOS Model I Model I Emulator v0.1 Dec 9 1996 Ron Fries

DOS Model I Model I Emulator v1.0 Oct 11 1996 Paul Robson

DOS Model I Model III Simulator Oct 25 1994 George Phillips

DOS Model I Model I Emulator v0.1

(Source Code Only) (Source Code Only) Aug 31 1992 Benoit Gilon

DOS Model III Model III Emulator Jan 12 1991 Vincent Van Den Berghe

Other Computers

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Various Dragon and Coco XRoar v0.35.4 May 13, 2019 Email Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Windows ‘9x Coco III Coco III v1.42 Aug 13 2010 Joseph Forgione Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Windows or OSX or Linux Model 100 Virtual T v1.5 Jul 9 2011 Stephen James Hurd and Ken Pettit Home Page

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Windows HT 1080/Z HT 1080/Z / System 80 v1.6.4 July 2011 Attila Grósz

Download Windows 32 Version

Download Windows 64 Version

Emulator Features:

Full and cycle exact Z80 CPU core

Support for the VideoGenie-1/System-80, all 3 series of HT1080Z computers and the TRS80 Model I Level 2

Support for 16 and 64 kb memory setups

NMI interrupt (RESET)

Video Cut (32 columns mode) and Page buttons

3 channel YM2149 sound chip emulation along with the noise and envelope generators

TRS-80 compatible tape sound

Full keyboard emulation

Direct loading of the disk based CMD format files

Read/write support for the CAS tape format

WAV format support for tape output

Simple printer support

Lowe LE15 High Resolution Graphic Adapter emulation

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Windows HT 1080/Z FastZ80 v1.02 Jul 18 2008 Kintli Lajos Site

Emulator Features:

Very fast and accurate Z80 engine

Z80 undocumented instructions/flag bits are implemented

RESET and NMI support

Four running speeds including ‘full’ for maximum performance

64*16 character video display (including 128*48 pixel graphics)

Video cut / page with optional 200% magnifier

8*8 memory mapped ‘wired or’ keyboard matrix

TRS-80 like ‘tape output’ sound is supported

General Instruments AY-3-8910 (Yamaha YM2149) sound chip is emulated

Tape emulation through CAS files for basic language and system programs

Direct load of TRS80 CMD & CAS & Intel Hex files

ROM extension is included (use SYSTEM and /12288 for activating)

ROM includes simple monitor (use SYSTEM and /12710)

Content of ROM can be loaded from binary file

Character generator ROM can be loaded from bitmap file

Keyboard mapping can be loaded from a text file

Default settings including ROMs can be patched into the EXE file

Built in port controlled timer/event counter

Small sized single EXE program, no external files are needed

Running on standard WIN32 environment (Windows 95 and up)

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Emulator Features:

1.774 MHz CPU clock, precise Z80 cycles times, all Z80 op codes including the non defined ones and XF/YF flags.

Z80 Reset, NMI, INT lines.

All three HT-1080Z series ROMs and character generators included with selectable 16/48K memory.

Full HT keyboard with CUT and PAGE keys, Pause mode.

Tape recorder, printer, four 5 1/4″ SS SD floppy disk, internal clock

Yamaha YM2149 sound chip (originally supported only in HT series)

Micolor 01 (Hungarian expansion board) and Lowe Electronics LE18 graphic board.

Built-in debugger

Audio: 8 bits, Mono, 22050Hz

Screen snapshot into BMP or JPEG file.

Turbo mode, 2x or Full (20x).

Program autostart, text file input as keyboard

Predefined and custom “skins”

Favorites

Memory snapshot to CAS file

Emulates Micolor 01, 256×256 color expansion board.

Emulates Lowe Electronics LE18, 384×192 B/W expansion board.

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

Windows ‘9x CoCo III CoCo III Emulator v1.6B Nov 6 2001 Jeff Vavasour Site

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

DOS CoCo II CoCo II Emulator v1.6 Jan 15 2001 Jeff Vavasour Site

Download the CoCo II Emulator

Download the Source Code

OS Emulated Name Rel Date Author Home Site

DOS CoCo Dragon/CoCo Emulator v0.10 Nov 22 1997 Paul Burgin