`pillow_zx_spectrum`

Pillow loaders for ZX Spectrum loading screens, extracted from tape, disk and snapshot files in the wild.

Open a tape, disk image, or snapshot with Image.open(...) and Pillow gives you a 256×192 RGB image with the original Spectrum colours. Files that contain multiple screens (multi-load games, multi-side disks) expose them as Pillow frames via seek() / n_frames.

Install

pip install pillow_zx_spectrum

Usage

from PIL import Image
import pillow_zx_spectrum  # registers the plugins on import

img = Image.open("Glug Glug (1984)(CRL).tap")
img.save("loading-screen.png")
print(img.size)                   # (256, 192)
print(img.info["pixel_aspect_ratio"])  # (1, 1)

Multi-screen containers (disks, multi-load tapes) expose every screen they hold. Iterate with the stock Pillow helper:

from PIL import ImageSequence

img = Image.open("Moonwalker (Erbe).dsk")
print(img.n_frames)  # e.g. 2
for i, frame in enumerate(ImageSequence.Iterator(img)):
    frame.save(f"moonwalker.{i}.png")

Supported formats

2 id="supported-formats">Supported formats

Tape

Ext	Format	Notes
`.tap`	TAP	Plain ROM-loader block stream
`.tzx`	TZX	Versioned tape with timing/meta blocks; we extract from standard (0x10) and turbo-speed (0x11) data blocks. Custom-loader pure-data blocks (SpeedLock / BleepLoad / Alkatraz, block 0x14) are skipped — they need per-protection decoders.
`.scr`	SCREEN$	Raw 6912-byte screen dump

Disk

Ext	Format	Notes
`.dsk`	CPC DSK	Spectrum +3 / Amstrad CPC, both standard and “Extended” variants. CP/M file system parsed (handles fragmented allocation). Auto-detects single/double-sided and various reserved-track conventions.
`.scl`	TR-DOS packed	“SINCLAIR” magic, compact distribution format used in Russian-speaking scene
`.trd`	TR-DOS raw	Sector-by-sector TR-DOS floppy dump; tolerant of truncated images
`.mgt`	DISCiPLE / +D	Side-interleaved 80-track disk for the MGT DISCiPLE & +D interfaces. CODE/SCREEN$ files reassembled by following the per-sector chain.
`.d40`, `.d80`	Didaktik MDOS	Czechoslovak Didaktik D40/D80 floppy. MDOS file system with non-standard FAT12 packing (the 12-bit entries’ high nibbles are byte-swapped relative to MS FAT12). Auto-detects geometry from the boot sector “SDOS” marker. Most TOSEC Czech games use packed loaders so plain SCREEN$ extraction is rare.

Microdrive

Ext	Format	Notes
`.mdr`	Microdrive cart	Sector-by-sector dump of a Spectrum Microdrive cartridge (543-byte sectors with mod-255 checksums). Files reconstructed by gathering all records belonging to a filename and stripping the inline 9-byte header. PRINT# files are not handled.

Snapshot

Ext	Format	Notes
`.sna`	SNA	Classic 48K (49179 bytes) / 128K (131103 bytes) snapshot
`.z80`	Z80	Gerton Lunter format (v1, v2, v3); 48K and 128K with bank decompression
`.szx`	SZX / ZX-State	Spectaculator’s modern chunked snapshot, with zlib-compressed RAM pages
`.slt`	SLT	“Super Level Loader” — a Z80 snapshot with a table of additional screens (each becomes a frame)

For 128K snapshots the shadow screen (bank 7) is exposed as an extra frame when it’s distinct from the main screen.

How it works

Every container is reduced to a sequence of load events — (addr, body, name, kind) tuples — and walked into a 64K Spectrum RAM image. After each write the pipeline harvests two kinds of candidate:

Direct — if the event’s body is exactly 6912 bytes (the SCREEN$ shape), it might be a screen, regardless of its load address.
RAM snapshot — slice $4000-$5AFF after the write and emit it if the screen area now contains a new picture (catches screens loaded as part of larger CODE blocks, screens overwritten by later loads, etc.)

Candidates are then ranked by filename hint (SCR / PIC / TITL / LOAD / INTRO…) → canonical $4000 address → other; bodies that clearly aren’t screens (random attribute distribution, all-FLASH cells) are dropped. The same pipeline runs for every format.

What we don’t load

Sampled-audio tapes (.csw, .wav, .mp3) — these encode the loader’s pulse train, decoding requires a Z80 emulator running the Spectrum ROM
Copy-protected disks (.ipf) — needs the CAPS/SPS library
Custom-loader tapes (SpeedLock 7, Alkatraz, BleepLoad, …) — non-standard timing; the screen lives inside TZX 0x14 pure-data blocks that we skip rather than implement per-protection decoders for
16K Spectrum games — no SCREEN$ saved before the program
BASIC-only programs that draw their screen at runtime

These cases produce UnidentifiedImageError (“recognised the format, nothing to extract”) rather than a misleading blank frame.

License

WTFPL with one additional clause:

Don’t blame me.

Do what you like, but you’re to blame.