About Foon

What is Foon?

Foon is a ZX-Spectrum emulator for the Game Boy Advance.

Why is Foon?

So you can play all your old favourite Spectrum games - duh!

Where is Foon?

Foon is Here.

I have decided to bring Foon into my life. Is there anything I should know?

As ever, the standard disclaimers apply. I expressly disclaim any responsibility for any damage whatsoever that may be caused by Foon. You are using Foon entirely at your own risk. You should also be aware that although many authors of Spectrum games have granted permission for their old games to be distributed, certain other companies have not.

How do I use Foon?

First, you will need .Z80-format snapshots of the Spectrum games you want to play. I don't host these snapshots - please don't ask me for them. A good place to look is World Of Spectrum. At present, Foon only supports .Z80 format snapshots. Support for .SNA will probably be forthcoming. If the game you want to play is not in .Z80 format, then I suggest you download the fantastic ZX-32 PC Spectrum emulator, load the game, and save it out as a .Z80 image.

Next, grab the latest version of Foon from the download page. This is a ZIP file containing a Windows executable. Run this executable, and drag your .Z80 files from Explorer into the large white area at the top of the dialog box. You will see games being added to the list. Double-click on an entry to edit the key mappings for that game. You can map any GBA button except START to any Spectrum key or Kempston Joystick motion.



The defaults for each game are basically Kempston joystick motions. If the game requires you to, for instance, "Press 0 to Start", then don't forget to assign one of the spare buttons to "0". There will eventually be support for dynamically generating unassigned keypresses at runtime, but not today.

Once you've assigned all the appropriate keys, select an output file, and hit the Create Image! button. This will generate a .BIN ROM image file that you can transfer to your GBA flash cart. Note that the Injector doesn't fix up the GBA rom header, so you certainly get a warning from the Flash Advance Writer software. Ignore it.

Put the cart in the GBA, switch on, and you should be up and running. Use the START button to cycle through games.

Can I help with Foon?

Possibly. If you're a talented GBA programmer or artist, and you want to assist in developing the shell (menu system) for Foon, then drop me a line.
If you're an emulator or GBA-related site, and you'd like to host these pages, that would also be cool.
If you discover a significant bug in Foon associated with a particular game, then let me know, (preferably via the Bravenet forum), and if possible provide the URL from which you downloaded the game.