How it works
A thin, fast reading room over the World of Spectrum infoseek API.
Where the data comes from
Every title, publisher, credit and file listed here is served live by the World of Spectrum infoseek API. Nothing is scraped and nothing is mirrored — this site keeps no copy of the catalogue.
Why there is a server in front of it
The infoseek API sends no Access-Control-Allow-Origin header, and neither does the file archive under /pub. A browser therefore cannot read either one directly. Requests are made server-side, where the API key also stays secret, and archive files are streamed through this site’s own proxy.
That proxy is also what makes the emulator possible: it turns a cross-origin tape image into a same-origin one that JSSpeccy is allowed to fetch.
Filters that aren’t offered
The search endpoint accepts release_year and machine_type and then ignores them — passing either returns the full unfiltered catalogue. Both belong to a title’s versions rather than the title, so they appear on each title’s page instead of in the filter rail.
Screens
Loading screens are archived as .scr files: 6,912 bytes of raw Spectrum video RAM, which no browser can display. They are decoded in your browser — bitmap in the Spectrum’s interleaved scanline order, then the 768 attribute bytes that give the machine its famous colour clash.
Emulation
Games run on JSSpeccy 3 by Matt Westcott — a WebAssembly Z80 core in a web worker, licensed GPL-3.0 and vendored here unmodified. Nothing is downloaded until you press Start.
Emulation and downloads are offered only for titles World of Spectrum marks as distributable. Where a rights-holder has denied distribution, the page says so and serves nothing.
Credits
Catalogue data © World of Spectrum and its contributors. Software remains the property of its original authors and publishers.