ZX Touch · Windows Companion

ZX Touch PC Tool

A Windows tool for two things: designing FX packages with a built-in ZX Spectrum emulator, and arranging your game collection into the dashboards the console shows at startup. See every change instantly. Send to your console in one click over WiFi.

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FX Package Design

Create and edit ZTG packages with a built-in emulator — see every FX change live

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Dashboard Editor

Arrange your games into dashboards and export ready for the SD card

No installation required · Single .exe file · Windows · Free download

Why use the PC Tool

More than the console can do

The console is the master — but several tasks are faster, clearer or simply only possible from a PC.

See it instantly

Built-in emulator shows your FX result as you configure it. No SD card, no copying files back and forth to test a single change.

All 50 markers at once

FX Manager shows the complete marker table with descriptions. On the console you page through them one at a time.

Automatic image preparation

Add any photo from a camera. The tool scales, converts and compresses it to a size budget you control. The preview shows exactly what the console will show.

Send directly to console

Build the package and send it to your ZX Touch over WiFi in one click. It lands in the library ready to play.

Dashboard Editor

Arrange your game collection

The dashboard editor is the second half of the tool — and for many users the main reason to have it.

Drag your ZTG packages into order, name each dashboard, and preview exactly how it will look on the console — the same three-icon grid, the same title images, the same layout the device shows.

When you are done, export a single folder and copy it to the SD card. DASHBOARDS and LIBRARY land in the right place and the console shows what you arranged here.

Each dashboard holds up to 50 games. You can have as many dashboards as you need.

Dashboard preview — drawn exactly as the console draws it

FX Manager — all 50 markers visible at once with descriptions

FX Design

Three things the console cannot do

Descriptions on every marker and slotName each marker and shader slot — "level 2 title", "boss appears", "cave, dark blue". They live in the project only, never in the .ztg.

Reorder markers by draggingThe FX Manager resolves markers by priority — priority follows position in the table. Moving a marker changes which one wins when two could match. On the console this is impossible.

Live editing while the game runsLeave a palette or shader window open while the game runs and watch the picture change as you drag the sliders.

Background Images

What you see is what ships

Add a photograph straight from a camera. The tool scales it to the right resolution, converts it and compresses it to a size budget you set in kilobytes.

The preview shows exactly what will go into the package — including any compression — so there are no surprises after export.

The PNG screenshot captures the foreground at 512×384 with transparent background pixels, ready to drop straight onto a candidate background in your image editor.

Size budget dialog — the preview shows the actual compressed result

Typical workflow

From game file to console

The complete path from a raw game file to a finished package on your ZX Touch.

Open or create a project

Start from an existing .ztg package or create a new project from a game file. Your source images stay at full quality wherever you keep them.

Start the game

Runs directly in the emulator — no export needed. What you see is exactly what the exported package would give you on the console.

Edit FX live

Palette, shader, backgrounds, markers — all while the game runs. Every change is visible immediately in the emulator.

Send to console

One click over WiFi. The package lands in the library on your ZX Touch, ready to play. Nothing is left behind on the PC.

Arrange dashboards

Drag your finished packages into dashboards, preview on the emulator screen, export the folder and copy to the SD card.

Ready to start?

Download PC Tool

Put the .exe in a folder of its own and run it. No installation, no administrator rights, nothing written to your system.

Windows · Free · No installation required