ZXCode – VS Code programming environment for ZX Spectrum

So I made a ZX Spectrum development environment with Codex, because I COULD. I owed it to my 8-year-old self, whose first computer was a Spectrum, and who learned to program in BASIC on it.

I was curious how far I could get by vibe coding, and here’s the result: a VS Code plugin. You can write and format pure Spectrum 48K BASIC in it, then with the press of a button generate a .tap file from it — and if you have Fuse (Free Unix Spectrum Emulator) installed on your machine, you can even run it.

In the long run, it would be nice to support other BASIC dialects as well as other emulators. If you’re interested, give it a try; if it’s lame, just ignore it.