One tool, every file format

Tapes, snapshots, disk images, screens — decades of ZX Spectrum software ended up scattered across a handful of file formats, often several for the same underlying thing. zx, the command-line tool built on zentools, speaks all of them from one place.

What it does

• zx convert — move between formats directly: TAP to TZX and back, snapshot formats into each other, a tape into a runnable snapshot, a snapshot's memory out as a tape. Conversions within the same kind of file are lossless; converting a tape into something with no natural entry point, or a snapshot into something with no natural block structure, is handled sensibly rather than silently guessed at.
• zx info — point it at any file and it identifies the format and summarises what's in it, no need to already know what you're looking at.
• zx tap / zx tzx / zx snap — create and inspect each format directly: build a runnable tape from a binary, add an auto-run BASIC loader, package a raw binary as a snapshot ready to load straight into an emulator.

Why it matters

If you've got a folder of ZX Spectrum files collected over the years, they're rarely all one format — some in TAP, some TZX, the odd snapshot, maybe a disk image. zx means you don't need a different tool for each one, and don't need to already know a file's format before you can do something useful with it.