BubiZ-1500

日本語

Sharp MZ-1500 Emulator for macOS

About

BubiZ-1500 is a native macOS emulator for the Sharp MZ-1500 personal computer — a Japan-exclusive 8-bit machine released by Sharp in 1984.

It is based on EmuZ-1500 from the Common Source Code Project (a well-known multi-platform emulator framework by Takeda Toshiya), ported and optimized for macOS.

_{^{Dig Dug © 1982 Namco Ltd.  |  MZ-1500 version © 1984 Dempa Publications, Inc. / Micomsoft Co., Ltd.}}

_{^{The Tower of Druaga © 1984 Namco Ltd.  |  MZ-1500 version © 1985 Dempa Publications, Inc. / Micomsoft Co., Ltd.}}

Features

• High-performance rendering via Metal
• Screen filters via Metal shaders (CRT, NTSC composite, RGB)
• Low-latency audio output via AVAudioEngine (PSG: SN76489AN ×2, PCM 1-bit)
• Audio filters (speaker simulation, reverb, chorus)
• Cycle-accurate Z80 CPU emulation
• Floppy disk / Quick Disk / cassette tape support
• Auto-detection of QD disk sets with quick switching
• State save / load
• Game controller support
• Universal Binary (Apple Silicon / Intel)

System Requirements

• macOS 13.5 (Ventura) or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac

Install

Download the latest release from the Releases page.

Note: This app is not notarized by Apple, so macOS Gatekeeper may block it on first launch. You can work around this using either of the following methods:

Option 1: Remove the quarantine flag via Terminal

xattr -cr /Applications/BubiZ-1500.app

Option 2: Allow via System Settings

1. Attempt to open the app and let it get blocked
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security
3. Click "Open Anyway" next to the message about BubiZ-1500 being blocked

Build

Open the project in Xcode and build.

open BubiZ-1500.xcodeproj

Build Requirements

• Xcode Version 26.3 (17C529)
• C++17 / Swift 5

ROM Files

Running MZ-1500 requires ROM files from the original hardware (not included in this repository).

Place the ROM files in ~/Library/Application Support/BubiZ-1500/ROM:

~/Library/Application Support/BubiZ-1500
└── ROM
    ├── EXT.ROM
    ├── FONT.ROM
    └── IPL.ROM

Architecture

Swift App (AppKit + SwiftUI)
    │
EmulatorBridge (Objective-C++)
    │
EMU Core (C++)
    ├── OSD (Objective-C++): Metal / AVAudioEngine / NSEvent
    └── VM: Z80, SN76489AN, i8253, i8255, MB8877, ...

Credits

• Emulation core: Common Source Code Project by Takeda Toshiya

• NTSC Video Emulator: NTSC Video Emulator by zhuker