Currently, emulation for this item does not auto-start. To load the ‘cassette’ this program is located on, press the following keys: j (which will appear as LOAD), shift-p shift -p (Which will appear as double quotes) and then ENTER/RETURN. Then press SCROLL LOCK on your keyboard, and the F2 key. If all is working properly, the system will bring up a box showing the cassette tape loading into memory. It will stop when complete and the emulation can be interacted with normally. after cassette loading, while others can be started by pressing the r key and ENTER to run.”
As one last piece of intimidation, the instructions have to include a picture of what the ZX-81 keyboard even looked like:
Once you negotiate the instructions, press all the phone number database requested commands, and sit back, the emulation rewards you with a screen not unlike this:
What is happening here is an honest-to-goodness cassette loading sequence. The constantly flashing graphics are an ancient hack to allow the end-user to know things are “working”, that the data is being successfully read off the tape. An additional convenience is provided by the emulator: on the top left is an overlay window indicating that it is 16 seconds into the loading of the data, and that there are six minutes and fifty-two seconds of loading to be done, for a total of 412 tape tick counts. Yes, you are reading that correctly: loading this program will take seven minutes of real time.
Perhaps it becomes obvious why so many shortcuts begin to arrive in emulation and why so many people were willing to spend the equivalent of a short vacation to bring their machines into the floppy age.