@JimmyFromTheBay

The ZX spectrum emulator zesarux should be able to run zx80 and there is an original module-script inside RetroPie-Setup for installing it.
However zx80 and zx81 are not implemented in the module-script.
Perhaps you can add it manually.
Not sure how good it will work though.
Perhaps I will test if I have time.

@BennyProfane ooh thanks for all the information. I have this book you see called "ZX Spectrum Games Code Club" which gives you a bunch of games you can code for yourself on the ZX Spectrum. Such as Tic Tac Toe and Breakout.

If VS Code can do the same thing and pack it into tap/tzx which I could then port to RetroPie's Spectrum emulator to play, I think that'll be just as much fun to get my teeth in to.

All I know so far is a little bit of C#, html, and Scratch (if you can call that a programming language lol). I'm looking to spread out a little into other languages and since I had the pi and code club book, I figured I'd start with some Basic before moving on to tutorials for Unity.

@arelav @Manic-Miner-123 I spoke with the author of some specific games a while ago. (RIP John Wilson, the Rochdale Balrog).

He found some sort of bug in Fuse. It appears the fault is in the loader when line 13 calls the 'randomize usr 65020' routine ... Fuse fails for some reason.

He actually rewrote the loaders for Balrog and the Cat, Behind Closed Doors II and One of Our Wombats is Missing so the games will load. I don't know if there are any other developers' games which are affected by the oversight.

Where the game is keyboard dependent, like text adventures, I use Fuse, not libretto Fuse (lr-fuse.

Most .tzx games should work though - where they don't it's usually the case that you need to select 128K machine or Spectrum +3.

In rare cases, but especially Russian games, you need to select a machine like the Pentagon and specific instructions, such as for TR-DOS.