Search found 2041 matches

by Joefish
Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:25 am
Forum: Hardware
Topic: 3d prints
Replies: 11
Views: 639

Re: 3d prints

I've had a Weedo Tina2 3D printer for a year and a bit now. It's one that has a case surround rather than being an open deck. It's not completely enclosed - the back and front are open, but it keeps the dust out and doesn't knock other things off the table while it works! It's a neat compact design ...
by Joefish
Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:58 am
Forum: Design/Ideas
Topic: Totally speculative bicolour 8x8 Jetman ideas…
Replies: 10
Views: 417

Re: Totally speculative bicolour 8x8 Jetman ideas…

Nirvana doesn't let you do 4x2 attributes. A multicolour-enhanced attribute still takes up the whole 8-pixel width of a character cell, even when it's only 1 or 2 pixels high. It doesn't offer any improvements or smooth stepping to attributes in the horizontal direction. If you look at multicolour ...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 22, 2024 2:10 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling
Replies: 33
Views: 768

Re: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling

Uridium runs at 25fps, so there's no time for multiple screen copies. There are plenty of tricks it could be using, all of them very complicated. The dreadnought designs aren't exact copies of the C64 ones either, so it seems there are limitations to what it can render. And even at it's slowest it'...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 22, 2024 12:00 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling
Replies: 33
Views: 768

Re: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling

by the way, you cannot copy the whole screen in one frame, not even using stack tricks. there is simply not enough tstates. you may be able to build it from several tiles, but copying fullscreen backbuffer and keeping 50 FPS is physically impossible. This is true. This is the first time I got it wo...
by Joefish
Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:39 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling
Replies: 33
Views: 768

Re: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling

You can always use the time after a HALT to draw some more sprites, or maybe paint a scrolling area that the player and other sprites can't cross (maybe a bit of parallax foreground), so long as it's all based on data from the previous frame of your game update. Then once the raster has got past the...
by Joefish
Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:34 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling
Replies: 33
Views: 768

Re: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling

Although it means an additional delay at the start, it's easier to update just behind the raster. If you're ahead, you have to keep ahead, and you just can't do that unless you're only updating a small area of the screen. Otherwise, the raster will catch up and overtake your copy function, leaving a...
by Joefish
Thu Mar 21, 2024 12:34 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling
Replies: 33
Views: 768

Re: Machine Code: Moving from Attribute scrolling to pixel scrolling

Actually moving the data in the screen memory area is nearly always going to flicker, unless you get very, very good at timing exactly what you're updating where on the screen with how the TV picture is redrawn. Most games will draw the game to somewhere else in memory first, with all the scrolling ...
by Joefish
Thu Mar 21, 2024 11:52 am
Forum: Preservation
Topic: Fake history
Replies: 16
Views: 710

Re: Fake history

I did code two educational games (well, convert to the Speccy) back in my schooldays for a games shop in Kettering that had its own line in business and educational software, but I question whether a copy was ever produced, let alone sold, and my old tapes were thrown out some time after I'd graduat...
by Joefish
Wed Mar 20, 2024 4:22 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Progamming with Chatgpt 4/ copilot
Replies: 13
Views: 369

Re: Progamming with Chatgpt 4/ copilot

With Z80 it seems to fail to grasp the very precise rules whereby you can perform certain tasks on certain registers, but not every task on every register, as you usually can with variables in a higher-level language. It also seems to throw-in the odd instruction from other assembly languages (like ...
by Joefish
Tue Mar 19, 2024 12:46 pm
Forum: ZX Spectrum Next
Topic: Atari Driving Controller Games
Replies: 7
Views: 318

Re: Atari Driving Controller Games

According to this video it is a pulse-counting type of encoder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTrUw8XFM50 I know you can get rotary encoders that report their absolute angle on four or five pins (a 0..15 or 0..31 value that relates to the angle 0..359°), but according to that rebuild it simply use...
by Joefish
Mon Mar 18, 2024 2:53 pm
Forum: ZX Spectrum Next
Topic: Atari Driving Controller Games
Replies: 7
Views: 318

Re: Atari Driving Controller Games

Surely you need to be reading that at a hell of a rate to detect the switching, to the detriment of the game? Then again, it seems they only use 16 pulses per revolution of the controller, so maybe interrupt-driven checking is fast enough. For a good rotary controller I'd suggest wiring a rotary enc...
by Joefish
Mon Mar 18, 2024 10:12 am
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Impossible games...
Replies: 24
Views: 872

Re: Impossible games...

ParadigmShifter wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:07 pmApparently one of the prostitutes on his yacht took him too literally when he said he wanted to be tossed off.
At least they wouldn't slip off your boat...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 15, 2024 5:50 pm
Forum: Sinclair Miscellaneous
Topic: Friday Quiz: Alphabet Quiz 4
Replies: 57
Views: 648

Re: Friday Quiz: Alphabet Quiz 4

No-one else has posted for hours, so have another one:

W - Swords of Bane
by Joefish
Fri Mar 15, 2024 5:42 pm
Forum: Sinclair Miscellaneous
Topic: Friday Quiz: Alphabet Quiz 4
Replies: 57
Views: 648

Re: Friday Quiz: Alphabet Quiz 4

C - Match Point
by Joefish
Mon Mar 11, 2024 2:34 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: The best Speccy game by Exxos: vote
Replies: 15
Views: 489

Re: The best Speccy game by Exxos: vote

Didn't know PSD had come out on the Speccy. I had both on the ST. Captain Blood took a lot of effort to get into, to master the icon-based dialogue with the aliens (which didn't help being conceived in a foreign language to start with, so the single-word interpretation of each icon you were given co...
by Joefish
Mon Mar 11, 2024 2:19 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Devfinitive Edition (Mike Richardson): vote
Replies: 24
Views: 585

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Mike Richardson): vote

This is an impressive set of very inspiring early games, as I look at the landscapes of Combat Lynx and I see the open-worlds of Just Cause . Turbo Esprit would be Driver if the view would just rotate around the corners. And Scuba Dive makes me shudder at how many times I've drowned and realised it'...
by Joefish
Thu Mar 07, 2024 5:22 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: In game beeper music
Replies: 43
Views: 1658

Re: In game beeper music

So are you saying playing a note at a random point in a frame might sound bad? If that was directed at me then no, there's no argument. It doesn't sound bad exactly, just I expect a bit farty as it's constantly stop-start, and it's a harsh-sounding square-ish wave behind that as it's all 1s and 0s ...
by Joefish
Wed Mar 06, 2024 12:26 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: In game beeper music
Replies: 43
Views: 1658

Re: In game beeper music

Head Over Heels plays short melodies when you pick up various objects, though there's nothing plays continuously. It's really just an extension of the sound effects. In my own games the beeper sound effects are done by twiddling the speaker bit high/low off the back of a more vital loop of code (e....
by Joefish
Mon Mar 04, 2024 10:40 am
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Devfinitive Edition (Keith Burkhill): vote
Replies: 29
Views: 597

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Keith Burkhill): vote

Tough choice between Space Harrier and Commando . Back then I was all over Space Harrier , but now I've got a dozen different and better ways to play it. But as for Commando , I'd rather play the Speccy version than the arcade, as I think it's actually the better game. Afterburner and Galaxy Force a...
by Joefish
Mon Mar 04, 2024 10:37 am
Forum: Brand new software!
Topic: El Cetro del Sol
Replies: 5
Views: 131

Re: El Cetro del Sol

Hmm. I'm sure I've seen that Aztec Sunstone somewhere before...

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... s_of_Sunak
(scroll to end)

:lol: :dance
by Joefish
Mon Mar 04, 2024 10:34 am
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: £12 gets you "Free software for LIFE!", apparently.
Replies: 11
Views: 288

Re: £12 gets you "Free software for LIFE!", apparently.

Given that it has 50% more of both 'Great Utilities' and 'Adventure Games' than 'Arcade Games', I'm guessing it's an early PD library trying to vaguely disguise the fact that you're buying into a giant Cassette 50 scheme without the calculator watch or quality control, rather than a lending library ...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 01, 2024 5:27 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Branding in games
Replies: 20
Views: 503

Re: Branding in games

The Muncher , like Action Biker , only had the endorsement as far as the loading screen. The game itself had nothing to do with the brand. As for Mad Mix , I've seen various screenshots - looks like the C64 and ST versions might have had the PEPSI logo on the scoreboard at the bottom of the screen,...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 01, 2024 2:11 pm
Forum: Sales/Commercial
Topic: The Horace Collection | Kickstarter
Replies: 8
Views: 579

Re: The Horace Collection | Kickstarter

I think this is expecting a lot. And what, no official multi-game ROM cartridge version? :cry: At least it's not ridiculously over-priced, but I don't really get the appeal. I know there was one of those pathetic spoil-someone's-day-out-of-sheer-spite hoo-hahs within recent memory, but a bit of poki...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 01, 2024 12:13 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Branding in games
Replies: 20
Views: 503

Re: Branding in games

Well remembered! But why does the database list it as Test Cricket , when the title International Cricket is all over the loading screen and cassette inlay? Interesting that they put the effort in to making the insurance company's logo readable, but just did the word 'Cricket' at the bottom of the s...
by Joefish
Fri Mar 01, 2024 11:01 am
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Branding in games
Replies: 20
Views: 503

Re: Branding in games

None spring to mind, besides Weetabix and Wimpy. and the Wimpy one was just to try and legitimise a rip-off of Burger Time . I vaguely remember software companies (Ocean for example) putting their own logo in the background of sports games as sponsors. I don't know if Action Biker had any KP Skips l...