Search found 162 matches
- Fri Apr 05, 2024 11:50 am
- Forum: Other Retro Stuff
- Topic: Lara Croft voted most iconic character ever
- Replies: 42
- Views: 960
Re: Lara Croft voted most iconic character ever
Was discussing this yesterday with other members of my local computer club. That list is insanely wrong. Whenever escapist magazine (uh, dozen reorgs ago) had "best xyz" threads on their forums it was difficult to find *anything* that's over 5 years old being nominated. Most stuff was und...
- Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:52 pm
- Forum: Preservation
- Topic: Fake history
- Replies: 16
- Views: 838
Re: Fake history
But there aren't any real money to be made from such fake. Yes, you can make a small fortune by forgery of classical paintings and creating and "unknown" painting of Rembrandt or so and convincing people that it's real. But Spectrum games are different. If you make some fake, amateur, bad...
- Tue Mar 19, 2024 7:45 am
- Forum: Preservation
- Topic: Fake history
- Replies: 16
- Views: 838
Fake history
The way I see it, it would be super easy to create some fake history, by making a new speccy game today, and then post it online as "I found this tape I had bought in the 80's while cleaning up my parent's stuff" or some such. Given how chaotic the early days were, with anyone being able t...
- Tue Feb 06, 2024 1:02 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Why yellow?
- Replies: 26
- Views: 1606
- Thu Feb 01, 2024 1:58 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Why yellow?
- Replies: 26
- Views: 1606
Why yellow?
Why are so many spectrum games so... yellow?
- Wed Sep 27, 2023 5:20 am
- Forum: Showcase your work!
- Topic: Receiving (and sending) USB MIDI on ZX Spectrum Next
- Replies: 0
- Views: 98
Receiving (and sending) USB MIDI on ZX Spectrum Next
I recently implemented USB MIDI input and output (but not at the same time) on the ZX Spectrum Next using the Raspberry Pi. Video about receiving: https://youtu.be/sPF-Ab80IE4 Blog post about receiving: https://solhsa.com/#USBMIDIONZXSPECTRUMNEXT Video about sending: https://youtu.be/nRYQnVuJxJ8 Blo...
- Fri Jun 09, 2023 5:15 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
- Replies: 33
- Views: 1826
Re: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
Tweaked it a bit, the output looks a bit more stable now.
https://github.com/jarikomppa/spriterot ... _stability
https://github.com/jarikomppa/spriterot ... _stability
- Tue Jun 06, 2023 4:33 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
- Replies: 33
- Views: 1826
Re: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
Sorry for the delay @R-Tape , I added a few features =)
https://github.com/jarikomppa/spriterot ... al_release
https://github.com/jarikomppa/spriterot ... al_release
- Mon Jun 05, 2023 11:51 am
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
- Replies: 33
- Views: 1826
Re: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
Nice one Sol. I don't know how much work it would take, but if anyone fancies turning this into a utility for non-coders*, I'd owe them a pint! *or perhaps rather people like me that can code z80 asm and speccy BASIC, but never took C beyond the fahrenheit to celsius converter, and then swiftly for...
- Sun Jun 04, 2023 5:35 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
- Replies: 33
- Views: 1826
Re: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
I wrote an implementation of the three-shears sprite rotator. Source code at https://github.com/jarikomppa/spriterotator
Little bit more detail here: https://cohost.org/sol-hsa/post/1617419-sprite-rotator
I hope it's of some use to someone =)
Little bit more detail here: https://cohost.org/sol-hsa/post/1617419-sprite-rotator
I hope it's of some use to someone =)
- Mon May 22, 2023 5:52 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Text compression routines...
- Replies: 21
- Views: 1086
Re: Text compression routines...
This wasn't based on any computer science. I just approached it as a word game. So there might well be a better way to do it. "Alter Ego", at least on PC, had a table of 128 common words and then text was compressed by using values 127-255 for lookup to those words and the lower values we...
- Fri May 19, 2023 1:47 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Text compression routines...
- Replies: 21
- Views: 1086
Re: Text compression routines...
For mucho, I did the following: First, zx7 allows for a "dictionary", or a block of data that is in memory right before the decompression buffer, from which it can lz data from to get a better compression ratio right off the bat. I analyze the input data for most common word pairs and then...
- Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:26 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Compiling MuCho games
- Replies: 3
- Views: 209
Re: Compiling MuCho games
If you look inside the build.bat (it's a text file - on command line you can write "type filename" to print out the contents) you'll see the commands that need to be run.
- Wed Apr 19, 2023 7:46 am
- Forum: Showcase your work!
- Topic: Trubo load and compressed blocks games.
- Replies: 8
- Views: 5914
Re: Trubo load and compressed blocks games.
My "mackarel" tool which I made for my own 48k dev can also be used to repackage other games. I think I experimented with manic miner and it worked fine. Basically the magic that mackarel does is compressing the loading screen as well as the game binary and generating a .tap file with thos...
- Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:38 pm
- Forum: Sinclair Miscellaneous
- Topic: Hex dump type-ins
- Replies: 5
- Views: 217
Re: Hex dump type-ins
Most of them, at least in finland, were just hex dumps, no assembly listing.. so you literally couldn't learn anything from them.
- Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:24 am
- Forum: Sinclair Miscellaneous
- Topic: Hex dump type-ins
- Replies: 5
- Views: 217
Hex dump type-ins
Back when type-ins started they didn't have (much) hex data and you might be able to learn something by simply reading the listings. Eventually though these degenerated into short loaders and pages and pages of hex, because naturally writing things in assembly yielded more impressive programs. I per...
- Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:43 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
- Replies: 33
- Views: 1826
Re: Sprite rotated in 16 positions
Here's a code solution that works eerily well: https://cohost.org/tomforsyth/post/8918 ... with-three
- Tue Mar 07, 2023 7:03 am
- Forum: Music
- Topic: how do i rip beeper music out of games?
- Replies: 8
- Views: 454
Re: how do i rip beeper music out of games?
For AY, common method is to capture the register writes (typically once per frame) - no information about the playback engine needed. Beeper works in a completely different way, so unless you either reverse engineer the playback engine (with or without prior knowledge of whether it's a common one or...
- Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:20 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Question about programming on actual hardware
- Replies: 23
- Views: 906
Re: Question about programming on actual hardware
Programming ON a 48k speccy gives you one experience no other method can give:
Make a mistake and you have to start over, which is rather time-costly.
Or alternatively save to tape often, which is rather time-costly.
Make a mistake and you have to start over, which is rather time-costly.
Or alternatively save to tape often, which is rather time-costly.
- Fri Jan 27, 2023 7:14 am
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: Do you have Psychic powers...?
- Replies: 10
- Views: 356
Re: Do you have Psychic powers...?
I'm actually more surprised that it seems to have given more or less "correct" answers, instead of just saying you're super psychic.
- Tue Jan 03, 2023 2:21 pm
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: Game length too long / too short
- Replies: 13
- Views: 332
Re: Game length too long / too short
See also:
- A short hike (PC)
- Minit (PC)
- Damn, I was thinking of one cool japanese freeware game with a N minute time limit but can't remember what it was called.
- A short hike (PC)
- Minit (PC)
- Damn, I was thinking of one cool japanese freeware game with a N minute time limit but can't remember what it was called.
- Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:35 pm
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: favourite colour clash??
- Replies: 41
- Views: 1667
Re: favourite colour clash??
Sooo... is someone planning to demake subnautica on the speccy? =)
- Fri Nov 25, 2022 10:45 am
- Forum: ZX Spectrum Next
- Topic: NextSync
- Replies: 1
- Views: 233
Re: NextSync
7fff has made some fixes to nextsync, making it work on the latest distro as well as fixing some old bugs:
https://github.com/Threetwosevensixseve ... tsync_v1.2
https://github.com/Threetwosevensixseve ... tsync_v1.2
- Fri Nov 04, 2022 5:43 am
- Forum: Hardware
- Topic: Why is there only one fire button ?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 743
Re: Why is there only one fire button ?
I think we can all agree it was Atari's fault. If they just used the Xbox controller, we'd have all been better off. :lol: Sinclair went and made their own, incompatible pinout for the same joystick plug, and did not fix the "single fire button" issue while they were at it. Just sayin'.
- Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:52 am
- Forum: Hardware
- Topic: Why is there only one fire button ?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 743
Re: Why is there only one fire button ?
Kinda pity that the paddle a / paddle b did not evolve into an analog xy joystick. =)1024MAK wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:27 am The joystick port ‘standard” comes from the port provided on Atari’s 2600 system. Details of what became known as the Atari Joystick Port are here.