Search found 161 matches

by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 27, 2021 1:47 pm
Forum: Design/Ideas
Topic: PC Idea: Spectrum Environment and Interpreter
Replies: 4
Views: 487

PC Idea: Spectrum Environment and Interpreter

Hi, another idea for a Spectrum related PC program has come to my mind: Imagine a PC program (written in C using SDL2), that creates a Spectrum-like environment. So a window appears that looks quite like an emulator window. But it's not an emulator, it doesn't emulate the Z80 processor for example. ...
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:10 pm
Forum: Hardware
Topic: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?
Replies: 74
Views: 2650

Re: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?

Nobody mentioned microdrives so far? They were supposed by sir Clive to be a standard add-on to Spectrum which would be much cheapier than disk drives and yet load data in seconds. They were a big failure as turned out to be unreliable, you could easily lose all your data only after using your micr...
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:47 pm
Forum: Hardware
Topic: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?
Replies: 74
Views: 2650

Re: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?

Just a question for those who got to own a ZX Printer... was it worth having it? When I first saw the ZX Printer, I kind of felt insulted. What was that thing? I only realized a few years ago, that originally it had been designed as the printer for the ZX81, not for the Spectrum (it just appeared t...
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:17 pm
Forum: Hardware
Topic: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?
Replies: 74
Views: 2650

Re: The most disappointing hardware for the ZX Spectrum?

About 8 years ago I told my music producing friend I had bought a drum machine. He was so excited he jumped in the car and drove the 20 miles to my house. When he got here I showed him my SpecDrum which had just arrived :D :D :D :D Although attaching the SpecDrum broke my Speccy back then and ended...
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 22, 2021 1:17 am
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Say something negative about a game universally regarded as excellent
Replies: 65
Views: 2059

Re: Say something negative about a game universally regarded as excellent

Morkin wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:47 pmThe Hobbit - location descriptions are a bit short/basic.
Well, that was of course a memory limitation problem. There also was a (black and white) version for the 68K Apple Macintoshs with more memory, that was more verbose (IIRC).
by FFoulkes
Tue Dec 21, 2021 5:33 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

Sorry I thought it was converted from this http://reptonix.awardspace.co.uk/sinclair/oneliners/cave-adv.htm Yeah, that's the one. But it's not simple at all, it's just extremely small and compressed. That's why I made it a little bigger again, so that it's a bit easier to understand the code. The o...
by FFoulkes
Tue Dec 21, 2021 5:26 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Say something negative about a game universally regarded as excellent
Replies: 65
Views: 2059

Re: Say something negative about a game universally regarded as excellent

"Es liebt die Welt, das Strahlende zu schwärzen,
und das Erhabene in den Staub zu ziehen." (Friedrich Schiller)

Quick translation (by me):

The world loves to blacken the bright,
and to drag down the sublime into the dirt.

;)
by FFoulkes
Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:22 am
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

firelord wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 9:07 pmCave adventure seems simple enough
What's Cave adventure?
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 20, 2021 7:29 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

If you translate that code back to Sinclair BASIC, maybe you'd have another entry for this thread. Ok, ok, so I did it myself. Not so tiny though. But you can't deny, it's cool. Thanks to Einar Saukas! 10 LET locationnr = 1 20 LET chestopen = 0 30 LET i$ = "" 40 DIM t$(13, 10) 50 FOR i = ...
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 20, 2021 5:15 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

There also was a "Tenliner Cave Adventure" by Einar Saukas, a text adventure game in just 10 lines of ZX81 BASIC code. To get it that small, the code was rather complicated though. I spent some time to make it more readable and easier to understand (and less tiny), then I translated it to ...
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:51 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Writing parallax scrolling games in BASIC?
Replies: 22
Views: 2684

Re: Writing parallax scrolling games in BASIC?

p13z wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 3:40 pmIn my defence, it has taken me well over a year to get back to this idea
What? :o That looks, as if more than half of the screen is scrolled now (ok, although the roadway of the street isn't). Totally awesome! :!:
by FFoulkes
Fri Dec 17, 2021 12:05 am
Forum: Announcements
Topic: RIP - Ian Hetherington
Replies: 5
Views: 413

Re: RIP - Ian Hetherington

Psygnosis as well. Played a lot of those games even after the Imagine days and post 8-bit... Yeah, I especially liked " Barbarian " on the Amiga 500. Never forget, how good the fire, the stones and the wood looked. :) Although today, I probably wouldn't even have the patience to play such...
by FFoulkes
Tue Dec 14, 2021 8:47 pm
Forum: Games/Software
Topic: Pussy: Love Story From Titanic
Replies: 10
Views: 425

Re: Pussy: Love Story From Titanic

A part II could be called "Pussy Galore: Love Story From Goldfinger". :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nKkhy8v0M
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 13, 2021 8:21 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

Text file into bas2tap it what I'm after. I don't think there is a MAC version of bas2tap though :( Well, the source code would be here: https://github.com/speccyorg/bas2tap If you're familiar with compiling on a Mac, you should be able to create it on your own. Looks like a simple console program,...
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 13, 2021 1:22 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner
Replies: 60
Views: 2492

Re: Elementary BASIC code snippets for Beginner

Is there any way to cut 'n paste these snippets into an emulator? If you got them in a text-file, you can use "bas2tap". (If it's paper, you need OCR as mentioned. If it's pdf, some pdfs support copying as text, some don't. Last step (when it's become text) will be "bas2tap" aga...
by FFoulkes
Sun Dec 12, 2021 1:27 pm
Forum: Sales/Commercial
Topic: ZX Spectrum Games on itch.io
Replies: 22
Views: 1492

Re: ZX Spectrum Games on itch.io

I find it strange, that people even still sell 8-bit games for money today. Should all be GPL stuff by now. fuse is. My browser is. Even my whole OS is. :lol: Of course anybody can sell, what he or she has the right to sell. I just find it strange, that people seem to accept paying for such tiny pro...
by FFoulkes
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:24 am
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy
Replies: 34
Views: 1410

Re: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy

And a last one: "Gomoku" (on the Atari 800XL again). It's just a "put five in a row" kind of game. But unlike "Connect 4", game pieces don't drop down, you can just set them onto the playfield, wherever you want. "Gomoku" on the Atari was played with the joyst...
by FFoulkes
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:17 am
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy
Replies: 34
Views: 1410

Re: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy

Oh, and speaking of the dungeon crawler. There was another version called "Dandy". I liked it much better than the "Gauntlet" crawler. A friend of mine and me once played this for hours. (It really had to be played by two players in co-op mode, as a single player game it wasn't s...
by FFoulkes
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:10 am
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy
Replies: 34
Views: 1410

Re: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy

On the Atari 800XL, there was a game called "Gauntlet" (by Donald R. Lebeau), that wasn't Atari's own "Gauntlet" dungeon crawler. Instead you had to navigate a small space ship through different screens from left to right (without scrolling). You could fire "bolts", but...
by FFoulkes
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:05 am
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy
Replies: 34
Views: 1410

Re: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy

"Jumpman" was always a good game, that was typical Commodore/Atari. Maybe difficult to port though, it's quite fast, makes a lot of use of hardware sprites. Those sprites are a bit bulgy and really not that beautiful, but they move very fast. Spectrum has "Chuckie Egg" and "...
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:54 pm
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy
Replies: 34
Views: 1410

Re: Good 8bit games that are not on the Speccy

Was going to say H.E.R.O., but actually there was a port (I never saw back then):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVwr_sMLQbY
by FFoulkes
Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:12 pm
Forum: Other Retro Stuff
Topic: Christmas Amiga Picture
Replies: 3
Views: 244

Re: Christmas Amiga Picture

Here's a lovely gallery. Also features Spectrum+:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/160076228@N06/

And here's the original once more:

https://www.deviantart.com/intercepto/a ... -180838346
by FFoulkes
Mon Dec 06, 2021 9:43 pm
Forum: Preservation
Topic: Masterfile
Replies: 1
Views: 145

Re: Masterfile

a) Program: MF
b) Bytes: MF mcode
You sexy MF ... ;)
by FFoulkes
Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:22 pm
Forum: Graphics
Topic: How to record loading screen$ into an animated GIF (possible?)
Replies: 36
Views: 1545

Re: How to record loading screen$ into an animated GIF (possible?)

(Especially on Linux,) fuse can record movies of a Spectrum session. See the section "MOVIE RECORDING" in "man fuse". It produces a file, you can then convert to several formats with the tool "fmfconv", found in the "fuse-utils" package. As "man fmfconv&q...
by FFoulkes
Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:07 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: scrolling text vertically in the opposite direction in basic
Replies: 32
Views: 1003

Re: scrolling text vertically in the opposite direction in basic

Well, I'm still not really into Spectrum assembler (still find it too difficult), but if I were, I'd probably extract and write down those 99 bytes and create a disassembly to really understand what it does.
Then I'd post the result here. ;)