Spectrum Computing

it has long been known https://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Brainstorm&publisher=Firebird%20Software%20Ltd Hmm, actually in Crash magazine issue 60 ? - yes you're right, it has been known for a long time! I will use TipShop more in the future. I still don't know if the code has so...

You also mentioned 3D Tanx, Gyroscope and Bug Eyes.... no visible on the webpage and no downloads Don't worry, the rest will be uploaded at some point. There's even a game in the download that I haven't listed yet 8-) Oh OK, it's Melbourne House's Penetrator - now with support for Fuller joysticks,...

I was surprised how popular Brainstorm was in the recent Pete Cooke poll , so I decided to try and make an Interface 2 cartridge version of it. This worked surprisingly well as the game compressed nicely with ZX0 - so much so that I could also fit in the Screen$. When going through the code it was c...

SamC wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 8:29 pm These older conversions are not present in the archive:
Rebel, Draughts Genius, FA Cup 87, Evening Star, Ski Star 2000, Cyclone

They have been put back in now, along with a couple of new ones - enjoy!

It's a real shame more thought was not put into developing the if1 rom. It had been me, as the system variable is available I'd have made LOAD *"M" ;0;"file" load from the current drive. I guess 20 20 hindsight is a wonderful thing ;) So true! The lack of hook codes to just LOAD...

These older conversions are not present in the archive: Rebel, Draughts Genius, FA Cup 87, Evening Star, Ski Star 2000, Cyclone You're right! They do exist, just not in the .zip! - I'll ask Fruitcake (Paul) to see if he can find them... There is the possibility of some pending releases being upload...

With one small change I got it working. As I was using a tzx and tape player I found that doing the initial load and break at the Jetpac is Loading caused the screen$ save to the hang. Ahh - you've discovered what happens when RAMTOP is too low and the Interface 1 code runs out of space = non stop ...

If you've only got a Spectrum, a microdrive and the Jetpac tape then the following steps should get you a working cartridge. The method used does require a 48K Spectrum. 128K users will need to use 48 Mode Insert blank microdrive into drive 1 Clear Spectrum memory with RANDOMIZE USR 0 Type in LOAD &...

Forgot to post that the new games are now online!
In addition there are the following titles:

• Glug Glug
• Arkanoid 2 - Revenge of Doh
• Postman Pat 2
• Milk Race
• Pipe Mania
• Percy The Potty Pigeon

There are more games in the pipeline...

With the recent passing of John Gibson, I thought I'd try and convert his games to cartridge format (well at least his earlier Imagine games as they have to fit into 16K...) I've completed the first three, so the following games will soon appear on the website: Molar Maul Zzoom Stonkers Stonkers too...

You'd struggle to find a real Fuller interface, but it wasn't quite so random as Kempston. When you read a Kempston joystick, you get '1's for directions and fire, and '0's for no movement. But with Fuller, it's all '1's with '0's when something is actually pressed. That's what you get when you rea...

Thanks for reporting this bug - I've never noticed this one before. I did notice other bugs in the past, such as the Sinclair and Protek joystick options being mixed up, and that the standard game hi-score table has a weird sort order. I shall update the Zolyx Interface II cartridge to include this ...

Some more games have been added to the list recently, they are: Survival Manic Miner Jonah Barrington's Squash Xeno The Manic Miner cartridge was intended to be my Spectrum 40th anniversary contribution, but better late than never! The last two required some persuading to fit into 16K - Squash is ba...

I had a look at the code which deals with redefining keys (the 'mrcook' online disassembly gave me enough clues) and it's a bit of a mess! You can watch it compare your new keys against pre-defined keyset 2 (which is where it picks up '9' and '4'). If I fixed one problem another would appear. In the...

I did think RockMan was compiled Basic too, might be I've not looked at that yet! :) RockMan (Mastertronic) A quick look at the code reveals this snippet of text at 60208: ZX COMPILER V2.0 1983 THREEFALL and HODGSON compiled OK Ah yes, good old Mcoder2. This should be close to the original code, bu...

Sad news. Reading the book about Ocean and it's programmers was a good read. Ocean wouldn't have been as successful as it was without his efforts. Time to go and watch the "Commercial breakdown" TV episode again - it contains both David and Joffa.
RIP David Ward.

TomD wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 12:18 pm I thought Sinclair was ok as you can just use the redefine keys?

Try redefining your keys to 6,7,8,9,0 or 1,2,3,4,5 ....
If it works for you then perhaps you have a different version - in which case I'd like to have a look at it!

Does anybody know of a Kansas / CUTS loader for the Spectrum? I have tried to write a tape loader which will read in 300 baud CUTS (Kansas City) format tapes on the Spectrum. It occassionally works but most of the time gets out of sync and ends up loading random bytes. I have seen Dr. Logan's articl...

Oh meant to add "180" and "Scrabble" to the list in my previous post too, but I guess that might be a bit boring. :D Yes please to both of these. I looked into both to see if they would fit into a 16K cartridge - currently they don't :-( However 180 is close, and I can say that ...

The POKEs for some reason try and read the Kempston joystick via port 223. This will work on real hardware as most only care about A5 being low (port 223 = %1101 1111and port 31 = %0001 1111), however emulators generally only listen on port 31. The fix is to change the YS listing as follows: 1030 PO...

...because RST 16 does the same as PRINT CHR$(A) in BASIC. It also destroys the value of A when it has finished. If you want to print a number (0-9999) you can use another ROM routine: org 40000 call 3503 ;ROM routine CLS ld bc,0 ;start counting from 0 loop: push bc ;preserve BC as routine below des...

It looks like the Fuller and DK'Tronics sound units use the same ports - 63 for register, 95 for data. I don't know if their clock frequencies to the AY are the same though. The Star Trek 3000 game can be converted to use the Fuller/DK'Tronics sound unit by modifying 2 lines of BASIC: Modify Line 2 ...

Does anybody know about other titles that supported this device? I was going to suggest Star Trek 3000 https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4887/ZX-Spectrum/Star_Trek_3000 by DK'Tronics, as even though it doesn't mention it on the inlay, the code is definitely trying to write to an AY sound chip. ...

As can be read here: https://worldofspectrum.org/forums/discussion/comment/935641/#Comment_935641 I ´ve done two more in 2018: That explains why I saw those 2 games for sale on Etsy! This was brought to my attention recently, as some of the images I've created are also for sale. For the record I wa...

A few more games have been added to the list, which will appear on the site shortly - they are: Revolution Draughts Genius FA Cup 87 Evening Star Ski Star 2000 Cyclone Rebel Cyclone has beaten the code length record, it was originally 42240 bytes long! (starts from printer buffer and goes to $FFFF)