Spectrum Computing

 Picture ( picture number , x coordinate , y coordinate , optional code for what to do if machine is 48k ) Leaving aside the notion of whether arbitrarily limiting the banked memory to pictures/music, that's a very modern way of trying to define an API. You'd really need to spec it out in native Z8...

That was the second post in this thread, pointing out how 128K games tend to be made with AGD and only add AY music . That's not how I read that post. It's saying a lot of 128K only AGD games are being made where the only reason for requiring a 128 is some unnecessary AY music. Which is probably tr...

If you have graphics or sound and want something done, you need to start coding yourself. It's almost like an unwritten rule. The opposite seems to work out much more often. It's a lot easier the other way around, that's why. A coder can get something achieved with crappy placeholder graphics and s...

Monkey Island on the spectrum is pretty much a no go simply because of the lack of a standard disk interface. It would be worse than Street Fighter 2 levels of frustration trying to multiloads from tape. And that's long before you even start thinking about the problems graphics scaling and attribute...

More memory doesn't necessarily have to mean more content. Some things can be faster by unrolling loops or using large lookup tables etc And C code is rarely the tightest on an 8-bit, so memory might be a fair trade for making development easier - it's not like people are earning a wage off it. But ...

equinox wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:07 am Haha... but he's going there. It's Horace Goes Skiing, not Horace Skis.

Agreed. Both the first two levels in Horace and the Spiders can jog on though, absolute garbage compared to the stomping on spiders bit.

Yeah, line editors were reasonably common. It's more the weird quirk where running programs can't easily use the full screen for PRINT or PLOT that I find particularly odd. Though it never bothered me that much back in the day I guess.

Theoretically the beeper is supposed to be the same volume as all three AY channels playing at the same time at full volume. Is that not the case (ignore+3 machines with borked AY wiring)?

If not, is it better to just avoid using both beeper and AY?

Not really. I can see why they did it to make BASIC line entry easier, but it's just very messy as an implementation. They really would've been better off with a full screen editor experience like the 128 had, it certainly would have made coding easier IMO. Or made more use of the streams functional...

The original 48 manual, the grey +2 one and the +2A/+3 manuals are all great references.

The 48K+ and 128+ manual, by contrast, is barely more than a flimsy pamphlet and not much use at all.

To be honest though, very little of the 128K machines is much use in BASIC. You can access the extra memory via the RAMdisk commands, but they're inconsistent between the original 128/+2 and the later +2A/+3. They AY chip is accessible via PLAY, although that's not really a great implementation.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the beam? I only ask because I am midway through building a routine that scrolls attributes both left and right but also up and down. The exact point on the screen that is actually being drawn by the CRT at any given moment. The picture is generated on the fly by th...

Good luck. It's a great game but absolutely rock hard. I think I made it to level 5 without any cheats, but I'd struggle to replicate that these days

Interesting I’ve been writing what each line does but actually the block is much better. Do you have any rules around the size of a block? Lots of people start out by commenting what literally every line does. And it's the worst thing ever. The code very quickly becomes swamped by comments and, bec...

Wall_Axe wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 10:40 am Why didn't they use dithered red and white pixels for skin tone?

Usually because it means you have to have either white or red around the edges because of attributes and humans typically not being very square shaped.

Yeah, I think it's because it offers good contrast if the secondary colour is black, without feeling entirely colourless in the way a pure black/white version often does.

Ant Attack came out first and that had the benefit of actually good gameplay so I think the genre was already up and running. Both had crap controls though! Sure, but Ant Attack's shaded graphics looked primitive in comparison and all the rest of the presentation was a bit BASIC-esque. I'd played (...

I really don't like Atic Atac, too much 'fly swatting' for me. And yeah, now Knight Lore is like all the isometric 3D games I ever played, but hey, it was the first (um, Sandy White would like a word - Ed) and I've read recollections about it being seen as pure science fiction come to life. In the ...

There were a lot of full page ads for Renegade III in the magazines at the time. A lot. I'm not saying the reviews reflect that, but there sure were a lot of them.

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 10:05 am


Bet you feel silly now!

I'm more curious about what Betty Boo and the Bitmap Brothers have in common...

It's a bit hard to follow what you're actually trying to do. I'd have expected: LD HL, 8 ADD HL, DE EX HL,DE would be faster than looping 8 times incrementing DE. BUT why is DE incrementing anyway? Surely as you scroll the attributes your source pointer would change (i.e. the value in HL) but the de...

Contention happens only when the CPU is accessing the lower RAM. If the Z80 is held in a reset state then it won't access RAM and there would be no contention. If another device puts an address on the bus in order to access lower RAM, that surely will cause contention (although said device will nee...

If you hold RESET, won't you face issues with RAM failing to be refreshed?

IIRC if you just start a game of Bubble Dizzy and leave it alone, it'll run forever racking up.a huge score. Dizzy never runs out of oxygen because just enough bubbles spawn underneath you that your air supply continually replenishes.

Is that website getting theirs from Ali too? Makes a bit more sense I suppose. Easier on the wallet. I guess they won't say 'LEGO' on them then! Yeah, I had a dig through the site FAQs and it specifically says they aren't official Lego pieces and thus won't say Lego on them. It's also why they have...