Spectrum Computing

Normally 5€, ad free

Just popped up on my Appsales app, thought others here of Retro gaming persuasion might be interested


https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... mu.drastic

"Just the name is unfortunate, easy to confuse with Spectaculator."

I did a search here to check it hadn't already been discussed here, and found about 4 or 5 hits where people had mis-typed Spectaculator, plus a couple referring to the Spectrum game Speculator

The author mentioned this on FB - Developed on a Mac environment, ZX Speculator is also tested on Windows and passes all the ZEXDOC tests and FUSE emulator tests. Features Sound: Utilizes OpenAL on Mac and Windows for sound emulation. Integrated Debugger: Includes a built-in debugger for examination...

Just to eliminate the obvious, many emulators can assign joystick / controller buttons to whatever keys you choose.

With real hardware, the question is "Which joystick adapters did support more than just four directions and fire ?"

Takes a while to get to the point but interesting read. I didn't really understand what was going on when I played this back in the day, but I remember the in-game 128K music was so spooky and atmospheric ; the first time I heard in-game music that really worked like a film soundtrack https://retroa...

Looks like @highrise is working on a version call Pacman Begins

Someone mentioned them already, but C-Tech, by some distance. They made awful knockoffs of the popular arcade games of the time, always character movement, no animation, no evidence of play testing, no effort on sound effects - just clicks and beeps. That's as I remember them - I'm not going back to...

A point of order there @R-Tape - the Isle of Wight is England's largest island, but it's still part of England.
Unlike the crown dependencies like the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man that have their own stamps, mint, tax rates and laws.

There's one other Manx programmer in the database and that's me (Thomas Quillin). Ok I grew up in London, but I was christened on the Island, most of my family are there and that's where I think of as home.

There was also a company called Manx Tapes making business software for the Spectrum.

Today's retro tech article, an interview with Henrique Olifiers

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/19/ ... trum_next/

It was never anything formal, I just asked Romantic Robot if they compressed snapshots before saving, they said no. I said I would provide the code if they gave me a resulting updated Multiface. This is not about pursuing rights, just about potential bragging rights But as you say no Multiface code ...

I did try the Atari 400 keyboard at a computer fair before the Spectrum was released, and the Register's comment seems to be pretty fair. So I wonder if Retro Games would try to replicate that keyboard experience should they ever release a full size version. With most machines around at the time, th...

Thanks @Seven.FFF , that all sounds smart. I was only wondering because I wrote the compression and decompression code for Romantic Robot and so was hoping I had inadvertently contributed to the Next project also

The yellow NMI button is a multiface "red button". The Next has a fully compatible multiface 1/128/3 built in, and can run with those original Romantic Robot ROMs in the non-Next machine personalities. In the Next, it has a custom Multiface ROM that can do some fancier Next-specific thing...

Headline by the Register that made me laugh -

"The Atari400; the only PC with a keyboard so dreadful it challenged the ZX80, now even less usable"

It's retro tech week there so there's more to come

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/ ... /?td=rt-3a

Between SkoolKid 's list of 188 and following list of 121 I see that both Light Cycles by PSS and Mazeball went missing ? I went back and checked, though Light Cycles was 16K, Mazeball was 48K - completely unnecessary but might have been done to improve the sound FX In the course of my search I saw ...

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/15/opinion_column_zxspectrum_128/?td=rt-3a It's an interesting read but sounds too wild to be true. The referred story in that article, Hacking of Prince Philip's Prestel (using a Spectrum) is covered at this link https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/26/prestel_hac...

Don't think it's been mentioned here yet. Still in Beta, some docs (if your browser has built in translation, or you speak Czech) http://respectrum.cz/index_EN.html ● new assembler editor + macro support ● DISASM+ tool ● Font editor ● EN/CZ version ● emulation ZX Spectrum 48K, 128K, +2, +3, Didaktik...

Yeah I'd been looking at the same. It's fun and definitely doable on the spectrum.

The source is here

https://abagames.github.io/crisp-game-l ... ku/main.js

Don't forget MCODER II came in 16K and 48K flavours, there are some 16K games out there too

It was posted on FB a couple of days ago, haven't tested it. Allows you to paste in or upload source then assemble and run. Kind of strange to display register values but not have single stepping, but maybe this is just an early version https://bigfatpanda70.github.io/z80v5%2031122023/z80%20v5.html ...

@briefer
I think you can find them using the Programming Language drop down, and select Compiled BASIC (Boriel ZX)

Thought this might be topical while the Game of Life coding challenge is on, saw this ad free app is currently free. First time I tried installing wallpaper anywhere (apart from the living room) and it looks pretty neat

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... l=en&gl=US

Where did the Affiliate link go ? Need to order some stuff from Amazon UK...