Spectrum Computing

bluespikey wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 12:18 pm He revised Nightshade to be 27%. And the problem is.... ?

Thought someone might pick up on that one 27% puts it in the absolutely-bloody-awful territory.

I can't get over the 65% for HoH and 22% for Ant Attack.

I think most of the mags went through a "if it's old it must be sh*t" phase. There was an isometric Run It Again article in Crash where the reviewer absolutely mullered some classics. In fairness the reviewer, Will, came on here and admitted to butchering them to get noticed as it was very...

Did I imagine this? In the 128K version I'm sure if you took the Supabomb to the fence surrounding the area and fired it into the fence it would kill the queen.

The guy in the video is right about the mopping up of the flies after killing the queen. Super-boring.

The following all scored 78% Overall in SU. The number at the start is the ZXDB ID. I'm still none the wiser from that list. 968 Cisco Heat #119, January 1992 (pg 28) 11619 Count and Add #128, October 1992 (pg 20) 1266 Darkman #117, November 1991 (pg 26,27) 1387 Dick Tracy #109, March 1991 (pg 24,25...

Is that Daniella Westbrook as the sister? Made the mistake of Googling her name... Jesus! She should be a Faces Of Meth poster child.

Just re-read LB's original post: NES Super Mario Bros = 32k 32K!! Which is the entire thing - code base, graphics, sound etc. That's some supremely efficient coding. My poster child for code efficiency has always been Ultimate fitting Jetpac into 16K. But this is another level. Edit: Been doing some...

Another thing is a shift from games written in pure assembler to games written in higher languages or a mix of a higher language like C and assembler. It raises an interesting problem - how should we compare a program size of a program written in assembler vs a program written in C. Higher language...

Hijack?

The hover button in Jetpac. I'm one of those who's known about it's existence since 1983 and even today can't use it. It's a game where it's better to be almost constantly moving, unless you're on a platform. Sticking around in the same place, in open space, for a few seconds spells death usually. S...

There are about a dozen people on the retrogaming scene I could pull apart and eviscerate for their gaslighting and vile actions, but on this forum I try to keep it light and only mention their misdeeds if it's relevant. I considered making a video on it, but as you hit middle age, it's best to jus...

Highway Encounter

Amazed no one's mentioned Mr Kizza/Kieren Hawken/TheLaird yet :-) That's as tall a tale as the Speccy gets. Did you know he's still going around and if anything is worse than the SDS 128K debacle? Selling books on Amazon now as well as YT, creating himself as a self-styled retro guru. Bit of a rabbi...

I'll raise you an old Pompey Pirates (used to release cracked games for the ST) site. It's reminiscent of an early Geocities site in all its glory. (Doesn't look like it's been updated in two decades to be fair). https://www.gingerbeardman.com/archive/pompeypirates/ Special mention to this page. Blu...

Nice. Congrats. Did you play The Hit Squad release? Is that version fixed? After 4 days I’ve beaten level one only once. I make it to the boss regularly, but only got past it with luck. This is on about 30-45 minutes a session. I’m shooting for a month, but two seems more realistic. I don't think a...

1. Bomb Jack 2. Frank Bruno's Boxing 3. Tapper I seem to recall a bit of luck being involved with getting past the third boxer, Alexander Punchyeredov. If you jabbed him the animation of his head going back was practically identical to his signature headbutt move - which (I think) always resulted in...

Yeah, I've regaled often enough being in the computer shop on that day in 1984 when they loaded up Knight Lore. Within seconds there was a crowd about eight-people-deep craning to get a look, with jaws on the floor. Nobody could believe that the Speccy could produce something like that - it really w...

Wow! I never knew these even existed. The Frankie Goes To Hollywood version is a thing of beauty.

Shot in the dark...

Salamander?

I'm probably being naive here but I was just reading the Dominic Handy interview on Crash Online . This bit: "Here’s an insider fact to whet your appetite... The access code for the door to CRASH Towers was 2169! I still remember it now, as when someone explained why it was 21-69, I was disgust...

Jetpac when you get to the fourth screen (I think, the one with the fighter jets regardless) you can get in the middle of the left platform and just leave it forever to rack up a hi-score as the planes will never touch you. (I may have the platform incorrect (it may be the top-right), but it's defin...

On a similar subject, there seems to be hardly any interviews/videos/blogs about or from the people who worked on the magazines. You can pretty much find an interview with any developer from back in the day, but nothing from old journo's. I've always found that really unusual. I'm really struggling...

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 12:00 pm

This one really made me chuckle

Ah, so in the end you didn't upgrade. ;-) :lol: :lol: I had a lot of good years out of that ST - starting with the awesome Dungeon Master and ending with Frontier - up until I upgraded to my first PC in 1994. A 486 running at a whopping overclocked 33MHz. Getting the latest Automation and Pompey Pi...

It was that issue and article that finally convinced me I needed to upgrade to 16-bit. November that year I got an ST.

That's probably how I'd have done it in Sinclair BASIC! I'm not a proper coder - whats so wrong with that example? It works for all eventualities doesn't it? Yup, as Steve says it technically works but it should have raised alarm bells with anyone with a basic grasp of mathematics. All it's attempt...