Spectrum Computing

Love how it instantly feels like a classic adventure game. Giving a try for sure!

Well, that's unexpected. I've played a bootleg version La miniera abbandonata that had some weird rumbles that the child me understood as "mine sounds". It was broken soundtrack instead. (a similar issue happened to Panzadrome, in that case the sound broke the game) Similar things happene...

Right now there are only 9 titles in the database with music confirmed to be authored with Wham! I hope we can take this opportunity to expand that list. I was kind of toying with the idea, but it is hard to confirm just by ear, and specially the in-game ones that AFAIK are using an interruption ha...

worcestersource wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 3:31 pm The Dynamite Dans had many tunes but none looped. Controversial?

I was thinking the same, because when anyone mentions in game music, I always think in Manic Miner and Dynamite Dan. I think that qualifies.

Yes! Brian Bloodaxe and Booty both 48k ingame music. Added to the list.
Also, other titles by John F Cain like Marble Madness.

Hi! I'm pretty sure I saw a similar thread in the past (can't find it), but a list was never produced, so, I can start a new one here and see how many we can find. I don't think there are that many:

Didn't saw it mentioned, but I'm pretty sure Give My Regards to Broad Street https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2049/ZX-Spectrum/Give_My_Regards_to_Broad_Street can be finished in less than a minute just traveling right away to one of the tube stations before one of the characters can enter there...

And some of the changes in this update, we tackled several old but complex ones, my favorite: the one regarding the Shaw Brother's MCoder II games from Goodboy (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=82224#p82224) that ended up producing: 50 new games identified as compiled with MCod...

Hi! I think the error is in the "software" part of the license. Parker Brothers is the correct copyright owner, and Weddington the UK holder, both for the board game, plus, the same copyright is correctly applied to other Monopoly titles, so, I think this is not an special case, just an er...

Yeah, I can foresee a lot of confusion based on the naming. The Commodore 64 version for the Ashley Greenup release, for example, is wrong, it is the Dee-Kay version, also, bbcmicro.co.uk has Ashely Greenup as the author for the Dee-kay version.

Hi! I'm pretty sure Ashley Greenup is the author and Dee-Kay the publisher of the first entry, they both worked in very similar titles like https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/12566/ZX-Spectrum/RTC_Crewe The second entry must be the same software, but self-published by Greenup. There is an Amstrad...

Thanks! I was looking around but seems that all the tape images I can find are the same. I'm going to add a note in the entry stating that the tape image is incomplete and the game probably MIA.

marenja wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2024 1:37 pm Aquasquad overwrites copyright with some binary data.

Thanks, probably that's why I can't find the hex I'm using on the search, that is extracted from the binary immediately below the copyright text.

Hi Einar Saukas I've found more titles compiled by Super Compilatore - Softwell, I added them to the spreadsheet (near the end), just in case you are also doing the tagging once you add that particular compiler. Also, I found another local version of the MCoder II, this time from Hungary. 1984. PI-V...

Hi! Can someone with experience take a look at Planet Protector? https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/21845 The game was compiled or is a save from MCoder II. The tape image has two code blocks repeated one after the other, and they sound identical. I want to try and execute it so we can take a scr...

I don't think i can do a lot this time as my method of comparing takes significant time. But i will look into Aquasquad and Tank Command during weekend to see if i can do any conclusion about these titles. Yeah, exactly, don't worry about the other titles, there is no way we can manually check all ...

About Super Compilatore: does it have relevant differences from MCoder II, or only cosmetic changes (like different loader or some modified messages)? If it's the latter, then it will simply have the same ID. Since it is MIA, I'm not sure, but seems to be the same software just translated and with ...

In the course of my search I saw this link, page 14 declared the winner and runner-up of the PSS Competition for best game using MCODER back in 1983 [...] Anyway my point is surely the winning games must be MCODER based - Elektro Storm and Panic [...] Ahem - now I see that the copyright text is the...

What tool do you use to search HEX ? I'm using Total Commander, that has the nice addition to be able to go into zip files. Right now I'm running it in a full WOS archive backup, but my intention is to run it on TOSEC. The issue with this method is that is not able to unpack loaders, but so far my ...

Excellent! I also confirmed a bunch myself, I think we have a pretty decent list.

The Sacred Armour of Antiriad - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... f_Antiriad
Has a DOS version, developed by Palace Software and published by Epyx: https://homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=1424

Confirmed, at least in this case the Colt compiler has the same copyright notice as MCoder II, meaning, we can't rely on the message alone to match exclusively MCoder II. https://i.postimg.cc/bdgyP9BG/Screenshot-2024-01-13-170030.png That's a bummer. On the plus side, we can probably match some Colt...

Might be also a mistake, we don't know why they are marked. For example, Yength is already (correctly) tagged as MCoder II. But let's see, I'm building the initial list to check what we already have in the DB.

NICE!! We have the starting list!

That's a good catch! Added.