Spectrum Computing

The comments on the last update are definitely the height of idolatry.
Every new delay is followed by messages of endless adoration of the "great leader(s)".
Orwell would be truly proud...

Magicland Dizzy ?

This is interesting project, I'd like to see it in action:
https://8bithardware.wixsite.com/websit ... ge/zx-tsid

For me... As far as I know, the first C64 turbo tapes date back to 1984 and have been used in the original titles and backups, since then. Later, the loaders became very advanced, like the famous Ocean loader 4 and 5, which I remember the most, because they had music, scrolling text, border stripes...

Nick wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 6:51 pm *cough* Chaos *cough*

Chaos is in 7th place, what's wrong with that?
I would definitely order some games differently, but the selection is very good.
I even discovered a two games, which I haven't played before like Keyleth and Vulcan.

Looking at the first page of google search for this question, I noticed an excellent top 100 list, which most closely matches my taste. Obviously made by people who know the Spectrum and its history, most of the game descriptions are really well written and worth reading. https://retro-sanctuary.com...

I don't know the answer, because I did upgrade to the C64 during 1987, when my Spectrum 48k broke, after serving me well for almost four years. Perhaps this topic could be labeled "UK only", because the rest of the planet had no such dilemma. However, it is interesting how some similar arg...

well i think it will depend on the language of the question asked i doubt any russian user will consider those early titles "the greatest" or even "above average" :twisted: Russians used the Spectrum as a substitute for a PC and somehow made a monster out of it. Of course, it's ...

I have a user manual for ZIP, but I can't distribute it as the author is still selling it. It was originally a listing in Your Sinclair, so you should find some detail there. MCODER 3 should compile the majority of BASIC without alteration. https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.php?issue_id=321&...

I'm still learning @Pegaz, but FP compilers are much slower than integer compilers. I'm not an expert either, I just have a some experience with Boriel Basic compiler, but as 1024MAK already said, there are a lot of limitations with all of them and it takes a effort and knowledge to adapt the BASIC...

Did I make a mistake somewhere, its almost 5x slower in the bubble sort example, than Mcoder II?
260ms vs 1180ms

What is the fastest compiler that supports decimal numbers ?
Mcoder II gives Nonsense in basic message.

Well, there is no better example than Loxley.
There are ROM calls, but no machine code executed in RAM.
More about development:

The colour clash like it is shown in the Wally Week series is just horrible. A good amount of Spanish games suffer from this, too. I find it much less offensive when the sprites take on the colours of the background instead. Yes, indeed, but on the other hand, making the whole game monochrome is to...

i just had a thought. would some games look better decolorized? take a look at this for example: https://i.postimg.cc/Lh1t5yvd/l.png Some games probably, but not Cybernoid. Both sequels are amzing as they are, I just didn't notice that color clash was such a problem there. On the other hand, Transf...

Does anybody on the forum have experience in fixing an old ZX Uno board. I've had it since the crowdfunding way back in 2016 but it has unfortunately developed a fault. I loaded the PCB Tester to the FPGA (with my Pi400) and it is showing FST/SLO RAM ERROR so going to guess the SRAM is bad? Any hel...

Also, I don't think Commando falls into the category of 48k versions with AY Sound.
Theres a custom 128k version with a great Rob Hubbard theme and it's probably the best Commando I've played on any home computer.

Go to search and choose Machine: ZX Spectrum 48k and Feature: AY Sound.

I can recommend Crimbo as nice example.

Additional "TAP loading speed" option in config screen (shift+c), with two parameters fast/normal, could be the solution if possible. Fast speed would be the default, as it is now, and normal with new loadtap command would be used as needed. Of course, if this requires too many changes in ...

I do not understand what is the point of loading a tape image file at normal speed off a memory card-based interface :? Authentic retro filling... pzx files are good for playing custom loading schemes, but there's no need to convert all the other tap files and duplicating the space with thousands o...

Hi @bob_fossil, A few days ago, in the ZX-Uno Telegram group, mcleod_ideafix shared the LOADTAP command for esxDOS which is used to load .TAP files at normal speed. The operation is like LOADPZX , although only these keys are useful: F7: PLAY/PAUSE of the virtual player. F9: STOP of the player (PLA...

It's not a big deal.
Andre does a great job with new software announcements, this is just a small oversight, it happens…

SyX First, thank you for taking some of your precious time to tell us something about yourself, I respect your work, as well as everyone who has contributed to the retro scene. Nevertheless, one small inaccuracy in my previous messages regardnig amount of video Ram (which is exactly 16,383 bytes), ...

With respect to those difficult demoscene secrets about the cpc hardware, you should not believe everything that you see in the internet. The only demoscene tricks that are useful for games were well-known during the 80s (double buffer, vertical rupture and scroll hardware). Even the two first cpc ...

The CPC, like the Spectrum, was oriented towards the business market. Thus, it lacked better video hardware for games. They were oriented towards screen character handling. But the Spectrum video implementation was using so little memory that the CPU could do more with less. Exactly. Amstrad simply...