Spectrum Computing

I did code two educational games (well, convert to the Speccy) back in my schooldays for a games shop in Kettering that had its own line in business and educational software, but I question whether a copy was ever produced, let alone sold, and my old tapes were thrown out some time after I'd graduat...

With Z80 it seems to fail to grasp the very precise rules whereby you can perform certain tasks on certain registers, but not every task on every register, as you usually can with variables in a higher-level language. It also seems to throw-in the odd instruction from other assembly languages (like ...

According to this video it is a pulse-counting type of encoder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTrUw8XFM50 I know you can get rotary encoders that report their absolute angle on four or five pins (a 0..15 or 0..31 value that relates to the angle 0..359°), but according to that rebuild it simply use...

Surely you need to be reading that at a hell of a rate to detect the switching, to the detriment of the game? Then again, it seems they only use 16 pulses per revolution of the controller, so maybe interrupt-driven checking is fast enough. For a good rotary controller I'd suggest wiring a rotary enc...

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:07 pmApparently one of the prostitutes on his yacht took him too literally when he said he wanted to be tossed off.

At least they wouldn't slip off your boat...

No-one else has posted for hours, so have another one:

W - Swords of Bane

C - Match Point

Didn't know PSD had come out on the Speccy. I had both on the ST. Captain Blood took a lot of effort to get into, to master the icon-based dialogue with the aliens (which didn't help being conceived in a foreign language to start with, so the single-word interpretation of each icon you were given co...

This is an impressive set of very inspiring early games, as I look at the landscapes of Combat Lynx and I see the open-worlds of Just Cause . Turbo Esprit would be Driver if the view would just rotate around the corners. And Scuba Dive makes me shudder at how many times I've drowned and realised it'...

So are you saying playing a note at a random point in a frame might sound bad? If that was directed at me then no, there's no argument. It doesn't sound bad exactly, just I expect a bit farty as it's constantly stop-start, and it's a harsh-sounding square-ish wave behind that as it's all 1s and 0s ...

Head Over Heels plays short melodies when you pick up various objects, though there's nothing plays continuously. It's really just an extension of the sound effects. In my own games the beeper sound effects are done by twiddling the speaker bit high/low off the back of a more vital loop of code (e....

Tough choice between Space Harrier and Commando . Back then I was all over Space Harrier , but now I've got a dozen different and better ways to play it. But as for Commando , I'd rather play the Speccy version than the arcade, as I think it's actually the better game. Afterburner and Galaxy Force a...

Hmm. I'm sure I've seen that Aztec Sunstone somewhere before...

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... s_of_Sunak
(scroll to end)

Given that it has 50% more of both 'Great Utilities' and 'Adventure Games' than 'Arcade Games', I'm guessing it's an early PD library trying to vaguely disguise the fact that you're buying into a giant Cassette 50 scheme without the calculator watch or quality control, rather than a lending library ...

The Muncher , like Action Biker , only had the endorsement as far as the loading screen. The game itself had nothing to do with the brand. As for Mad Mix , I've seen various screenshots - looks like the C64 and ST versions might have had the PEPSI logo on the scoreboard at the bottom of the screen,...

I think this is expecting a lot. And what, no official multi-game ROM cartridge version? :cry: At least it's not ridiculously over-priced, but I don't really get the appeal. I know there was one of those pathetic spoil-someone's-day-out-of-sheer-spite hoo-hahs within recent memory, but a bit of poki...

Well remembered! But why does the database list it as Test Cricket , when the title International Cricket is all over the loading screen and cassette inlay? Interesting that they put the effort in to making the insurance company's logo readable, but just did the word 'Cricket' at the bottom of the s...

None spring to mind, besides Weetabix and Wimpy. and the Wimpy one was just to try and legitimise a rip-off of Burger Time . I vaguely remember software companies (Ocean for example) putting their own logo in the background of sports games as sponsors. I don't know if Action Biker had any KP Skips l...

From what I can tell of the way Space Harrier runs, it picks a few (three?) sprites that it's going to use on a level, and pre-scales them in software to different sizes along with making masks, at the start of a level, and again, just before the end-of-level baddie appears. Then the level is made u...

I don't think I've ever seen this, or any other game like it, do match-ups and eliminations whilst individual pieces are still able to fall into space below them - whether they're still under player control, or whether they're 'physics'-falling because pieces under them have just been eliminated.

The COMCON plug-programmable joystick interface supported two fire buttons. To go with it, they re-wired a load of Quickshot II joysticks so that what was normally the +5V line to power the auto-fire circuit, was re-jigged to be the switch line from a second fire button. Most 80s joysticks' cables o...

What you can do is wire a second joystick cable into a controller and that (through up, down, left, right, fire) gives you effectively five more buttons. But the circuits must be completely separate. You can't share a commond 0V wire with the other joystick cable. For a +2 Spectrum, you could also t...

Mostly you really need to play this level keeping ahead of, and below, the centre of the screen. That way things hurtling down the middle of the screen will pass behind you, but you have to be ready to fire on anything coming at you head-on. Also practise using a charged shot and try to time it so y...

By 1985, the Spectrum had evolved to 128k, and by 1987, 180k was possible with +3 disks. Nearly 40 years later, why would we "downgrade" the Spectrum? Shouldn't developers be free to use any size up to 180k if they wish? Yes, most developers won't need it, but if you wanted a game with lo...

But so enraging when a Speccy-clueless "multi format comparison" video loads the Spectrum version in 48K mode and assumes it has no music... I think the trick is to sabotage it. The mistake is trying to pander to these people. There were plenty of perfectly legitimate ways to program a 48...