Spectrum Computing

Art studio can make use of micro drives for LOAD and SAVE functionality

Try SAMdisk. It allows a PC to make readable images of disks in all sorts of formats. You can then read them in any emulator that allows +D virtually.

I have images somewhere of all my old disks from the +D

Tim keeps digging up these gems. Who wouldn’t love a rummage through his archives!!

It’s usually possible to extract the main code blocks from.TRD files. I’ve done it before a while back. ZX Block Editor might be able to help

I’ve checked. It’s there, and the manual too.

Try speccy4ever.com. They’re usually quite good.

I gave it at home in my laptop I think if you can’t find it. I can look later on.

Just wow! The texture and colour is almost real!!

A faulty M1 line on the Z80 won’t be an issue as I don’t think the if1bis uses it.

No problem at all. It’s good to print off and have a doodle. With the original pad that’s how I created loads of stuff I’ve still got hanging around on mgt +D disks. I used to photocopy the sheet, then use it again in the copier to get a pixelated version of images, mainly solid objects or logos.

It’s surprising how many screens you recognise just playing it through.

32 bytes sounds fun! The board Data layout I’m using takes I think 36 bytes, though I’ll have to check, as it’s been a while.

3D Chess 2k19 got down to 497 bytes as a pure display engine alone. I made good progress in logic to the point that it checked legal moves etc, but there was no code to play moves on behalf of the computer. I think it grew to about 700 bytes approx. I will pick it up again when time allows though…pr...

Oh my word Alex! I thought the project had gone very quiet. We talked before lockdown. Then life happened in between. Amazing achievement. I’m reading through the asm with great interest!!

In my case it was a mix of obsessively playing Arkanoid, in addition to attempting to hack it and change things like lives, level data etc. Therefore becoming quite annoyed, thus Arkannoyed.

Pre-emulator days, these things could prove to be most frustrating, as I’m sure we all agree.

Unbelievable! I’ve spent most of my childhood and much of my adult life idolising this beautiful little wonder of a machine. Very nostalgic feeling in the air today!

Unfortunately my setups all out of action currently, but I am looking to get it all back up and running in the next few months, so if you still need to test chat by then, then that’ll be fun!!

So it is!! It seemed to have disappeared for the past couple of days weirdly.

I was just trying to find the latest updates for the If1 bis, but Dans site seems to have disappeared?

I owned Robot Messiah, so it was in the shops. Also met Christian Urquart at the ZX Microfair in about 1985. Owned the game, talked him at the same microfair,, he was charging a pound for a large poster, more if you wanted it signed. I remember being encouraged to buy the game by him and his associ...

I owned Robot Messiah, so it was in the shops. Also met Christian Urquart at the ZX Microfair in about 1985.

Actually, hobby craft did do a textured black card stock that was extremely close to the original ultimate boxes. That was probably 5 years ago though. I made a box after measuring sabre wulf very accurately. Then I did a knight lore box only to discover that it was different by quite a few mm overa...

I made a start on instruction booklet versions of pentagram and gunfight, in a similar layout style to knight lore, underwurlde etc. it looked alright, but remains unfinished, lack of time etc. I saw Marks beautiful pentagram box and felt inspired!

Also Jetpac and Pssst too.

Hey, 37 hours is nothing. Try 4 days for me 😂 I tried to compress the main code block from Xevious. Previous tests got it down from 40270 bytes to; 10051 with zx0 9937. (IIRC) with shrinkler. I was hoping zx5 would achieve better, but still waiting! It has compressed a few SCRs to smaller than zx0 a...

Mine was Lunar Jetman. Bought from WHSmiths in Bletchley. Took back twice, and when I requested a refund the 80+ year old lady at the checkout had the audacity to ask if I knew how to load games

Actually, aged about 11, I may have over-estimated her real age!!

It wasn’t till I read through all the versions that I realised they weren’t what I was using!