Search found 100 matches
- Tue Dec 26, 2017 5:16 pm
- Forum: Graphics
- Topic: Screen switching, does it happen?
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3077
Re: Screen switching, does it happen?
As people have pointed out, this setup is fairly awkward to work with, and most of the time it's not even really necessary (unfortunately, there are exceptions). Regardless, I think it might be interesting to hear opinions on how to plan out things across the pages etc for such a game. Personally I'...
- Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:39 pm
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: Poll: Raffaele Cecco's Best Game
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2261
Re: Poll: Raffaele Cecco's Best Game
Exolon for me, not much to say there it's practically Spectrum-defining, and that melody is just like hnnng being back home and all.
I also like Solomon's Key a lot, excellent playability, easily a close second.
I also like Solomon's Key a lot, excellent playability, easily a close second.
- Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:44 am
- Forum: Emulators
- Topic: Emulator with debugger which updates screen on single step
- Replies: 8
- Views: 2564
Re: Emulator with debugger which updates screen on single step
If you mean like masked sprites and whatnot, you won't be able to see the individual steps of AND and OR that way, since typically each byte is only written back once with the combined result: pop de ld a,(hl) and e or d ld (hl),a inc l ... Think of it like this: masking puts the 'black' parts of th...
- Fri Dec 22, 2017 1:20 pm
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: The best classic Speccy game beginning with A: discussion
- Replies: 10
- Views: 2983
Re: The best classic Speccy game beginning with A: discussion
Subjectively, one more game that deserves a mention is Ano Gaia. Probably my go-to game starting with 'A'. Illegally blasphemously hackered to make that drill level playable since ages, it just needs a loading screen now. |: Probably will vote ATF though, in large part because I love the somewhat-un...
- Mon Dec 18, 2017 4:14 am
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: The A-Z of the best Speccy games (modern: post-1993)
- Replies: 50
- Views: 10827
Re: The A-Z of the best Speccy games (modern: post-1993)
T is for Twilight: The Land of Shadows. I'm amazed I even have to spell it out!
Star Heritage was massive in our time, but now I love the Sword of Ianna just as much. And yes I don't think it ever got the translation it deserves.
Star Heritage was massive in our time, but now I love the Sword of Ianna just as much. And yes I don't think it ever got the translation it deserves.
- Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:06 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
The whole 'leaving gaps' issue is normal in a sense, and is expected of programs that operate on the file level. Notice that, as long as the file you're working with is the last file on the disk, no gap would be left if it is deleted and subsequently saved back. On the other hand, doing a MOVE withi...
- Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:47 pm
- Forum: Announcements
- Topic: ZX Dev Conversions
- Replies: 28
- Views: 7354
Re: ZX Dev Conversions
I invited many people, and made it public in WoS, Tweeter, and even Spectrum Facebook groups with near 10.000 members and where 90% of the people are british, and nobody looked excited about it, so... :( I have the feeling that they prefer playing Manic Miner over and over again than paying attenti...
- Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:12 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
I now have an asm loader that loads everything except $6000-$7FFF (and updates my progress bar). Loading this block is breaking TR-Dos, so I need to debug to see what's going on. I don't really want to rearchitect the game because the codebase is shared with the non-Pentagon version (and space in u...
- Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:47 am
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: The A-Z of the best Speccy games (classic: 1982-1993)
- Replies: 58
- Views: 12307
Re: The A-Z of the best Speccy games
What's wrong with you people, S is clearly Starquake.Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:43 amNoooo! Sabre Wulf! Sabre Wulf!5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:13 pm
And I think S needs to be Sir Fred. Controversial, perhaps, but such a great game.
- Tue Dec 12, 2017 1:03 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
I've made a little progress. The error returned in $5D0F was 1 No file . i wasn't padding my filename with spaces in the file descriptor. Now I get error 12 The channel is not open in $5D0F. But I have already been using TR-DOS - the code this is running from is loaded from basic with a TR-Dos call...
- Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:05 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
Hi [mention="Hikaru"]Hikaru[/mention], I wonder if you could link me to your copy of 'ZX-Spectrum & TR-DOS Для пользователей и программистов', if you have it as a scan. The one I have only goes up to page 114. It's either a different book or it's missing all the good stuff :) Heys. Th...
- Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:43 pm
- Forum: Brand new software!
- Topic: Woot! ZXMAS Tape Magazine 2017
- Replies: 46
- Views: 11311
Re: Woot! ZXMAS Tape Magazine 2017
Certainly, I will have to disagree with this being a bad year for the Speccy. I would also say sprawling epics are very much in demand! Dat Santos ending though. Loved the Doodlebug too. Bob's puzzlers have some interesting ideas. Unfortunately I think '12 days' has a bug. If you cancel a link just ...
- Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:37 am
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: Friday Night Quiz: Nathan Barley
- Replies: 41
- Views: 8351
- Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:33 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
out of interest, what is the best rom to use for testing (compatibility wise?) Well, the original 5.03 is considered the baseline version of sorts. This is the last known official release. Another widespread edition is the unofficial 5.04T, which comes as the default ROM in some major 'Pentagon'-or...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 7:45 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: TRD boot loader
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2152
Re: TRD boot loader
Yes, it's probably less relevant in the case of boot.B, the only difference I can think of is when it is loaded with LOAD or LOAD "boot". Otherwise, the default implied command for those is RUN. Looking at my own loader, the autostart marker is #80 #AA placed after the final #0D at the end...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 7:11 pm
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: Friday Night Quiz: Nathan Barley
- Replies: 41
- Views: 8351
Re: Friday Night Quiz: Nathan Barley
3. Soldier of Fortune
5. R-Type
6. Lightforce?
9. Cobra
10. Dan Dare 3
5. R-Type
6. Lightforce?
9. Cobra
10. Dan Dare 3
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 6:12 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: TRD boot loader
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2152
Re: TRD boot loader
It looks like the 'bad' image has the file type set to 'b' as opposed to 'B'. The ASCII code for 'b' is 98, so that should at least explain the 'custom header type #98' thing. Something to do with trdtool perhaps? BASIC files need some spesshul treatment in TR-DOS in order to enable autostart from l...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:47 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: 128k paging BASIC loader
- Replies: 24
- Views: 6582
Re: 128k paging BASIC loader
USR0 it with fire!
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:45 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
But then again I had a lot of trouble in the early days becaue TRDos changed their specification between ver 4 and 5, and commands all changed, with "RANDOMIZE USR 15360" changed to "RANDOMIZE USR 15616" causing many of the samples of source-code I found could not work.. I belie...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:44 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Pentagon Russian character set
- Replies: 2
- Views: 1252
Re: Pentagon Russian character set
Non-Unicode page is most likely to be Windows-1251 nowadays. Native legacy ZX Spectrum software such as word editors and e-zines also used CP866 (aka the MS-DOS encoding) or KOI8-R (e-mail standard encoding). Still some software used custom encodings, only adding the letters that weren't present in ...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:34 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
- Replies: 34
- Views: 14608
Re: Write binary data to TRD from ASM
My bad. Overall I've adapted that example from the book, 'ZX-Spectrum & TR-DOS Для пользователей и программистов' page 194. However, it looks like I've made a number of mistakes while doing that: 1. The '#00: load, #FF: save' comment is indeed wrong and should read '#FF: verify' instead. Saving ...
- Fri Dec 08, 2017 6:22 am
- Forum: Games/Software
- Topic: 'Dixel' scrolling... Ghosts 'n' Goblins
- Replies: 58
- Views: 12325
Re: 'Dixel' scrolling... Ghosts 'n' Goblins
On the other hand we have Ghosts'n'Goblins . I'm probably in minority but I consider it to be a bad port :twisted: It''s smooth but that's all. It's very simplistic, with few tiles, ugly graphics, tiny sprites, few levels compared to arcade and crazy difficulty. I respect the author (Keith Burkill)...
- Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:50 pm
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Short beeper routines in assembly
- Replies: 55
- Views: 32338
Re: Short beeper routines in assembly
I don't think something like this needs a credit at all, so any option is fine of course. For the record, at the core of it is a fairly old trick used in the Tritone engine (and IIRC one more from the 80's), i.e. CP N: SBC A: AND #10. In other words, any values less than N give #10, while values equ...
- Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:00 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Short beeper routines in assembly
- Replies: 55
- Views: 32338
Re: Short beeper routines in assembly
Well, I gave it a go previously, but decided not to post it in the end as I didn't really like the result. Seems like it was auto-saved as a draft, sooo here SFX ld hl,0 ld de,#0710 ld bc,2 ld lx,#18 call .loop ld c,24 ld lx,#06 .loop ld a,(hl) inc hl cp c sbc a and e or d out (#FE),a djnz .loop dec...
- Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:53 am
- Forum: Programming
- Topic: Missed Interrupts with DI+IM2 in assembly
- Replies: 12
- Views: 4130
Re: Missed Interrupts with DI+IM2 in assembly
Two cases isn't a problem: 1. Screen clears. As a general rule, you're just writing to the screen, so a triggered interrupt isn't going to corrupt anything. Just make sure not to get too close to #4000 (read: the ROM) or perhaps some sort of upper status panel/s that aren't updated constantly. 2. Sp...