Introduce yourself!

Introduce yourself. Pimp your website, competition, event or other activity here, as long as it's Spectrum related.
pobtastic
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by pobtastic »

Unfortunately Fuze is a bit nervous about copyright infringements, so it's not on anything "official" just short clips on twitter from a while back;

Manic Miner
https://twitter.com/Pobtastic/status/12 ... 6897087488
This is more or less complete now, the jumping needs some work ~ it's not identical to how it should behave...

JSW
https://twitter.com/Pobtastic/status/12 ... 6323990528
Doesn't have ropes yet, a bit of a WIP still!

Hungry Horace
https://twitter.com/Pobtastic/status/11 ... 4799934464
Now complete!

Unfortunately none of them have sound/ music as it's incredibly difficult in Fuze to make similar noises :cry:

I've also done a bit of work on Jetpac but nothing sharable yet! It's fun!
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PeterJ
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by PeterJ »

Very impressive [mention]pobtastic[/mention]. Even the font looks authentic!
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XTM
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by XTM »

Hi all,

yep, another WoS Forumite, some of you will remember me. For those who don't, I'm from Cologne, Germany and got my first Speccy 16k in 1985, then upgraded onto 48k/+2 models shortly after. Played tons of games till the early 90s and while the Speccy games certainly got eclipsed by their console counterparts for me, the nostalgy stays.

My original nick "XTM of TMG" (TMG is the name of my demo crew The Mad Guys which was active from 1989 to about 1997) is a bit clunky so I'll use a shortened version here.

From my avatar, you can see I'm a huge David Hasselhoff fan. NOT! Well, according to some English WoS member sometime back in the 2006 or so, The Hoff was still "super popular" in Germany (what can I say, that bloke knew more about my country than I did *sarcasm*) so to smite him I switched to a Hoff avatar and have been using it ever since ... so to reflect that I'll use one here too, just a different picture - it's almost like an XTM trademark. Nah, I'm really not a fan, I've watched a few Knight Rider episodes as a kid but in hindsight they were pants anyway.

I'll keep using the WoS forums for the chit chat/trashtalk (since there are still some nice people there who aren't on SC because they are mostly active in that area), but having a second port of call is always nice innit! 8-)
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ketmar
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by ketmar »

oh, there is introductional thread here! so if you're interested, i am from xUSSR. Speccy (actually, Robik) was my first "really personal" computer. before that, i was at regional computer "club" with MSX computers. of course, i wanted MSX, but there was no way to get it (at least for the price we could afford). so i got Robik, which was 48K Speccy clone, with totally incompatible timings, and without a disk drive. i never had 128K, and never had a disk drive, so it was hard to program in asm. tapes sux! ;-)

my first emulator was something called "spectrum.exe", it ran on 286, and i still don't know what it was. it didn't even used external ROM, afair. yet it was able to play 2-channel music on PC speaker, and that was cool.

of course, being a programmer myself, i was interested in writing my own emulator. and i did that several times! ;-) 3 times in Delphi, almost two times in C, and once in D. my first emulators were based on Z80 cores i found in internet, but later i wrote Zymosis.

as i never owned 128K, i am mostly interested in 48K software (because this is what brings back my childhood memories). i am also not interested in supporting TR-DOS or +3DOS in my Z80 code (but my emulator supports 128K/+2/+3, and TR-DOS).

i always wanted to write some Speccy games, but never progressed beyond some engine prototypes.

i love platformers and shooters, my favorite games are Zynaps and Rex. i found JSW too hard (but loved to play Phantomas). and i am avoid playing AGD/Churera games (for various reasons; don't take it personally, please, it's my internal mental bug ;-).

i wasn't very active in any online/offline Speccy communities.

i also love to write walls of text in bad English (which is quite obvious from this post, i think ;-).
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jdanddiet
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by jdanddiet »

Hi, Graeme Mason here, have been meaning to sign up here for a few weeks having started using this site more for research than the *cough* other one.

Apologies in advance for spamming my speccy-related features - Scuba Dive in Retro Gamer soon!
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XTM
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by XTM »

Greetings, Graeme. I've been reading your articles in Retro Gamer and on your site for years. Nice to have you here!
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PeterJ
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by PeterJ »

Welcome [mention]jdanddiet[/mention],

Great to have you here Graeme.

Peter
OscarSchnitzer
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by OscarSchnitzer »

Hi All,

Another newbie saying hello. I bought my 48K rubber key back in late 1983, here in Australia. For A$399 in Myer, to replace my ZX81. Back then Sinclair software and hardware were hard to find around here, but there were a handful of sources.

Ended up moving on to a CPC6128 a few years later, but had fond memories of the Sinclairs.

I've recently received my Spectrum Next which has got me all enthused for all things Sinclair once again, although I've still got my 48K in its original box :)

I didn't know about this forum until recently, I mistakenly thought the main "scene" was at WoS which appears to be slowly imploding. It was a big relief to find this lively forum!
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PeterJ
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by PeterJ »

Welcome [mention]OscarSchnitzer[/mention],

I think you are our first Australian! Were there any Australian Spectrum specific magazines back in the day.
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Rorthron
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Rorthron »

Welcome to SC!
OscarSchnitzer
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by OscarSchnitzer »

PeterJ wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 9:21 am I think you are our first Australian! Were there any Australian Spectrum specific magazines back in the day.
Hi Peter,

I know there were Australia-specific magazines for other platforms, but I don't remember any for the Spectrum.

For a while I subscribed to ZX Computing (not Australian, obviously!) which was my main source of information, until I switched to Your Spectrum.

For Australian magazines I remember there was Australian Personal Computer which was PC-centric, not much home computer stuff. And there was an Australian version of Your Computer which wasn't too bad for home computer stuff.

There wasn't a huge range of Spectrum software available locally, but my budget was quite tight then too, so that was a good match :) I did end up buying games such as Penetrator, Chequered Flag, Starion, etc, from local shops.
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Van_Dammesque
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Van_Dammesque »

Hi Guys,
ZX Spectrum fan. I live in the North-East of England. 40+ years of age (just). :P

I had a ZX Spectrum + then upgraded to a +2. Always had a big (28 inch TV to play on too, old TV types, for the time, but great pic quality).
Then upgraded to the Amiga.

Still like to occasionally read the old mags for nostalgia, as most of my paper round money went on them!
Have a bizarre fascination in Spectrum loaders and the Randomize USR xxx effects! :geek:
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Welcome aboard, Jean-Claude! ;)

If you love the Spectrum,this is the best forum to talk about it!
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XTM
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by XTM »

That's not Jean-Claude, it's Alex (Wagner)! ;)
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Van_Dammesque
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Van_Dammesque »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:51 pm Welcome aboard, Jean-Claude! ;)

If you love the Spectrum,this is the best forum to talk about it!
Thanks! :)

Added this to my FVD speed dial page. :idea:

I like my speed dial pics on my HD so here is mine for you to use, best used on a dark background:
Image
It is just the website's logo.
Mbwum73
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Mbwum73 »

I joined this great forum a couple of days ago and so it's time to introduce myself.

My name is Patrick. I'm from the Netherlands and 47 years old.
When I was a kid my schoolteacher introduced me to my first computer. A Grundy Newbrain.
But it didn't take long befor my father bought a Sinclar ZX spectrum. The 16kb model. :roll:
Soon I realized 16kb was limited because most games required 48kb.
So I saved all my money and bought a memory expansion. A very ugly unstable block in the back. But it worked.
A year later I sold my spectrum and bought a ZX Spectrum+.
I learned how to program and played lots of games which I " traded" from the kids in the neighborhood. Yeah I admit, I copied tapes, but also bought some games.

After a while I also bought a Commodore 128 and loved that machine too (some people here probably hate me now).
But I'm still in love with the ZX spectrum.

Last year I decided to pickup my Spectrum and Commodore hobby's again. So I bought the Ultimate 64 FPGA version of the commdore 64 and I decided to build my own ZX Spectrum. On Bytedelight I ordered a Harlequin board and the parts and soldered my own spectrum in an evening. All works just excellent.
I also bought an SD card solution wih ESXDOS and a ZXHD to use it on my modern tv. It's just fun all over again, without the long loading times. HDMI output is great too.

So what's next? I think I want to buy a ZX Spectrum Next. I missed the first kickstarter, but hope to see a second run.
I'm also interested in the MISter FPGA. I can't find really much experieces here though. It's an expensive solution. I wonder how good the ZX spectrum core is. I also wonder if it's ossible to boot directly into tht core so it boots up in spectrum as I switch it on.

I also using a raspberry PI2 with the ZXBaremulator on it. Amazing emulator. It's accurate and it boots fast. Love it. I ordered an empty ZX Spectrum case, tubber keys, membrane etc, to put the Raspberry pi in it.

Enough plans and enough questions, but that's a whole other discussion. Anyway, I hope to find the answers I'm looking for on this forum and I will enjoy reading all exeriences and tips I can find here. Good to be amongst other speccy lovers out here!
akeley
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by akeley »

[mention]Mbwum73[/mention] Welcome to the forum :)

Regarding MiSTer, I got one recently and it's quite awesome. It's not really that expensive for what it does (it has the best cores for most of the 8-16 bit microcomputers and consoles): with bits and pieces it's around 170 Euro.
ZX Spectrum core is very mature (nearly 1:1 I guess) and yes, you can boot into it directly. If you have any more questions you can PM me or start a new topic, so we can discuss various FPGAs :)
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Rorthron
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Rorthron »

[mention]zxmicrojack[/mention] Welcome to the forum!

I think this probably belongs better in the Hardware section as a new topic, and you might get a better response there. This thread is more for general introductions, rather than specific topics.

Maybe you could get one of the mods, [mention]PeterJ[/mention], [mention]R-Tape[/mention] or [mention]Ivanzx[/mention] to move it there.
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Rorthron
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Rorthron »

I haven't quite lost my marbles.... zxmicrojack's post was moved here:

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3133
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MarkRJones1970
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by MarkRJones1970 »

I'm Mark R. Jones, I had a hand in a couple of games back in the day and more recently too. I've been lurking for a while but miss talking about Spectrum games so am loking forward to joining in more.
Mark R. Jones

Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
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R-Tape
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by R-Tape »

MarkRJones1970 wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:11 pm I'm Mark R. Jones, I had a hand in a couple of games back in the day and more recently too. I've been lurking for a while but miss talking about Spectrum games so am loking forward to joining in more.
Who the hell is this old codger, and what has he done with the 41 year old youngling with a similar name?
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Welcome Mark!
BladePT
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by BladePT »

Hi Everyone!

I am a Spectrum fan since 1982 and just found Spectrum Computing, let's have some nostalgic fun;)
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PeterJ
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by PeterJ »

Welcome [mention]BladePT[/mention]!
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dragontorc
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Re: Introduce yourself!

Post by dragontorc »

Greetings from the South ! An enthusiastic ZX Spectrum user/player here since the 80s. Really loving the homebrews and all the current culture of retroconsoles. Would love to understand Russian so I can play properly to some Pentagon gems wich right now seems distant. Hope to contribute and enjoy the forum. Thanks for the welcoming ! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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