Spectrum Computing

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:29 pm**

Nomad wrote: ↑Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:24 am Welcome! These are a few suggestions. Hope you enjoy your stay. With the Atari you are going to find a lot of 'grass greener on the other side' issues. Understand your frustration with the lack of 400/800 love though.

MrPixel wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:53 pm am planning on getting a +2 from Ebay
You should consider joining the +3 master race

i love the colors, ease of use for Basic and feel oddly drawn to the fact that there are no hardware sprites,

Seems like you are suffering from stockholm syndrome Especially coming from Atari its going to be very frustrating. But still if you like a challenge then have at it.

the Hobbit (of which i hope to someday port to the Atari 800)
That would be a monumental project - you can see for yourself some of the issues/chalanges you would face in trying to port the hobbit to the Atari by looking at the spectrum dissasembly. It has a clever structure that makes it very difficult to do stuff like fan translations (because of tokens).. Its more like a database in design (because the lady that was on the team was an expert in database design..)

But have at it if you want to climb that mountain. There is a reason some of these games are unported.

You could probably do a good port of neuromancer for the spectrum with a lot less heart ache.

That said if you did have a serious crack at porting the hobbit you would be in a good place to learn a lot about early database design on microcomputers.

i am 24 years old and am an avid gamer. i also love old tech, adore VHS and view Old tv's as futuristic
You should read some of the cyberpunk books - I think you will enjoy them if you have not already. The Sprawl trilogy is one of my fav. But edgy hipsters are more into snowcrash.

For more reading suggestions, if you are into comics why not have a crack at 2000AD? Hmmm Miracleman is another awesome read if you can get it. I think its better than watchman.

Then there is the cool Japanese stuff like Akira comics, I love the movie but the comics are where its at.

Just a suggestion... I would watch the bold ones first..

Spoiler
Apple seed, Tokyo Babylon, Legend of the Overfiend, Devil Man, Akira, The Guyver, Legend of the Four Kings, Battle Angel Alita, Cyber City Oedo 808, AD Police, Patlabor, Rougin Z, Ninja scroll, Genocyber.Demon City, Monster City,Fist of the North Star
If after watching those you don't get some sort of bizarre inspiration for a game I am not sure what will

i'll keep this in mind, thanks a lot. speaking of which, does the 128 version of the hobbit fix the slow level loading? the screen takes a long time to draw

and i just finished Seperation Anxiety for Genesis, good ideas, bad game. it's on my youtube page. shall i give the link?

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:30 pm**

PeterJ wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 8:11 pm Welcome @MrPixel

You will find the vast majority of type-ins from ZX Computing here:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... pehome.htm

Also, if on our home page you just type 'ZX Computing' into the search box at the top of the page you will get a big list of titles their too.

You can also download PDF versions of ZX Computing from the @KenD RetroPDF site. You just need a Torrent tool like https://www.qbittorrent.org/

i looked, most are greyed out.

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:48 pm**

[mention]MrPixel[/mention]

Are you referring to the RetroPDF site? They are all available:

https://retropdfs.wordpress.com/current ... llections/

and around 60% of the ZX Computing listings are available:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... _names.htm

Is there a listing that you specifically want from ZX Computing?

Peter

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:54 pm**

a zx spectrum port of monster maze maybe? one that uses all available colors

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:02 pm**

There is nothing in the archive like this. The closet is a version of 3D Monster Maze that runs on the Spectrum.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=30402

You mentioned that you wanted a listing from ZX Computing. Which one do you need?

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:21 pm**

MrPixel wrote: ↑Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:29 pmspeaking of which, does the 128 version of the hobbit fix the slow level loading? the screen takes a long time to draw

Not anymore! Take a look:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=30399

And welcome to the forum!

Posted: **Thu Mar 29, 2018 11:52 pm**

Hi everyone. I'm new to these forums. My name is John 'Dethmunk' Blythe. I love making games and discovered AGD in 2016. Since then I've completed 4 games and have 2 more in development. I'm 48, I work as a 3D Artist for Natural Motion Games, worked as a professional artist since about 1999 when I started at Gremlin Graphics -> Infrogrames -> EA -> Criterion -> Ghost Games -> Natural Motion Games (ZYNGA).
I own many retro systems including: Vectrex, SNES, Master System, Megadrive, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, PS2, Amiga CD32, Atari Jaguar, Nintendo Gameboy (With backlight mod), Gameboy Colour, Game Gear and several retro style machines RetroPie Arcade Cab and Super Retro Trio.
Hopefully soon the ZX Spectrum NEXT //// will be arriving and I can have a little slice of Spectrum 'like' hardware to play games on instead of emulators.

Also I've been involved in other projects on the Acorn machines - The Darkness of Raven Wood - Text Adventure (BBC B/Master/Electron Coding and GFX), WHITE LIGHT - Vertical scrolling Shoot em up (BBC B/B+/Master GFX) and currently Prince of Persia - Action Arcade Platformer (GFX) BBC Master 128k only.

All my games can be downloaded from my site: www.rucksackgames.co.uk

Posted: **Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:05 am**

Hi John, good to see you here!

I did a front light mod to my GB Color recently. One of these days I’ll start that GB Color version of Tumult.

Working on a Next game right now, Robotron 2084. It’s nice machine to develop for

Posted: **Sat Mar 31, 2018 8:54 am**

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:05 am Hi John, good to see you here!

I did a front light mod to my GB Color recently. One of these days I’ll start that GB Color version of Tumult.

Working on a Next game right now, Robotron 2084. It’s nice machine to develop for

Nice that should be awesome. All I say is don't get fancy with the control scheme. It'll make it unplayable, like other keyboard versions. Just stick to left, right, up, down and fire... otherwise trying to replicate the movement direction and seperate fire directions is a nightmare on keyboard. Lol

Looking forward to seeing it though. Still waiting for my cased Next to get going on it.

Posted: **Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:56 pm**

Yes, good call! I’m making it as flexible as possible - both control mechanisms (original and your idea), twin joysticks, joystick and keyboard, full keyboard, redefine keys, auto/manual fire

Posted: **Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:01 pm**

Hi! I'm new here. I'm Darío, I'm from Argentina, former Timex Sinclair 2068 user, and now an enthusiast that wants to collaborate with the database and the site in general.

I'm a long time reader of comp.sys.sinclair and user of WOS, but for some reason I was always outside the community, never reaching the forums.
Recently I decided to get in touch with the Spectrum Computing guys, and they are so nice that I decided to start collaborating with the site and the ZXDB database in general, reporting bugs and omissions or sending missing screenshots. Nothing fancy but I suppose everything counts

So, I must say "thank you" to anyone that was or is contributing to this preservation effort. A big chunk of my childhood is around here, on this database.

Posted: **Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:12 pm**

Bienvenido amigo! We had similar experience I always used to read WOS but I never posted on the forums.

Posted: **Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:27 pm**

Welcome [mention]druellan[/mention], good to have you on board.

Checking for inconsistencies is important work, so thank you in advance.

Posted: **Tue Apr 03, 2018 10:40 pm**

Howdy all!

It's amazing how only now I came across this Speccy 'Oasis', with no one to guide me here...

It's been a long time since the 'other' site stopped being maintained and all but completely abandoned, and I only visited it very rarely to see what they were up to, so I wondered where most of the competent and cool people were getting together, and lo and behold, just by chance (or not) they're here!

Ok, my name is Nuno and some may know me from many years ago, while helping out the preservation team (mostly Andy and Steve), recovering some tapes that were in bad shape...
I still have some other interesting stuff that was waiting to be added to 'THE' database, and hopefully it'll be useful for ZXDB!

A really BIG thank you to all involved in creating this fantastic ZX shrine!

Cheers!
/N

Posted: **Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:02 am**

Hi All

I'm from north Wales and I'm seriously late to the Spectrum party

At 16 I got a ZX81 and RAM pack (they were brand new then) but then instead of moving up to the speccy I went to the "nut" side.

Now, I've just obtained a rubber key series 3 Spectrum off eBay and, after a membrane change, it's working!

I seem to be in collecting mode as I've now have a Spectrum+ too....

Cheers

Simon

Posted: **Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:21 am**

Hi, [mention]Old_Bird[/mention], and

Posted: **Wed Apr 04, 2018 12:37 pm**

Hello everybody! Feel yourself at home!

You are not late for the party, it's actually just starting

Forgive me for not mentioning the names but it looks like we have a few new members and I wouldn't like to miss anybody

Posted: **Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:03 pm**

Welcome everybody!

netraider wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 10:40 pmOk, my name is Nuno and some may know me from many years ago, while helping out the preservation team (mostly Andy and Steve), recovering some tapes that were in bad shape...
I still have some other interesting stuff that was waiting to be added to 'THE' database, and hopefully it'll be useful for ZXDB!

Certainly! I sent you a PM

Posted: **Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:12 pm**

ADJB wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 7:13 amEx preservation team member from a different era on a different site. Used to run the preservation team shop.

It seems most of the preservation team is here

Posted: **Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:38 pm**

saying hello from Poland

Posted: **Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:47 pm**

Witamy, cieszyć się.

Posted: **Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:12 am**

Hi everyone,

Although I live in Canada now I was born in Poland and my first computer was a Timex 2048 and awesome 99% compatible ZX spectrum clone with a joystick port. Sadly when my parents immigrated they decided to leave the computer behind (due to different power/TV signal) and my time with the spectrum ended.

Fortunately North America had easy access to Commodore 64 and later Amiga 500 so my classical game education continued, but I have always missed my original Spectrum.

I currently have a Recreated ZX Spectrum blue-tooth keyboard that I converted into a Retro Pi. Its almost enough to feel those rubber keys as I play Jetpac. However last night I bit the bullet and ordered a ZX Spectrum 48K off ebay. Its not tested so I am not sure what I am getting into but it should be fun.

My plan is to use a Sega Genesis PSU for US power and do the composite AV mod (which seems super easy). After that I hope that one of my TVs can handle the PAL input (which modern TVs should) and see if the computer works.

If I need a new keyboard which is a common issue I think they are available at Sell My Retro. If its a harder issue to fix I may need some help from you guys

Cheers,

Posted: **Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:52 am**

Who are you trying to fool?
You are clearly a VIC-20 spy with that handle!

Posted: **Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:59 am**

Welcome 3583!

3583Bytes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:12 am However last night I bit the bullet and ordered a ZX Spectrum 48K off ebay. Its not tested so I am not sure what I am getting into but it should be fun.

That is usually ebay speak for "tested and not working", I hope this is a rare exception!

If you have any hardware problems there are always people that can help.

(Merged into 'Introduce yourself' topic)

Posted: **Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:39 pm**

Kweepa wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:52 am Who are you trying to fool?
You are clearly a VIC-20 spy with that handle!

Glad to be surrounded by people that would catch that

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