What do you now know many years later

[Joefish]

Again, I assumed that companies like Ocean owned the whole building, rather than being a few tiny offices and people sat at desks in nooks off the corridor. And tales of basements with no windows and people smoking all day and sleeping under the tables at night...

I once got offered a choice of redundancy or moving to a former telephone exchange building, working in the room where the old mechanical exchange used to reside. A huge place for a small team with great high ceilings, but the only windows were narrow slits some 3m up the wall as it was really the basement and half a floor above. Thanks but... cheque please!

[RWAC]

I second that. For me, Horace will always have arms.

If he didn't have arms, how would he go skiing?

[smurphboy]

...some people left who are stunned to discover that Jetpac had a hover key

Wuh?! It does? Which key?!

Number keys will do hover

[Morkin]

I second that. For me, Horace will always have arms.

If he didn't have arms, how would he go skiing?

...Or jump from rope to rope in the second stage of Horace & the Spiders?

[akeley]

This thing about the ponytail is some lunatic heresy. I don't care what the source of this calumny is, even if the creator has stated so in a sworn affidavit - he must've been befuddled at the time.

Tl, dr: Horace has arms and that's all there is to it

(besides, wasn't it all about mullets back then?)

[uglifruit]

Here's another one.
I *met* Sandy White (3D Ant Attack, I of the Mask) about 15 years ago.
Up until just before that point I'd assumed he was a she, and that's why (s)he had given us the very-progressive-for-the-time option of playing as a girl in Ant Attack.

[TMD2003]

8 is transparent / unchanged - so if you do PRINT INK 7; PAPER 8; "SOMETHING", the text will have white INK but the existing PAPER colour of each cell will remain unchanged

Shh, you'll be giving away the secrets of INK / PAPER 9 next.
You know the first rule of BRIGHT club: "We don't talk about BRIGHT club."

For anyone requiring a demonstration of PAPER 8, I used it in Corona Capers, in the death sequences. In short:
- one subroutine from lines 9000-9025: start with PAPER 2: INK 2: CLS, then PRINT PAPER 0; all the spaces required to make the Chinese character for "death" as a low-resolution background.
- all subroutines starting at lines 9100, 9110, 9120, 9130, 9150, 9170, 9190, 9210: PRINT INK 6; PAPER 8; all the text that goes on top of it, and the paper remains red or black, whatever was already there. Without PAPER 8, the text overwrites any black in the background with red, so the "death" character appears only on alternate lines.

The other way to die, the one embedded I Wanna Be The Guy style in the victory sequence, uses BRIGHT 8 instead of PAPER 8 as the background picture is made of BRIGHT 1 spaces on a BRIGHT 0 background. I wonder if anyone has ever seen that, legitimately?

As for the other secret, I've always found INK 9 a lot more useful than PAPER 9.

[Joefish]

OK, yep, I was pretty sure I'd read everything in the BASIC manual at some point, but INK 9 is completely new to me.

And now I know about it, it seems almost as much a complete waste of limited resources as the FLASH bit!

[druellan]

Since I decided to openly be part of the community and dig a bit more about the Spectrum I discovered many shocking things, including the hover key on Jetpac
But two things I remember as interesting are the 128k version of Yie ar Kung Fu, I always though that has an "extended" version, not a completely different game:



The other thing is about Defenders of the Crown.



I didn't know the game was never released. I played it back in the day, a pirated copy from a local store, so the info took me by surprise!. At the time a lot of Czech and Russian games started to popup on the pirate's catalogs, so, is not surprising to find something obscure from Hungry, but, yeah, no idea how the version got leaked.

Note: I just noticed the comment: "Originally there was a winning screen at the end, but that was somehow lost." I need to check my version just in case (if anyone wants a copy to check, let me know).

[Alessandro]

I came across his company's slogan "There's no blood in our games, it's Automata sauce" and realised the pronunciation of the company name Automata must have intended to be aw'toe'mar'ta which I'd always pronounced aw'tom'uh'ta in my head. That blew my mind!

That's new to me too. I used to pronounce it "AW-toe-MATE-ah", until I heard Paul J on the Spectrum Show pronouncing it differently...

"Automata" is the plural of αὐτόματον, which in ancient Greek means "something acting (ματον) by itself (αὐτό)". I pronounce it as in ancient Greek, following the Erasmian convention which is commonly accepted here for academic use here: "ou (as in "loud") -TOH-mah-tah".

[uglifruit]

"Automata" is the plural of αὐτόματον, which in ancient Greek means "something acting (ματον) by itself (αὐτό)". I pronounce it as in ancient Greek, following the Erasmian convention which is commonly accepted here for academic use here: "ou (as in "loud") -TOH-mah-tah".

My ancient Greek is crap. I can only just book a hotel room with an ensuite bathroom, and order drinks at the bar in ancient Greece.

[Morkin]

That's new to me too. I used to pronounce it "AW-toe-MATE-ah", until I heard Paul J on the Spectrum Show pronouncing it differently...

"Automata" is the plural of αὐτόματον, which in ancient Greek means "something acting (ματον) by itself (αὐτό)". I pronounce it as in ancient Greek, following the Erasmian convention which is commonly accepted here for academic use here: "ou (as in "loud") -TOH-mah-tah".

As I recall, I originally couldn't decide whether to pronounce it like we say "automaton" in English (with the stress on the 'o'), or "automation" (one letter difference but with the stress on the 'a' part). Mind you, I often pronounce things incorrectly so this would just be another one..

[presh]

8 is transparent / unchanged - so if you do PRINT INK 7; PAPER 8; "SOMETHING", the text will have white INK but the existing PAPER colour of each cell will remain unchanged

Wouldn't it be the same as simply PRINT INK 7; "SOMETHING" ?

No, because it will use the current paper colour for the background.

So if you had a red screen (PAPER 2: CLS), then set PAPER 0 somewhere down the line, then did PRINT INK 7; "SOMETHING" you would see SOMETHING in white ink on a black background instead of red.

(click images for legible versions!)

[presh]

I thought software developers used to develop on the actual machine, albeit with disk drives / microdrives (to reduce the ball-ache of reloading during Z80 crashes/debugging), and an assembler etc. I imagined that was where all the +3s were, I rarely saw them in the wild!

I now understand (from Bob Pape's book, I think) that they used higher-powered computers to assemble the code, then flashed it into the Speccy's memory via the I/O port at the back. Neat!

(It's a moot point for me though, as I was too young for even a paper round nor any form of income to afford me such toys!)

[Alessandro]

My ancient Greek is crap. I can only just book a hotel room with an ensuite bathroom, and order drinks at the bar in ancient Greece.

Don't worry, my knowledge of ancient Greek is even more limited than that: I can just understand words and expressions like ti estì, entelechéia, pantà rhei, arché and a few others.

[RMartins]

A few months back, I found out that a friend of mine in chuckie egg, never jumped to the ladders, because he thought that it didn't work.
And I was pretty sure that I did it all the time, so I showed him how to do it.

The trick (that I assumed everybody knew) is to jump to the ladder and while "flying" over it, press up or down, so that it grabs the ladder.

I was shocked that he could even fully enjoy the game, without using that feature

[cmal]

A few months back, I found out that a friend of mine in chuckie egg, never jumped to the ladders, because he thought that it didn't work.
And I was pretty sure that I did it all the time, so I showed him how to do it.

The trick (that I assumed everybody knew) is to jump to the ladder and while "flying" over it, press up or down, so that it grabs the ladder.

I was shocked that he could even fully enjoy the game, without using that feature

That's another thing I only found out recently. Did not know this back in the day!

[Joefish]

My ancient Greek is crap. I can only just book a hotel room with an ensuite bathroom, and order drinks at the bar in ancient Greece.

Don't worry, my knowledge of ancient Greek is even more limited than that: I can just understand words and expressions like ti estì, entelechéia, pantà rhei, arché and a few others.

I've had a plate of chips in Modern Greece that tasted like they were cooked in Ancient Grease.

[cmal]

I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it!

AMIGA in the bottom left. There is a sign next to a dead body and you can see the teleport on the next screen but only the code will let you in. You need it if there is a core part in that section.

I have the original cassette and while scanning stuff today I noticed that someone wrote all the codes inside the inlay. It must've been my brother wrote them. He was very into Starquake.

[Cosmium]

I ordered my Spectrum the day after it's launch, and so got it pretty early. When I asked Quicksilver at a ZX Microfair if they had any games ready, they offered to buy my Spectrum as they still didn't have one ! But since kids were forced to write their own or wait in 1982, I wonder how many famous software developers started with that push...

I also ordered my 16K Spectrum shortly after launch and used the time in the preceding weeks (months?) before its arrival to eagerly plan out my own versions of the arcade games of the day... in an old school book no less!

[vanpeebles]

I thought software developers used to develop on the actual machine, albeit with disk drives / microdrives (to reduce the ball-ache of reloading during Z80 crashes/debugging), and an assembler etc. I imagined that was where all the +3s were, I rarely saw them in the wild!

I now understand (from Bob Pape's book, I think) that they used higher-powered computers to assemble the code, then flashed it into the Speccy's memory via the I/O port at the back. Neat!

(It's a moot point for me though, as I was too young for even a paper round nor any form of income to afford me such toys!)

Tatung Einsteins!

[Alone Coder]

I thought software developers used to develop on the actual machine, albeit with disk drives / microdrives (to reduce the ball-ache of reloading during Z80 crashes/debugging), and an assembler etc.

In exUSSR, most software was written on the actual machine, with a disk drive. Even in the 2000's, having a PC, people continued to use native tools inside emulators, cross-assemblers were rare until circa 2008.

[Ralf]

Quite recently I read a comment that Clive Sinclair becoming sir Clive Sinclair wasn't as big, exceptional deal as sometimes presented.

Clive was knighted ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Bachelor ). "Knight" is the lowest possible rank in all this aristocracy system. It doesn't pass to your children. A kid born to a lord is a lord himself, a kid born to a knight isn't.

Each year several hundreds of people are knighted, including actors, musicians etc. Yes, it's something to be proud of but not that rare and exceptional as I believed being a kid.

[Guesser]

I once got offered a choice of redundancy or moving to a former telephone exchange building, working in the room where the old mechanical exchange used to reside. A huge place for a small team with great high ceilings, but the only windows were narrow slits some 3m up the wall as it was really the basement and half a floor above. Thanks but... cheque please!

Lovely parquet floor though?

[Joefish]

Quite recently I read a comment that Clive Sinclair becoming sir Clive Sinclair wasn't as big, exceptional deal as sometimes presented.

Clive was knighted ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Bachelor ). "Knight" is the lowest possible rank in all this aristocracy system. It doesn't pass to your children. A kid born to a lord is a lord himself, a kid born to a knight isn't.

Each year several hundreds of people are knighted, including actors, musicians etc. Yes, it's something to be proud of but not that rare and exceptional as I believed being a kid.

It's actually among the highest honours the Queen can bestow on a civilian. The ancient layers of aristocratic titles don't really have anything to do with the modern system of honours. These honours are dished out regularly, mostly in a batch in the New Year, and these are all the possible awards. But a Knighthood is the only one that conveys a title, 'Sir' / 'Dame'. The others are just titles you'd put after your name. (Though there are also ranks of Knights; 'Knight of the Garter' being the top, reserved for the likes of Churchill).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11990088 scroll down to 'Types of Honours'.
The guy who hired me for my current job was recently made an MBE. Supposedly for 'Services to Business', but really the Queen just thought it was such a smart move to give me a job it deserved a reward...

Lordships are political appointments, since traditionally (though not 100% recently) it entitled you to sit in the House of Lords and have a say on laws being passed. There are both 'Life' and 'Hereditary' peerages. Most 'Lords' made today are appointed as reward for political service and are only made life peers; their children do not inherit the title.

As for Dukes, Barons, etc. most are inherited titles from old families. There are loads of such titles where the line has died out; the Queen hands them out at royal marriages and they become hereditary if the couple aren't too inbred to have children of their own, but they're largely meaningless. They don't entitle you to any property or land you don't otherwise own.

There are also what are called 'Manorial Titles'; these are the ones you can buy and sell if you want to call yourself 'Lord of Barford' or something. Some are sold as an 'extra' to go with a big country house, but others come up when the owner has had to sell off their ancestral land, sold off the family manor house, tried to hang on to the title, but run out of cash on the horses again and would rather lose the title than have their legs broken:
https://www.manorialcounselltd.co.uk/lo ... ip-titles/
But they don't make you 'Lord Barford' or 'Lord' anything, you're just 'Derrick F*ckwit, Lord of Barford'.