What do you now know many years later

[presh]

I only recently found out that you can throw people in Renegade. 128K only, mind - I only had the 48K version back in the day!

I think it's UP + BACK + FIRE while grabbing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZxuIMhj6c4

[presh]

INK/PAPER/BRIGHT 8 is actually useful

Whaddayamean, 8???

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

[Ralf]

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" ?

[uglifruit]

Whaddayamean, 8???

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."

[uglifruit]

Here are a couple of BASIC things I didn't know 'til recently.

GOTO jumps take longer to execute the further into the program that the line they jump to is located. I read about that on this forum, and went back and changed my 'Physiced' program to put the game loop at the top and it ran notably quicker.


It was only when reading the Next manual, cover to cover a couple of months ago that I found out that Sinclair BASIC could use:
LET A$="ABCDEFGH"

PRINT A$( TO 4) ; giving "ABCD"
PRINT A$(4 TO ) ; giving "DEFGH"

I've spent 38 years not knowing that you didn't need to use both arguments. I'd previously always used:

PRINT A$(0 TO 4)
PRINT A$(4 TO LEN A$)

...for my LEFT$ / RIGHT$ functions.

[Ast A. Moore]

I only recently found out that you can throw people in Renegade. 128K only, mind - I only had the 48K version back in the day!

Ditto!

[bluespikey]

That Turbo Esprit had working traffic lights.

[RWAC]

I now know games with Kangaroos are bad.

[Morkin]

A couple more that spring to mind:

1. Assembly programming - I didn't really get anywhere trying to learn this; coming from a BASIC background I didn't twig that you could just store things directly in the Speccy's memory, like "LD (32768),A". I thought you had to hold all your game variables in the few registers available to you, or use PUSH/POP to store/retrieve them in exactly the right order from the stack.

2. BASIC programming - I never got why people used keywords like "VAL" and "NOT PI" in BASIC rather than 'regular' numbers. When I saw them in programs I thought it just looked a bit bizarre.

[MrBlaz]

I only recently found out that you can throw people in Renegade. 128K only, mind - I only had the 48K version back in the day!

I think it's UP + BACK + FIRE while grabbing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZxuIMhj6c4

shock and awe!

For my part, I discovered a few years ago that when you play Exploding Fist with keys, you can make diagonals pressing UP/DOWN + LEFT/RIGHT. That is, you can use 5 keys instead of 9

[Alessandro]

My own shocker is that the laser swords on Rebelstar could cut through airlocks.

Horace's ponytail.

That was shocking.

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

For many years I believed Speccy is prounounced like Lucy, not like Becky With "si" at the end.

When I discovered Spectrum emulation through the Internet in 1997, I was surprised to see this "Speccy" thing popping up everywhere. Nobody here would call the Spectrum that way. Just a few years ago, by casually watching some Youtube video I cannot remember, I found that it was pronounced "Spek-KEE" instead of "Spec-CHEE" as I believed.

[uglifruit]

I bought the "Automata 10 Pack Volume One" when it was released loved it's quirkiness (with Pi-Balled and New Wheels John being particular favourites of mine). It was only in ~2017 when reading Mel Croucher's book "Deus Ex Machina - The Best Game You Never Played in Your Life" that 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!

Another...
Not so many years for the penny to drop with this one, but "NEXT D.A.W." (on the Spectrum Next) the Digital Audio Workstation (well, sequencer). I teach music technology for my job, and I say 'D.A.W.' and 'DAW' a lot. I'm very used to it meaning Digital Audio Workstation. I was very eager to try this Next sequencer when I first saw it mentioned as being in development, but it took me until this summer to get around to buying a physical copy of it. I had owned it for about two months before I said it's name out loud and realised I'd just called it "Next Door". I'd not spotted the pun name until that point.

[Einar Saukas]

For many years I believed Speccy is prounounced like Lucy, not like Becky With "si" at the end.

What???

Next thing you gonna tell me is that ZX-Spectrum is not spelled with a hyphen!

[R-Tape]

For many years I believed Speccy is prounounced like Lucy, not like Becky With "si" at the end.

Cast this scoundrel into the chasm!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I didn't even know Spectrum was called 'Speccy'.

And I don't want to tell you how I prononunce it...

[Turtle_Quality]

1) That the ZX Spectrum didn't just arrive on the market and there were loads of games on the shop shelves from day one. It took much of 1982 to go from mail order tapes to actually being commercially available on the high street, and even by the 1982, games were rare for shops.

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...

[Morkin]

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...

[5MinuteRetro]

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

Wuh?! It does? Which key?!

[Joefish]

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...

Huh? Whort are you taylking about?

You say 'Carmina', I say 'Carmana', you say 'Burina', I say 'Buranah', let's Carl the whole thing Orff. - Victor Lewis-Smith

[5MinuteRetro]

So mine is -- or I suppose was, as this isn't really a recent realisation so much as one that happened in adulthood -- that so many of the 1980s' software houses were literally based in houses (...flats above shops... garden sheds).

In my childhood mind, these businesses all existed in vast buildings with their own freeplay arcades, 24/7 bars and canteens stocked with exotic produce and garages full of super cars. Of course, in some cases that was at least partially true (Imagine) but I realise now that all too often the prosaic reality of the old-school software house was one-man-band coder outfits or a couple of spivs operating out of their own front rooms, exploiting talented local youngsters for profit.

[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?)