Spectrum Computing

bluespikey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:57 pmMy own shocker is that the laser swords on Rebelstar could cut through airlocks.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:25 pm Horace's ponytail.

That was shocking.

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

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:48 amFor 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.

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.

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:48 amFor 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!

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:48 am For many years I believed Speccy is prounounced like Lucy, not like Becky With "si" at the end.

Cast this scoundrel into the chasm!

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

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

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:48 pm 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...

uglifruit wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:30 pm 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...

bluespikey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:57 pm ...some people left who are stunned to discover that Jetpac had a hover key

Wuh?! It does? Which key?!

Morkin wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:46 am

uglifruit wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:30 pm 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

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.

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!

Alessandro wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:40 pm
I second that. For me, Horace will always have arms.

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

5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 9:41 am

bluespikey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:57 pm ...some people left who are stunned to discover that Jetpac had a hover key

Wuh?! It does? Which key?!

Number keys will do hover

RWAC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:28 am

Alessandro wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:40 pm
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?

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?)

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.

uglifruit wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:39 pm

presh wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:32 pm 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.

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!

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).

Morkin wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:46 am

uglifruit wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:30 pm 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".

Alessandro wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:07 pm "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.

Alessandro wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:07 pm

Morkin wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:46 am 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..

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:37 pm

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!)

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!)

uglifruit wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:12 pm 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.