Spectrum Computing

Finally getting Bob the Space Janitor from my PC to actual Spectrum hardware!

This year I have been quite active

• My second physical media release, Doom Pit, the official sequel to Clive Townsend's Death Pit, published by Monument Microgames in a 2-tapes bundle with the earlier title.
• The enhanced and improved versions of Apulija-13 and the Al's Double Bill compilation.
• After a long time since my last contribution, I sent a complete solution to the Tipshop, the walkthrough for Unhallowed.
• I was interviewed by the Homebrew Legends website.
• I started a collaboration with Retro Magazine, an Italian retrocomputing/retrogaming fanzine, contributing articles for issues 9 and 10 so far.
• Two reviews for WOOT Tape Magazine.

Finally, I started new things that will see the light (I hope so! ) in the forthcoming year. Stay tuned

I'm back to make a ZX Spectrum game, after my last release in 2016 (a bit late, but it was a surprise to find Castaway reviewed in Crash Annual 2018; and a good review for such a little game!).

I wanted to write my own routines instead of using the SP1 library, both to learn and to make a good size 48K game before most likely moving to 128K (or may be not, I have a soft spot for the 48K models).

The speccy scene is quite busy, it'll be hard to get some attention; but I'm having fun, so it is OK!

Pretty sure I did nothing of (Speccy) interest in 2018!

Highlights for 2018 for me:

• Book - Guide to ZX Spectrum Games - 1985 to 1986 (Retro-Spective)
• Software - Nixy the Glade Sprite, Gandalf, Roust, Old Tower, Parachute and Woot!
• Tutorial - ZX Spectrum C Programmer's Getting Started Guide from [mention]dfzx[/mention]. I have always felt that z88dk had far to steep a learning curve and that the documentation needed some work. This series of tutorials is just amazing!
• Hardware - Whilst this has been available for a number of years, I only really started playing with the Interface 1bis from [mention]Dan Antohi[/mention] this year. It's a wonderful piece of kit. Being able to load games via WiFi from your PC is just outstanding. I struggled a bit with the documentation to start with (just the sheer amount of features), but get over that initial hurdle and its great!
• Other Highlights - Finally starting to get to grips with assembler. I will never be anywhere near as proficient as most of you here, but just being able to move characters on-screen and tell when they have hit something is a major achievement for me. Whilst the majority of the original Spectrum coding books (apart from the original Spectrum manual) were not that great, I found that Cracking The Code by John Wilson just seemed to work for me really well and I finally understood things. Combine this with How to Write ZX Spectrum Games from Jonathan Cauldwell and I was in heaven!
• Spectrum Computing - Its been fantastic to see this site grow so much over the last year (including the forum). So much new software is being released and its wonderful being able to archive it for us and future generations to enjoy. So many of you from all over the world have helped with the website and the preservation of software.

2018 saw me buckle down and sharpen my assembly skills to write myself some software (and some music) to enable me to perform a gig using two 48k spectrums.

Here's me practicing : https://youtu.be/cQcWz4JG-yk

Genuinely a proud moment for me.

uglifruit wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:32 pm 2018 saw me buckle down and sharpen my assembly skills to write myself some software (and some music) to enable me to perform a gig using two 48k spectrums.

You gotta be kidding! That's absolutely jaw dropping...

Excellent stuff..!

Did you get any groupies?

uglifruit wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:32 pm 2018 saw me buckle down and sharpen my assembly skills to write myself some software (and some music) to enable me to perform a gig using two 48k spectrums.

Hi uglifruit!

This is proper cool. What was the gig exactly? General electronic music, or retro-computer themed? And how did it go down?!

...2018 saw me buckle down and sharpen my assembly skills to write myself some software (and some music)

Should the software in question have a ZXDB ID?

Thanks.
The gig was an evening of music all in some way inspired by old computers. It took place in an arts space in Leicester, so was more about chin stroking and listening, rather than dancing. And there wasn't lots of groupies.

I don't know if the software is anything anyone else would want, as it's rather specific to the pieces I performed (as well as containing some of the elements of music as triggerable patterns, the software I put together contains a set of audio engines, some which started life as beepola .asm that I hacked about to give me realtime control of the playback - and each had quite different methods of control regarding what keypresses did/when they needed to be pressed). In this video, for instance, is pretty clear that in the second half I move from the pattern based engine to a more obvious payable chromatic synth on the spectrum on my right:
https://youtu.be/KfNXTjF3KP4

I vaguely plan to make the compositions available as audio recordings at some point. (Probably an e.p. of bleeping spectrum stuff).