Spectrum Computing

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed some changes we made earlier today to the 'download section' on the game pages.

[mention]4thRock[/mention] has worked wonders on the new design which gives a more tabular style as can be seen in the example image below:



The new section includes an icon indicating the file type (disk or tape) as well as release year, publisher and language. The icons are provided by Flaticon and we have provided a link back to their site as they request.

The additional downloads section has also been improved with improved layouts and icons used to identify file types:



I'm really pleased with the new layout.

Looks much better now, for sure.
You’ll want to prioritize TZXs over TAPs, though. Currently, they seem to be sorted alphabetically, but since a TZX is an exact (more or less) replica of the original tape, it should take precedence over other formats.

Interesting [mention]Ast A. Moore[/mention] . I have been using my ZX-Uno a lot recently so I'm looking for .tap files first as I don't believe ESXDOS supports tzx format.

Looking good, though sadly I think you chose the one of the worst cassette icons from the available icons at Flaticon. I'd suggest one of the simpler ones and you can even amend the colour of the icon of you were to login then edit.

[mention]redballoon[/mention] we looked at hundreds, and all the colour choices! If we want to change it in the future it's just a case of changing the graphic on the server.

Ha! I purged all TAP files from my collection many moons ago.

Most of the TAP versions of original/commercial Spectrum software were obtained by cracking/reverse engineering the original loaders anyway, so, while they’re okay to use in a pinch (especially, like you mention, on a subset of systems that can’t handle TZX), they are essentially the antithesis of software preservation.

PeterJ wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:50 pm @redballoon we looked at hundreds, and all the colour choices! If we want to change it in the future it's just a case of changing the graphic on the server.

Oh I know - There's far too much choice, isn't there? It's an easy change to implement any chosen icon. Personally, I just think the current one looks out of place. I know, I know, we could be here all year

[mention]redballoon[/mention] and possibly the year after that

The work, dedication and new changes are very welcome. You are great guys.
I must agree with Redbaloon as for the tape icon which is ......... IMHO. No big deal though, it's a matter of tastes.
To me it's more important that images cannot be enlarged with your fingers on touch devices.

At least you could turn the tape icon the right way up!

I'm to blame for the icon selection... and I do like that tape!
Reminds me of some game tapes I had back in the day.
And since I used a Walkman to load tapes, it's the right way up

Seriously, I'm never too attached to any specific graphic or layout on the web. So the icons will eventually change, no problem there!

About zooming on images: On the downloads listing the images are there for preview. They are replacing the icons.
But I get the point and perhaps we should have a slideshow section to display and zoom on images.

I like all those icons. They help to quickly recognize all the stuff.

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:33 pm Looks much better now, for sure.
You’ll want to prioritize TZXs over TAPs, though. Currently, they seem to be sorted alphabetically, but since a TZX is an exact (more or less) replica of the original tape, it should take precedence over other formats.

Agree. And the original release over the re-release versions.

The same to 'aditional file downloads' (1st, original release, 2nd, re-releases). And in this section, it'd be better displayed in some sort of order: 1 Inlays, 2 Instructions, 3 Adverts, ...

Just my opinion!

All the bytes would fall out of the bottom if you turned the tape upside down.

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 8:04 pm All the bytes would fall out of the bottom if you turned the tape upside down.

Don’t be silly. A responsible owner always puts the tape back in its case after use. And it’s trivial to pour any stray bytes back into the cassette.

Mmm. Can’t download Gandalf for some reason.

Weird. Just worked fine for me. Can you download other games?

Just tried too [mention]Ast A. Moore[/mention] and it seems fine with me. Odd.

Yeah, it’s weird. I tried a few other random titles. All work okay. Will try with another browser.

EDIT: Okay, false alarm (well, for you). Tried it on the phone and it worked. Totally bizarre. Sorry for the trouble.
EDIT #2: Cleared some browser caches is all is working now. I should’ve never upgraded to this fancy new “personal” computer. The Spectrum has always worked fine for me. No cookies, no incriminating browser history, no caches . . .

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 3:27 pm EDIT #2: Cleared some browser caches is all is working now. I should’ve never upgraded to this fancy new “personal” computer. The Spectrum has always worked fine for me. No cookies, no incriminating browser history, no caches . . .

*dons tin foil hat *
Call me paranoid but I always suspected after what Google did with the Candid data set they would be doing a similar thing with the incognito browsing setting - sure everything you do in this window is no trace.. trust us... we wont tell Assuming its not a google browser, would Apple or Microsoft have any more scruples?

I was always shocked just how much you can find out about a person just by looking at the cookies on a PC, I think even normies would be very surprised how completely a combination of browsing history + cookies can type a person. Even if someone is the definition of milk-toast just the level of insight that can be gained is frighting - Even if "they" are just using this data to sell widgets to the end user I can't help but think of the potential for abuse.

*remove tin foil hat - queen of diamonds*

everything is fine.

Nomad wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 7:18 pm Assuming its not a google browser, would Apple or Microsoft have any more scruples?

Don’t think so. Apple might have a slight edge, as its main business is selling hardware (at least publicly). Google just outright sells you to the highest bidder. I try to avoid Google products as much as I can, but still use Gmail (via an email client only; never through via a browser) and, alas, You Too, Brutus. And, of course, I use various anti-tracking, ad-blocking browser extensions. Still, it’s an arms race.

Anyway, we got off-topic. The topic is, of course:
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJIQm9qH-w[/media]