BEEP VAL

The place for codemasters or beginners to talk about programming any language for the Spectrum.
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1bvl109
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Re: BEEP VAL

Post by 1bvl109 »

ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm But for a Speccy? 16kb of tape took a while to load. Having to do that every time you booted up would be a real PITA.
If you don't like waiting and love the ROM so much, as to use it every day, we have a ROM to sell them. Or a microdrive.
ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm And as the Speccy had no soft-reset system (which would have cost more to put in - witness the 48k+'s reset switch that literally cut the power, grounding the CPU - minimal cost) the ROM would have to be re-loaded after every game you played.
That's up to the programmer, whether he would give his user a magic SYSREQ or if he likes to use the shinny aditional 16k. We wash our hands of it.
ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm It's unlikely that as attractive as a full 64kb was making it work just was either too expensive or too unfriendly to the user.
Now is this the glorious land of capitalism or not? We're gona take them for a ride and make them loving it, begging for it!
They are loading 48k on the slower and less reliable 81. They'll load 64k games and love us.
"Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it." - H.L. Mencken
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ZXDunny
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Re: BEEP VAL

Post by ZXDunny »

1bvl109 wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:01 pm
ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm But for a Speccy? 16kb of tape took a while to load. Having to do that every time you booted up would be a real PITA.
If you don't like waiting and love the ROM so much, as to use it every day, we have a ROM to sell them. Or a microdrive.
ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm And as the Speccy had no soft-reset system (which would have cost more to put in - witness the 48k+'s reset switch that literally cut the power, grounding the CPU - minimal cost) the ROM would have to be re-loaded after every game you played.
That's up to the programmer, whether he would give his user a magic SYSREQ or if he likes to use the shinny aditional 16k. We wash our hands of it.
ZXDunny wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:03 pm It's unlikely that as attractive as a full 64kb was making it work just was either too expensive or too unfriendly to the user.
Now is this the glorious land of capitalism or not? We're gona take them for a ride and make them loving it, begging for it!
They are loading 48k on the slower and less reliable 81. They'll load 64k games and love us.
Who was loading 48k of data on a ZX81?
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1bvl109
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Re: BEEP VAL

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1024MAK wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:05 pm Hmm, I think something got lost, now what was it?

Ahh yes, Sir Clive Sinclair set the specifications. As the owner of the company he was responsible for deciding what features were in and which were dropped.
And as such unsusceptible in every aspect to the lure of gold?
1024MAK wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:05 pm And you do know that Clive aimed the ZX Spectrum at the educational market and the hobbyist market. It was never intended to be a games machine.
So...?

1024MAK wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:05 pmFrom the limited information available, I get the impression that the ZX Spectrum ULA was the most complex ULA that Ferranti has made at the time. So it may already have been pushing the limits...
We can leave this at we don't know, if you want to. I just don't like to jump from "This was El Ceapos Computer!" and "There could have been restriction in the ULA" to "It didn't fit". I'll think this over, of someone say from Ferranti, Amstrad or Sinclair/Cambridge Research talks.
of course,
1024MAK wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:05 pm Oh, and by the way, Sinclair expected the 16K byte ZX Spectrum to be the most popular, not the 48K byte model. The 16K byte ZX Spectrum was upgradable internally or externally, hence 32K byte RAM packs do exist.
This doesn't contradict to expect people who want even more.

I also don't see any second thoughts, as the numbers came in.
"Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it." - H.L. Mencken
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1bvl109
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Re: BEEP VAL

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ZXDunny wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:18 pm Who was loading 48k of data on a ZX81?
E.g. I knew someone who did the housekeeping of his business (a small electronics shop) with a 64 Memopak, with self written programs. He also sold them with quite some success. He used some of this speedloaders which had a hardware add on and recommended it to his costumers.

The most reliable recorder I had was actually a stereo boombox.
"Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it." - H.L. Mencken
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ZXDunny
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Re: BEEP VAL

Post by ZXDunny »

1bvl109 wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:39 pm
ZXDunny wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:18 pm Who was loading 48k of data on a ZX81?
E.g. I knew someone who did the housekeeping of his business (a small electronics shop) with a 64 Memopak, with self written programs. He also sold them with quite some success. He used some of this speedloaders which had a hardware add on and recommended it to his costumers.

The most reliable recorder I had was actually a stereo boombox.
Yes, I am aware of memory expansions, but they weren't commonly owned by non-enthusiasts - I certainly never came across them, but read about them in the magazines of the time. The point was that if you were poor you had a 1Kb ZX81, if you were well-off financially you might have had a 16K ZX81.

So very few people had more than that - so there was very little comparison between loading times on a ZX81 (which typically loaded less data) and a Spectrum.
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alban lusitanae
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Re: BEEP VAL

Post by alban lusitanae »

When your post gains a life of its own. So beautiful :D :D
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1bvl109
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Re: BEEP VAL

Post by 1bvl109 »

alban lusitanae wrote: Sat Jul 20, 2019 11:07 am So beautiful :D :D
It's called post kidnapping or postnapping. We'll see, who's laughing, when the ransom demand reaches you.

In totally unrelated news: Is there a bitcoin client for the Spectrum?

I had my grandniece (3) code one, but she keeps complaining that my assembler IDE is quirky.
"Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it." - H.L. Mencken
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