ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Hi
i have the DVD from the season 1 of The IT crowd, and the intro is a loading screen "Spectrum like" (i don't know if this is a real screen or not).
The video is here :
And there is a sound. I have tried to decode the sound, but with no success. I have tried with many software.
I have dumped the sound in WAV : down.dandu.be/ep00.wav
I'm not an expert, but i think it's a ZX Spectrum sound, because i have dumped many sound from vinyl for my blog (the page is in french : https://www.journaldulapin.com/2021/08/ ... e-vinyles/ ) and i like old computer code hidden into vinyl, CD, etc.
Can you help me ? Is this a ZX Spectrum sound ?
i have the DVD from the season 1 of The IT crowd, and the intro is a loading screen "Spectrum like" (i don't know if this is a real screen or not).
The video is here :
And there is a sound. I have tried to decode the sound, but with no success. I have tried with many software.
I have dumped the sound in WAV : down.dandu.be/ep00.wav
I'm not an expert, but i think it's a ZX Spectrum sound, because i have dumped many sound from vinyl for my blog (the page is in french : https://www.journaldulapin.com/2021/08/ ... e-vinyles/ ) and i like old computer code hidden into vinyl, CD, etc.
Can you help me ? Is this a ZX Spectrum sound ?
- Alessandro
- Dynamite Dan
- Posts: 1910
- Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:10 am
- Location: Messina, Italy
- Contact:
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
It is a Spectrum standard ROM loading sound in fact, and to me it sounds pretty much like part of a screen memory dump while loading, the pixel data that usually goes between addresses 16384 and 22528. The problem is, being just a small part, without header and the rest, you won't be able to load it into a Spectrum either real or emulated.
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
It is possible, as discussed in this topic (where I'm still hoping to get some help):
viewtopic.php?t=6978&hilit=code&start=10
I don't know assembler, but I'm sure someone could modify the following code to load data in the screen area as bytes instead of characters. The routine doesn't care if the audio has header or not. It displays whatever it listens too. Even if we ended up with a garbled mess, we could play with the width afterwards until we find something recognizable. It's what we do with sprite finding tools.
viewtopic.php?t=6978&hilit=code&start=10
I don't know assembler, but I'm sure someone could modify the following code to load data in the screen area as bytes instead of characters. The routine doesn't care if the audio has header or not. It displays whatever it listens too. Even if we ended up with a garbled mess, we could play with the width afterwards until we find something recognizable. It's what we do with sprite finding tools.
Code: Select all
10 ORG 40000
20 DI
30 LD HL,#53F
40 PUSH HL
50 LD DE,#4000
60 LBYTE LD A,#7F
70 IN A,(#FE)
80 RRA
90 RET NC
100 NBYTE LD L,1
110 LD BC,#B201
120 LBITS CALL #5E3
130 JR NC,LBYTE
140 LD A,#CB
150 CP B
160 RL L
170 LD B,#B0
180 JR NC,LBITS
190 BIT 7,L
200 JR NZ,LBITS
210 LD A,L
220 CP " " <SPACE
230 JR NC,OK
240 LD L," " <SPACE
250 OK LD H,0
260 ADD HL,HL
270 ADD HL,HL
280 ADD HL,HL
290 LD BC,15360
300 ADD HL,BC
310 LD C,D
320 LD B,8
330 PCHAR LD A,(HL)
340 LD (DE),A
350 INC HL
360 INC D
370 DJNZ PCHAR
380 LD D,C
390 INC E
400 JR NZ,NBYTE
410 LD A,D
420 CP #48
430 LD D,#50
440 JR Z,NBYTE
450 LD D,#40
460 JR NC,NBYTE
470 LD D,#48
480 JR NBYTE
- flatduckrecords
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 798
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 11:47 am
- Location: Oban, Scotland
- Contact:
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Here's my first attempt with @zxbruno's code. (The atricle in Microhobby is really interesting, but I haven't finished translating/reading it yet!)
Looks like something…might be there? Perhaps a graphics-finder tool would reveal more as you suggested @zxbruno.
(It's interesting how it responds to the little snippet of theme tune!)
And here's a control case, using the same code to load from a game tape, just to show it "working":
And here's the modified code (mostly the same, but with the character printing and ASCII-checking taken out)
Looks like something…might be there? Perhaps a graphics-finder tool would reveal more as you suggested @zxbruno.
(It's interesting how it responds to the little snippet of theme tune!)
And here's a control case, using the same code to load from a game tape, just to show it "working":
And here's the modified code (mostly the same, but with the character printing and ASCII-checking taken out)
Code: Select all
ORG 40000
DI
LD HL,#53F
PUSH HL
LD DE,#4000 ; DE=destination (in this case, screen display file)
LBYTE LD A,#7F
IN A,(#FE) ;Read keyboard & mic port $7FFE (bit 6 is mic, bit 0 is SPACE key)
RRA ;The Carry becomes the bit leaving on the right
RET NC ;ret if break pressed
NBYTE LD L,1
LD BC,#B201 ;timing constant etc for LD-EDGE-2
LBITS CALL #5E3 ;LD-EDGE-2
JR NC,LBYTE ;Cflag=0 if error
LD A,#CB
CP B
RL L
LD B,#B0
JR NC,LBITS
LD A,L
LD (DE),A
INC DE
JR NBYTE
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Nice work! I don't suppose you saved that screen? It might not be graphics so it'd be nice to see the bytes.
- flatduckrecords
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 798
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 11:47 am
- Location: Oban, Scotland
- Contact:
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Nothing jumps out to me in the hex view but I’ll upload the file shortly in case anyone wants to take a look.
- flatduckrecords
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 798
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 11:47 am
- Location: Oban, Scotland
- Contact:
- 1024MAK
- Bugaboo
- Posts: 3134
- Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:52 pm
- Location: Sunny Somerset in the U.K. in Europe
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
The “rough disassembly” link just gets me a 404 error
Mark
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Thank you for your help !
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
It doesn't make any sense as code, but some of it looks like it's trying to be graphics. I can't take a pic just now, but viewing it in 8 pixel chunks there is structure and pattern from the off. Could still be gobbledegook of course.
Isn't it more likely to be actual Speccy loading noise rather than something entirely fabricated? I would have thought doing the latter would be harder.
Isn't it more likely to be actual Speccy loading noise rather than something entirely fabricated? I would have thought doing the latter would be harder.
- 1024MAK
- Bugaboo
- Posts: 3134
- Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:52 pm
- Location: Sunny Somerset in the U.K. in Europe
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
My thoughts…
It doesn’t look like a machine code program to me. Even ignoring the start, after a run of NOPs it makes no sense. And it does not look like pseudo random data.
It could be graphic data, but at which position it starts in screen memory, if it is screen data, is another matter.
Mark
It doesn’t look like a machine code program to me. Even ignoring the start, after a run of NOPs it makes no sense. And it does not look like pseudo random data.
It could be graphic data, but at which position it starts in screen memory, if it is screen data, is another matter.
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
It could be leveldata, which could give it a repeatable structure, but be much harder to identify than code or graphics.
Website: Tardis Remakes / Mostly remakes of Arcade and ZX Spectrum games.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation & Sqij.
Twitter: Sokurah
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation & Sqij.
Twitter: Sokurah
- MatGubbins
- Dynamite Dan
- Posts: 1239
- Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:45 am
- Location: Kent, UK
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
How do we bring up pages of loading screens on Spectrum Computing?
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
In the search, under 'results layout' you can select 'load screens only'. Is that what you mean?MatGubbins wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 11:34 am How do we bring up pages of loading screens on Spectrum Computing?
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
If anyone has most of the existing Spectrum software collection on their hard drive, would it be possible to look for this block on code on that hard drive? Someone a few months ago said it would be easy to do if we were looking for part of a loading screen.
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
We should have a contest to guess where it's from. My money's on Stonkers.
- flatduckrecords
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 798
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 11:47 am
- Location: Oban, Scotland
- Contact:
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
If it turns out to be another Pringles advert I don't know if I'll be upset, or impressed!
- Van_Dammesque
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 437
- Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:09 pm
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
The .scr and post by Bruno show a few lines that should not be there due to the music playing, can you upload a scr without the music effect, i.e at 24 seconds of your video?
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Agree, the last 8 or 9 tones at the end of the video seems beeper music. They make the punctuated lines.Van_Dammesque wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 5:51 pm The .scr and post by Bruno show a few lines that should not be there due to the music playing, can you upload a scr without the music effect, i.e at 24 seconds of your video?
- MatGubbins
- Dynamite Dan
- Posts: 1239
- Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:45 am
- Location: Kent, UK
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
This little program will copy the data to the screen at every location (without the crappy music bytes at the end) and eventually shuffle into the attributes and crash. Pressing break will exit to basic, run again and it will start again.
Is there anything there within the data? Possible, but it seems just to be data for a game, levels or partial screen data combined with rubbish.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/3fjbx5
Have fun with IT (Crowd).....
Is there anything there within the data? Possible, but it seems just to be data for a game, levels or partial screen data combined with rubbish.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/3fjbx5
Have fun with IT (Crowd).....
- flatduckrecords
- Manic Miner
- Posts: 798
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 11:47 am
- Location: Oban, Scotland
- Contact:
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Yeah I actually went back to @Dandu's extracted audio to try again afresh (with the music clipped off as well). I had been using a tape recording from YouTube so I tried directly playing the .wav from computer into the Spectrum (and tried a couple of different Spectrums for good measure!)Van_Dammesque wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 5:51 pm The .scr and post by Bruno show a few lines that should not be there due to the music playing, can you upload a scr without the music effect, i.e at 24 seconds of your video?
Re-ran it a few times but I get different results each time. I guess because there's no leader tone, it's not possible to say where the byte boundaries are within the bit stream? Even loading the .wav directly into Fuse generates different bytes each time.
Any errors are ignored and those erroneous bits will be dropped—which would mean the following bits would then 'shuffle up' and be offset from where they should be. That would skew the bitmap part of a SCREEN$, but I think it would totally scramble any machine code.
Anyway here's the .tap file I've been using if anyone wants to try (thanks for posting yours @MatGubbins). (And sorry, I should have posted that sooner!) If you use a DivMMC: once the program has loaded remember to BREAK in and issue .tapein -c to close the tape file and allow loading from the Ear socket.
byteloader.tap
48k_1
48k_2
Harlequin1
Harlequin2
Fuse1
Fuse2
I think the Fuse results look the most structured, but it could just be some sort of UDG pareidolia that makes me think so.
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
Too bad that Graham Linehan was banned from Twitter - we could've asked him if he knew.
Does anyone know if he's on Instagram or Facebook?
Does anyone know if he's on Instagram or Facebook?
Website: Tardis Remakes / Mostly remakes of Arcade and ZX Spectrum games.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation & Sqij.
Twitter: Sokurah
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation & Sqij.
Twitter: Sokurah
- MatGubbins
- Dynamite Dan
- Posts: 1239
- Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:45 am
- Location: Kent, UK
Re: ZX Spectrum code on The IT Crowd DVD ?
So you're getting different data bytes each time and a different byte count too! Oh crap!
Here's all 6 of the files processed in the same style as before. They will crash when the attribute area starts to fill up.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/xglcpb
I've looked for sprites within the data, but nothing stands out either.
Maybe it just needs that one hit at getting the correct data sync and things might pop into line. Some of the data does seem to form a title logo/shape when the scrolling is paused at a certain time, but eyes and the brain do play those tricks of filling in the blank spaces.
Here's all 6 of the files processed in the same style as before. They will crash when the attribute area starts to fill up.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/xglcpb
I've looked for sprites within the data, but nothing stands out either.
Maybe it just needs that one hit at getting the correct data sync and things might pop into line. Some of the data does seem to form a title logo/shape when the scrolling is paused at a certain time, but eyes and the brain do play those tricks of filling in the blank spaces.