An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Does anyone have any suggestions for a short machine code routine that crashes the Speccy in a visually and/or audibly impressive way, and returns it to a NEW state?
(and if yes, can I rip it off in my next game? )
(and if yes, can I rip it off in my next game? )
- MatGubbins
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Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Bunging a paper clip on the expansion port usually works a treat!
Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Heh. Another Speccy to add to eBay's 'not tested but working' pile.MatGubbins wrote: ↑Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:44 pm Bunging a paper clip on the expansion port usually works a treat!
The best I can managed so far is a lazy border effect LDing down from the top of memory.
It might have to do, argh, in which case I should have kept it to myself
- Ast A. Moore
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Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Darn it. If I know you collected artsy Speccy crashes, I would have save a few for you. Just a few days ago I was making a fix for a game (don’t even remember which one), and it crashed just the way you want it: a few seconds of loading/saving sounds with the usual border animation followed by some random patterns on the screen and a reset.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
- 1024MAK
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Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
The first year that I got my hands on a Speccy, when I had got my head around the normal BASIC commands and functions, I started playing with POKE and USR. I tried many combinations in the search for useful or interesting effects. But I did not keep much in the way of notes. And what I did keep, were typed up on said ZX Spectrum and printed on thermal paper. Paper that has not aged well...
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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: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
I used to do the same thing. I still have "RANDOMISE USR 2272" committed to memory after all these years. But it doesn't end in a reset so it's not what the OP wants.
Derek Fountain, author of the ZX Spectrum C Programmer's Getting Started Guide and various open source games, hardware and other projects, including an IF1 and ZX Microdrive emulator.
Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
You might get some interesting effects by messing around with the I and R registers, for example setting I to point to contended memory.
I think Tomahawk also has some screen corruption effects for when you crash.
I think Tomahawk also has some screen corruption effects for when you crash.
- PROSM
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Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
The problem is that altering the I register would only crash the 128K machines IIRC, whereas the 16K/48K models continue to work (albeit with the screen snow still).
Changing R would probably only cause real Spectrums to crash, I don't know of any emulator that simulates DRAM leakage.
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Working on something, as always.
- Ast A. Moore
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Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
I did extensive testing some time ago to verify this hypothesis (I documented in on WoS), and I was unable to crash the 128K Speccy no matter how hard I tried. So there’s little substance to this notion.
That is not to say you can’t crash any Spectrum “the regular” way by messing with the interrupt vector register. Quite the opposite.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Maybe:
Change the JP 26000 to JP 0 to reset obviously! I left it at self as it then generates some slightly different patterns, just break/space a few times:
I did try a few other variations on this such as DI and/or doing something like LD A,R as well as playing with the Call address a bit, without a great deal of other effects really. I thought about more detailed border effects but it seemed a bit o.t.t.
Code: Select all
ORG 26000
XOR (HL)
LD DE,16384
LD BC,6912
LDIR
CALL 1335
JP 26000
I did try a few other variations on this such as DI and/or doing something like LD A,R as well as playing with the Call address a bit, without a great deal of other effects really. I thought about more detailed border effects but it seemed a bit o.t.t.
Re: An impressive way to crash the Speccy?
Slightly off-topic, but there was a game that simulated a 48K Speccy reset just for fun. No vertical red lines, but it was enough to trick my friends back then.
- Einar Saukas
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