What do you now know many years later

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
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bluespikey
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What do you now know many years later

Post by bluespikey »

All these years, there are still some people left who are stunned to discover that Jetpac had a hover key, or Sabrewulf was slightly 3D. Or Lloyd mangram didn't exist.

My own shocker is that the laser swords on Rebelstar could cut through airlocks. That would have made the combat droids much more useful and changed every one of the dozens of games I played.

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Morkin
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Morkin »

I never realised until more recent times that the playable characters in Atic Atac - knight, wizard, serf - have different movement inertia/momentum.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by smurphboy »

That there is a code for the teleport in Starquake that you can see on screen and then type in, to get to that area which is otherwise inaccessible. I just read the list of codes in a mag!
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Vampyre »

Morkin wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:18 pm I never realised until more recent times that the playable characters in Atic Atac - knight, wizard, serf - have different movement inertia/momentum.
Never knew that! I knew that they obviously had different weapons and could go through different objects (bookcase for the Wizard? etc) but had no idea about the momentum!
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GreenCard
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by GreenCard »

smurphboy wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:18 pm That there is a code for the teleport in Starquake that you can see on screen and then type in, to get to that area which is otherwise inaccessible. I just read the list of codes in a mag!
I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it! :shock:
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Horace's ponytail.

That was shocking.
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bluespikey
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by bluespikey »

GreenCard wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:16 pm

I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it! :shock:
Isn't it Exile? It's pointed to by a signpost on the next screen and the area fills the bottom left part of the map iirc
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by GreenCard »

bluespikey wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:29 pm
GreenCard wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:16 pm

I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it! :shock:
Isn't it Exile? It's pointed to by a signpost on the next screen and the area fills the bottom left part of the map iirc
No, Exial is definitely accessible. If I remember rightly, it's not far from Irage. :)
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Joefish »

That the 'Nightmare Room' version of Miner Willy was supposed to be a flying pig (I thought it was a sort of mythical winged griffin), and thus the 'Emergency Generator' in the roof was supposed to be Battersea Power Station with a pig flying over it; a reference to the cover of Pink Floyd's 'Animals'.

And Gwyn Hughes and Rachael Smith didn't exist either; they were just a few of the pseudonyms regular Crash freelancer John Minson used for contributions to YS.
Last edited by Joefish on Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by GreenCard »

bluespikey wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:29 pm
GreenCard wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:16 pm

I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it! :shock:
Isn't it Exile? It's pointed to by a signpost on the next screen and the area fills the bottom left part of the map iirc
I've just looked up a map online. It's Amiga, there is indeed a signpost for it in the adjacent room. I've definitely seen that place and used that code before, so I dunno, must've got it from a magazine, or from my brother perhaps, I highly doubt I would've figured it out from the signpost as a kid. :)
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by smurphboy »

GreenCard wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:16 pm
smurphboy wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:18 pm That there is a code for the teleport in Starquake that you can see on screen and then type in, to get to that area which is otherwise inaccessible. I just read the list of codes in a mag!
I've played that game to death since I was a kid, and until now I've been totally unaware of this! Any idea what the code is? I must see this inaccessible area! I *must* see it! :shock:
AMIGA in the bottom left. There is a sign next to a dead body and you can see the teleport on the next screen but only the code will let you in. You need it if there is a core part in that section.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by PeteProdge »

1) That the ZX Spectrum didn't just arrive on the market and there were loads of games on the shop shelves from day one. It took much of 1982 to go from mail order tapes to actually being commercially available on the high street, and even by the 1982, games were rare for shops.

2) How long the Speccy went on for into the 1990s over in eastern Europe after it was deemed commercially obsolete in the UK.

3) Programmers often slept on office floors and pulled all-nighters to meet deadlines.

4) How close the Spectrum came to be the official computer for UK schools (losing out to Acorn's efforts).

5) Some dickheads will put Hit Squad cassettes up for sale at a three figure sum, FFS.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by animaal »

PeteProdge wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:48 pm3) Programmers often slept on office floors and pulled all-nighters to meet deadlines.
Yes, me too. In my youth I had imagined that a hit game meant instant fame and fortune. In hindsight, I have a better understanding of the pressures and sometimes bad working conditions that some put up with in order to do what they loved. And while there was money to be made, not many became wealthy from it.
PeteProdge wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:48 pm5) Some dickheads will put Hit Squad cassettes up for sale at a three figure sum, FFS.
Weren't they always £1.99 or £2.99? :lol:

I'll add one myself. As a youngster I had some disdain for "minority" home computers such as the Oric or Dragon. With the benefit of (a little) maturity, I can now recognise the rich ecosystem we had back then, the variety of machines with different design philosophies and strengths/limitations. Machines that I would have laughed at back then, such as the Jupiter Ace, I now view with a mixture of curiosity and desire. It's never too late to learn.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by TMD2003 »

Since embarking on the world of emulation (circa 1998), I solved a few mysteries and discovered a few tips and tricks that had always baffled me as a nipper:

(1) Where the final piece of the submarine is in Blood & Guts
(2) Blood & Guts was remade as Fantastic Voyage and was a lot harder
(3) That the copy of Arena on the Sinclair Research / Argus Press Games Compilation that steadfastly refused to load wasn't Arena at all, it was Xadom
(4) Issue 2 and Issue 3 keyboards don't work the same way when tested with the IN function
(5) How to POKE the display file
(6) The +3's sound output is ruined harder than the original release of Rush's Vapor Trails
(7) INK/PAPER/BRIGHT 8 is actually useful
(8) My +2 was always slightly defective
(9) I was also always slightly defective...
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by cmal »

I never knew that turbo mode in Bomb Jack made you jump higher. I never even bothered to try it because I assumed it made the game run faster.
Therefore I could never pass the 5th level and figured there's some trick to passing the level. Thanks to the HSC contest I found this out.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Cosmium »

1) That the IY index register can actually be used without fear if you use it carefully!

2) About RAM contention with the ULA screen refresh. I had no idea at the time why certain sound routines sounded so bad when placed in the lower 32K of RAM :oops:

Then again I didn't have any Spectrum books and anything new was gleaned from experimenting or magazine articles. No quick internet searches in the 80s!
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Cosmium »

Cosmium wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 7:30 am 2) About RAM contention with the ULA screen refresh. I had no idea at the time why certain sound routines sounded so bad when placed in the lower 32K of RAM :oops:
I should probably clarify that I mean addressing RAM in the lower 32K address space :geek:
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Rorthron »

TMD2003 wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:43 pm INK/PAPER/BRIGHT 8 is actually useful
Whaddayamean, 8???
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Alone Coder »

That the original Speccy had very crazy contention timings. Until the 2000's, I thought that there were just even T-states (like early "yellow" Scorpion), and you only need to know the number of T-states in a line.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Ralf »

For many years I believed Speccy is prounounced like Lucy, not like Becky ;) With "si" at the end.

This name wasn't used in Poland where I live. I only learnt it through internet and saw it written but never spoken.
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by presh »

I only recently found out that you can throw people in Renegade. 128K only, mind - I only had the 48K version back in the day!

I think it's UP + BACK + FIRE while grabbing.

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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by presh »

Rorthron wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:26 am
TMD2003 wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:43 pm INK/PAPER/BRIGHT 8 is actually useful
Whaddayamean, 8???
8 is transparent / unchanged - so if you do PRINT INK 7; PAPER 8; "SOMETHING", the text will have white INK but the existing PAPER colour of each cell will remain unchanged
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by Ralf »

8 is transparent / unchanged - so if you do PRINT INK 7; PAPER 8; "SOMETHING", the text will have white INK but the existing PAPER colour of each cell will remain unchanged
Wouldn't it be the same as simply PRINT INK 7; "SOMETHING" ?
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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by uglifruit »

presh wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:32 pm
Rorthron wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:26 am Whaddayamean, 8???
8 is transparent / unchanged - so if you do PRINT INK 7; PAPER 8; "SOMETHING", the text will have white INK but the existing PAPER colour of each cell will remain unchanged
Shh, you'll be giving away the secrets of INK / PAPER 9 next.

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Re: What do you now know many years later

Post by uglifruit »

Here are a couple of BASIC things I didn't know 'til recently.

GOTO jumps take longer to execute the further into the program that the line they jump to is located. I read about that on this forum, and went back and changed my 'Physiced' program to put the game loop at the top and it ran notably quicker.


It was only when reading the Next manual, cover to cover a couple of months ago that I found out that Sinclair BASIC could use:
LET A$="ABCDEFGH"

PRINT A$( TO 4) ; giving "ABCD"
PRINT A$(4 TO ) ; giving "DEFGH"

I've spent 38 years not knowing that you didn't need to use both arguments. I'd previously always used:

PRINT A$(0 TO 4)
PRINT A$(4 TO LEN A$)

...for my LEFT$ / RIGHT$ functions.
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