ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 10:07 am

The latest ZXDB update has been applied.

Peter

pavero · Post by **pavero** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 10:54 am

Bratrstvo kočičí pracky by @pavero
Compress Copy 128K + by @PeterJ
Jolly Joe Volley by @PeterJ
Wordmaster by @PeterJ
Sound Mixer 2 by @PeterJ
High Speed Copier by @PeterJ
Wolfgang 1 (The Castle of Doom) by @PeterJ
Wolfgang 2 (The Temple of Horror) by @PeterJ
Wolfgang 3 (The City of Death) by @PeterJ
Squids In by @PeterJ
Moire by @PeterJ
Stream Lister by @PeterJ
Jackpot by @Neil Parsons
Supalanda by @Neil Parsons
Formel tv by @kolbeck
Payday by @Neil Parsons
Voyager by @Neil Parsons
SP-Easel by @Neil Parsons
Crib Player by @Neil Parsons
Golf by @Neil Parsons
Pam Ferris's Ferrous Ferries by @R-Tape
BOMBERBOT by @R-Tape
Mickey and Donald G&W by @R-Tape
Cosmic by @Einar Saukas
BorielRunner 48k by @R-Tape
Qix by @Neil Parsons
Totoloto 45/6 by @Andre Leao
Batalha Naval by @Einar Saukas
Batmanolo contra el ataque mutante a Lloricatown by @R-Tape
Nine Men's Morris by @Neil Parsons
WizardsTower by @PeterJ
The Temple by @PeterJ
Wizard's Tower by @PeterJ
Worm Race by @PeterJ

pavero · Post by **pavero** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 1:35 pm

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:30 pm

A large number of book PDFs have also been added with this update:

Games for Your ZX81

More Games for Your ZX81

The Complete Sinclair Database

Learning to Use the ZX Spectrum Computer

The Art of Programming the ZX Spectrum

The ZX80 Companion. This one was found on Sinclair ZX World and I'm very grateful to Lardo Boffin & bola_dor for scanning this and making it available.

pavero · Post by **pavero** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:35 pm

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:43 pm

Thanks to @ionut76 for providing the following Romanian titles. Compress Copy 128K +, Jolly Joe Volley, Wordmaster, Sound Mixer 2, High Speed Copier, Wolfgang 1 (The Castle of Doom), Wolfgang 2 (The Temple of Horror), Wolfgang 3 (The City of Death), and Jackpot.

I'm grateful to @WhatHoSnorkers for typing in the listings from 'The ZX Spectrum: How to Use and Program'. Squids In gets its own entry, and the other smaller listings are included as an additional download against the main book. These listings include some interesting ideas of how to achieve smoother character movement with ZX BASIC. Well worth a look!

Also from @WhatHoSnorkers are listings from New Adventure Systems for the Spectrum. Every listing from the book is available on the main book entry under additional downloads. I'm slowly adding the playable games as individual entries as well. If you have never played a text adventure before do try The Statue. It only has 10 locations, but it feels great when you complete it. I'm rather getting into adventure games. Who would have thought!

Many thanks to @TomD for providing us with a shed load of fixed +3 disk images. Those of you who own Goteks (me included) will be able to use these fixed disks on real hardware. Tom has usefully included details of the fix that was carried out on each disk. There are more to come in a future update.

Finally, I found the Games Board from Marvic Marketing for sale of eBay, so images of this have been added too.

ionut76 · Post by **ionut76** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:09 am

I'll soon finish a nice pack of books and magazines. When it's ready I'll send it to @PeterJ for indexing and preservation

StooB · Post by **StooB** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:17 am

pavero wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 1:35 pm OceansGreatestHits(EN).pdf (Instructions)

Is there any reason why scans like this are being put into pdf files rather than having them as normal images? Every browser seems to render them differently, some completely crash Firefox, you have to download the files to view them on a mobile, and it's one of the least secure file formats around. Strangely, some of them have the title "Night Breed" too. Years ago, World of Spectrum decided to get rid of their scans and transcribe the instructions into text files, losing all the preserved scans in the process. Disk space was the reason given then, but that doesn't really apply anymore. Does anyone actually find the pdf's useful?

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:21 am

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:17 am Does anyone actually find the pdf's useful?

I have a greater preference for PDF @StooB, but can understand the reasoning for having both (where provided).

Whilst disk space is definitely not the concern it was some years back, it still has to be a consideration as the site is on shared hosting with limited space. I know we can store stuff on archive.org, but it's always a worry.

Pegaz · Post by **Pegaz** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 1:27 pm

It seems that SSL is somehow broken, after the last update.
I keep getting a "not secure connection" warning with red triangle icon.

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 1:44 pm

Works fine here @Pegaz, and the update is just the database.

Any particular pages? What OS and browser (and version) are you using? Do you use any ad-blocking software, or a VPN? Please provide an image showing the error. I can't help with unsupported versions of Windows (anything prior to W10), or if you are not using the latest version of the browser. Have you tried the same pages on your mobile phone using mobile data. Sorry for so many questions.

If someone posts a link to a non HTTPS page or image, then you may see a warning on that particular page. This is because the whole page is not secure.

Just a reminder that you will always see certificate errors whilst the update is happening. This is because I have to turn off Cloudflare to avoid timeouts.

WhatHoSnorkers · Post by **WhatHoSnorkers** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 4:01 pm

PeterJ wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:43 pm Also from @WhatHoSnorkers are listings from New Adventure Systems for the Spectrum. Every listing from the book is available on the main book entry under additional downloads. I'm slowly adding the playable games as individual entries as well. If you have never played a text adventure before do try The Statue. It only has 10 locations, but it feels great when you complete it. I'm rather getting into adventure games. Who would have thought!

"The Statue" is indeed rather nice, solvable, with little graphics too! The other reasonable text adventure is "School's Out"

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/3 ... chools_Out

Which, although deadly, is winnable!

Pegaz · Post by **Pegaz** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 7:05 pm

PeterJ wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 1:44 pm

I use Chromium based browser, as before, other pages look fine.
Now I reinstalled the latest browser version, cleared the cache and it worked.
I also tried with firefox, it works fine too.
btw, this is what it looked like with the error.

PeterJ · Post by **PeterJ** » Tue Sep 12, 2023 7:21 pm

Glad it's OK @Pegaz,

Your browser may have had cached pages from when the update was taking place

pavero · Post by **pavero** » Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:27 pm

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:17 am Is there any reason why scans like this are being put into pdf files rather than having them as normal images? Every browser seems to render them differently, some completely crash Firefox, you have to download the files to view them on a mobile, and it's one of the least secure file formats around. Strangely, some of them have the title "Night Breed" too. Years ago, World of Spectrum decided to get rid of their scans and transcribe the instructions into text files, losing all the preserved scans in the process. Disk space was the reason given then, but that doesn't really apply anymore. Does anyone actually find the pdf's useful?

Yep, for me PDF manuals are much more comfortable for viewing than individual scanned pages.

And the second main reason - the size of OCRed PDF manual is very compact, let's say 5 MB per one 100 pages manual vs 100 JPG files in 600dpi can take several hundred MB! And disk space is still very limited on webhosting servers - every extra gigabyte costs money!

e.g. here:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/si ... -LANG).pdf

pavero · Post by **pavero** » Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:39 pm

And about OceansGreatestHits(EN).pdf manual.

Yes, there are two pages here. But the size 700KB only in PDF.

StooB · Post by **StooB** » Fri Sep 15, 2023 6:45 am

pavero wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:27 pm And the second main reason - the size of OCRed PDF manual is very compact, let's say 5 MB per one 100 pages manual vs 100 JPG files in 600dpi can take several hundred MB! And disk space is still very limited on webhosting servers - every extra gigabyte costs money!

Of course, PDF is ideal for multi-page documents like instruction booklets or novellas, it just seems a bit excessive to use it for a folded sheet of paper! But if it saves space then fair enough.

Spectrum Computing

ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023

Re: ZXDB Update 09 September 2023