List of Z80 coding articles in Your Sinclair/ Sinclair User / Crash magazines

[Miktor]

Hi geeks!

I've started learning Z80 recently (working my way through Mastering Machine Code on your ZX Spectrum by Toni Baker) and was just wondering about Z80 coding articles in classic speccy mags like Your Sinclair, Crash and Sinclair User. Is there a list or an index of coding articles contained in these three magazines or do you just have to trawl through old scans online to find them?

Just curious. Quite eager to read some old coding articles from my favourite magazines from back in the day. I'm willing to trawl through them all to find the gold but if someone's already created an index, that would be very handy indeed.

Cheers!

[PeterJ]

Hi @Miktor,

Jim Grimwood preserved a number of these in text format. On the following page scroll to the bottom to the Z80 tutorials section:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... pourri.htm

[Morkin]

Ah cool, a while back I was actually wondering the same thing.

For example didn't Andrew Hewson do a regular column for SU for a bit? I was always wondering whether there was a compilation of any of this sort of magazine articles without having to trawl through the contents of each issue.

[PeterJ]

@Morkin,

I got an email the other day saying that Andrew was about to start a Kickstarter to produce a book containing all those articles.

[Hedge1970]

Hi geeks!

I've started learning Z80 recently (working my way through Mastering Machine Code on your ZX Spectrum by Toni Baker) and was just wondering about Z80 coding articles in classic speccy mags like Your Sinclair, Crash and Sinclair User. Is there a list or an index of coding articles contained in these three magazines or do you just have to trawl through old scans online to find them?

Just curious. Quite eager to read some old coding articles from my favourite magazines from back in the day. I'm willing to trawl through them all to find the gold but if someone's already created an index, that would be very handy indeed.

Cheers!

Good luck with Mastering Machine Code by Toni, I recently went through this and I’ve posted the type ins with the fixes. If you want a sounding wall re the book or you’re interested in the typeins just shout. I’ve moved onto a very different environment to Toni’s HEXLD now but spent many hours pouring over her code before Christmas.

[Morkin]

I got an email the other day saying that Andrew was about to start a Kickstarter to produce a book containing all those articles.

Ah yes I recall seeing something on Twitter about a Kickstarter from Mr Hewson, though I don't tend to pay much attention to Kickstarters. Also I've been trying to reduce clutter(!) so have a preference for digital items.

[mjwilson]

I don't know if there are any specifically about learning to code Z80 but there were some great articles in ZX Computing.

[ParadigmShifter]

The problem with those old articles is they can't assume you have an assembler.

There's much better articles available online these days. Some kind of intermediate level would be better probably these days where it already assumes you know about hex, memory, bytes and how a CPU works, and have an assembler and a debugger.

[Miktor]

@PeterJ Cheers! Very interesting webpage.

@Hedge1970 I'm currently working my way through the Toni Baker book but I'm coding in VS Code, then assembling on my Mac using sjasmplus, then loading the binary file into FUSE emulator and running the machine code using RANDOMIZE USR 30000. So it's a hell of a lot easier than using the HEXLD program in the book!

Right now, attempting to draw a sprite on the screen is giving me a big f*cking headache, but I'm gonna keep at it until I crack it(!)

By the way, I've used www.print-my-pdf.com to print a new copy of the ZX Spectrum +2A manual and the Toni Baker book so I've now got nice spiral bound copies of both. Cost eighteen quid each. I can see me getting some more machine code books printed in the future. It's totally awesome having a new copy of the Toni Baker book, thirty years after I bought my original copy. I recommend it! Will probably get the Jonathan Cauldwell book printed next. (How to Write Spectrum Games).

[Miktor]

I tried learning z80 machine code on my ZX Spectrum +2A thirty years ago, when I was a teenager and bought the Toni Baker book Mastering Machine Code on Your ZX Spectrum back then. But back then, despite having a good grasp of +3 BASIC, I just couldn't get my head round machine code.

It's been an ambition of mine to learn z80 ever since. Since then, I've learnt a couple of different programming languages to varying degrees (PHP, Python 3, C, Javascript, C#) and now that I'm taking a second tilt at z80, it seems a good bit more comprehensible. I'm making good progress through the Toni Baker book so far and I'm hoping to read some more z80 books after that one and learn all the stuff required to actually write one or more games for the Speccy.

This forum looks like a good place to hang out and swop notes/ideas.

[cmal]

I don't know if there are any specifically about learning to code Z80 but there were some great articles in ZX Computing.

True. I used to enjoy Steve Turner’s articles that got published in ZX Computing.
Back in the day I used to photocopy all Speccy programming related articles from magazines that I could get my hands on. I kept these in a file which I still have. I’m in the process of scanning them all. I’ll gladly share that once it’s all scanned (hopefully soonish).

[Hedge1970]

@Hedge1970 I'm currently working my way through the Toni Baker book but I'm coding in VS Code, then assembling on my Mac using sjasmplus, then loading the binary file into FUSE emulator and running the machine code using RANDOMIZE USR 30000. So it's a hell of a lot easier than using the HEXLD program in the book!

I know we are all different and learn differently as by example, I am one of those people that held a good job but could not do school so while everyone around me had degrees and masters I didn’t.

I also really like the book mastering machine code, due mostly to the number of recommendations and references to it in the old magazines.

As a fan of the book and of the humble rubber keyed spectrum 48k I persisted with this book across a number of years but only three full on attempts.

Without wanting to derail your thread my first attempt at learning machine code using the book I used the assembler and disassembler software from crystal on a speccy - Zeus, It was my first ever attempt at machine code and that failed as I simply underestimated what I was trying to do. My second attempt was a similar environment to you, that was ok upto a point but the mistakes in her code stopped a few programs working and the unique way she builds the Drafts game made this method very very hard, much harder than a beginner can handle. Lastly the HEXLD3 program she builds IS teaching you how to work with basic and assembly it’s a top type-in and teaches you about machine code/memory and how the spectrum works in ways that straight machine code programs do not even go near. It was only following the book using her program that allowed me to fully understand enough machine code to really appreciate and start coding machine code.

Lastly, I would not dream of using HEXLD for the project I am working on but I would not be able to do the project had I not followed the book properly.

Good luck from a fellow MMC alumni

Ps I’ve never been a great programmer but I’ve used to a greater and lesser degree HTML, JavaScript, ASP, VB, SQL and C# during my career. I have to say right now Machine Code is the most horrible language. The continual reuse of the same opcodes again and again makes the code itself wholly unreadable compared to any of the languages mentioned above. That said it’s fast and I am determined to finish my game now I’ve got a small grasp of it.

[Einar Saukas]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... trum_Games

[cj7hawk]

I learned basic z80 code on the Spectrum and it got me my first job as a z80 programmer in a video game factory R&D department. It was an awesome job to have as a kid...

Anyway, the Spectrum isn't ideal to learn machine code on. Get an emulator and learn on that if you can, then transfer that knowledge to the Spectrum.

I still write in assembler, but only in z80 for fun.
Last year I wrote a CP/M compatible operating system from scratch.
This year I'm writing a z80 macro-assembler that bypasses the linker ( can directly link from multiple source ).

It's fun, but not very practical to write z80.

Writing your own emulator is also a great way to learn machine code. I never found the magazine articles much more than interesting. Get a copy of Rodney Zak's z80 book or maybe some early CP/M books to learn different ideas also - there's a lot more to z80 programming than just working on the Spectrum...

Also the z80 Workbench is a really helpful emulator that you can assemble short programs in, to figure out how instructions work.

https://www.heinpragt-software.com/z80-processor-ide/