What do you now know many years later

[FFoulkes]

I only realized now, that in "The Hobbit" you can kill Gollum, pick his dead body up, go back to your place, open your chest, put Gollum's body in, and close the chest again.

Would have been nice, if that had been a way to finish the game.

[FFoulkes]

It was interesting to discover Manic Miner was programmed that way, using a TR-80 if I'm not mistaken

Yeah, Wikipedia says it, linking to this article. It says, it was a Tandy "TRS-80, Model III".
But these machines were not so great either, people in the US often called them "Trash 80".
So this still wasn't a "workstation" computer above the home computer range (like the "Vax" or "VaxStation", I heard, some other developers may haved used back then.)
The "TRS-80 Model III" (Z80A at 2 Mhz, 4-48K RAM, just black & white) had a proper typewriter keyboard though.

[druellan]

So this still wasn't a "workstation" computer above the home computer range (like the "Vax" or "VaxStation", I heard, some other developers may haved used back then.)

I bet it was not that expensive for something with a proper keyboard, monitor and a hardware on were you can put 42k free ram plus an assembler. I saw several developers mentioning it as their workstation.
And as mentioned, another piece of hardware I was not aware at all about its widespread usage among developers was the microdrive. Even professional software like the Alcatraz loading scheme was provided in Microdrive format, for example, and companies like Odin used it to store masters.

[FFoulkes]

Clive sinclair never rode mere horses. Fnar fnar fnar fnar.

He likes his electronics small, inexpensive and stylish, his vehicles electric and his women young and beautiful.

[manicminerfan001]

It was interesting to discover Manic Miner was programmed that way, using a TR-80 if I'm not mistaken

Yeah, Wikipedia says it, linking to this article. It says, it was a Tandy "TRS-80, Model III".
But these machines were not so great either, people in the US often called them "Trash 80".
So this still wasn't a "workstation" computer above the home computer range (like the "Vax" or "VaxStation", I heard, some other developers may haved used back then.)
The "TRS-80 Model III" (Z80A at 2 Mhz, 4-48K RAM, just black & white) had a proper typewriter keyboard though.

My cousin, David Jones (Spellbound, Finders Keepers, etc) did all of his development on a TRS-80, model 3. Posh git also had a 20mb hard drive and had a custom board to fire it into the speccy!

[Hank Scorpio]

I didn't realise until a few years ago that the Nomen Luni screen in JSW is in the shape of a crashed plane.

[spider]

My cousin, David Jones (Spellbound, Finders Keepers, etc) did all of his development on a TRS-80, model 3. Posh git also had a 20mb hard drive and had a custom board to fire it into the speccy!

I think I recall reading that once somewhere about how/what he used to develop the MagicKnight series of games. That might of been in a mag or something 'back then' I'm not sure.

Top Chap he is, have had a fair few conversations with him.

[manicminerfan001]

My cousin, David Jones (Spellbound, Finders Keepers, etc) did all of his development on a TRS-80, model 3. Posh git also had a 20mb hard drive and had a custom board to fire it into the speccy!

I think I recall reading that once somewhere about how/what he used to develop the MagicKnight series of games. That might of been in a mag or something 'back then' I'm not sure.

Top Chap he is, have had a fair few conversations with him.

He is a lovely bloke. Owns a pub up north now. Did a few things on handhelds and is currently working on a Finders Keepers remake. Last i heard?

[Alessandro]

I didn't realise until a few years ago that the Nomen Luni screen in JSW is in the shape of a crashed plane.

A play on "Nomen Ludi", literally "the name of the game" in Latin. "The name of the game" was the slogan used by Imagine, while the plane was supposed to come from Zzoom and have crashed into the roof of Willy's mansion.

[bluespikey]

My cousin, David Jones (Spellbound, Finders Keepers, etc) did all of his development on a TRS-80, model 3. Posh git also had a 20mb hard drive and had a custom board to fire it into the speccy!

He donated it to the Computing Museum :

https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news ... -model-iii

You can go an see it if you want. Apparently its only a 15m hard drive though.

[1024MAK]

On the subject of ‘What do you now know many years later’, rather more than before I visited the The Centre for Computing History.

They have now reopened. It’s definitely well worth a visit if you are interested in the history of computing, or just want to see the wide range of home computers, consoles and ‘business’ machines that were around in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond. Looking at pictures is one thing, being able to play with a real working machine is a joy I would call it a grand day out (and yes I visited before we had ever heard of COVID19).

You can even see the ZX Spectrum prototype

They were hit hard by COVID19 and then a suffered a flood (see the News section).

So they would really appreciate it if you support them by visiting or by helping out

Mark

[Alessandro]

I second that [mention]1024MAK[/mention]. I visited the Centre in 2014 and had the pleasure of meeting Jason in person, a really nice fellow.

I wrote my impressions in an article for the Gamesark website (in Italian), although by now the museum has more on display, such as this prototype of the Spectrum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5t0Ggb72js

[spider]

He is a lovely bloke. Owns a pub up north now. Did a few things on handhelds and is currently working on a Finders Keepers remake. Last i heard?

I'll have to make a mental note to ask about any Magic Knight "pub spells" that could be cast

I only realized now, that in "The Hobbit" you can kill Gollum, pick his dead body up, go back to your place, open your chest, put Gollum's body in, and close the chest again.

Would have been nice, if that had been a way to finish the game.

,,, I tried once to alter the code to allow you to pick up most things that otherwise said "too heavy" but it did not work, I do have a working way (both versions) of not allowing the player to be killed and/or captured , the latter needs disabling to allow the game to work properly at some states ie: Butler is needed.


Small confession from me, about 18 months or so before I first got a Speccy (which was 84 so we are looking at late 82 here when the first ones were out) , when shops had a few rows of computers on display I remember seeing all the "magic" written on all the keys and had assumed that DIM was opposite BRIGHT for colours. ... As I say it was a couple of years before I had used or seen a Speccy and I was about 8 at the time so I can be forgiven. I have no idea why that sticks in my memory.

[1024MAK]

Slightly related to what spider was saying, when we had our first computer, a ZX Spectrum 48K rubber key model, there were still plenty of program listings being printed for the ZX81 in computer magazines.

In some of these listings, you would come across the FAST command. Not knowing that much about the ZX81 at the time, I did not know what it did exactly. But I could not understand why the ZX Spectrum did not have a FAST command to speed up its BASIC programs….

Mark

[FFoulkes]

In some of these listings, you would come across the FAST command. Not knowing that much about the ZX81 at the time, I did not know what it did exactly. But I could not understand why the ZX Spectrum did not have a FAST command to speed up its BASIC programs….

A "FAST" command sound promising when using BASIC, doesn't it? But it's kind of a fake promise, when also losing a reasonable screen display.

It's similar in the "Commodore 128" by the way: It also has a "FAST" command in its BASIC. It makes the 6502-style-CPU run at 2 MHz instead of 1 MHz. Problem is, the graphics chip VIC-II (inherited from the C64) can't cope with a processor speed of 2 MHz. As a result, you lose the screen display, so the screen goes blank. Weird. You can still use this mode for (a bit) faster calculations though.

[FFoulkes]

By the way: Being able to carry dead gollum around in "The Hobbit" was probably possible, because RAM was so limited in relation to what the program was supposed to do, that it couldn't handle all cases of strange behaviour.

The problem even increased in "Sherlock". The game featured a rather tricky time system, different trains arriving and departing at different times, and the possibility to move around London in hansom cabs. It was supposed to create a rather rich game world. And it did in a way (I loved the game, but unfortunately never could get beyond the basic stages, it was very difficult without a walkthrough), but it probably all was a bit too much for the poor little Spectrum.
A problem for the player was Inspector Lestrade wandering around and doing annoying things. Because of a glitch, it was possible to call a cab, wait for Lestrade to climb in (he does on his own), then send the cab to a place of no importance, where he got stuck. Bye, bye, Lestrade!

There's a nice page about the quirks of "Sherlock" here. Beautiful :

https://www.filfre.net/2013/12/sherlock/

[bluespikey]

Why the early emulator jpp was so called. I assumed it was the developers initials.

[Stefan]

Why the early emulator jpp was so called. I assumed it was the developers initials.

To be fair, it should have been called jsspssp

[Alessandro]

For almost 40 years, I knew that POKE was a BASIC command used to alter the content of a certain memory location. Recently I discovered that it is also some sort of salad.

[Morkin]

For almost 40 years, I knew that POKE was a BASIC command used to alter the content of a certain memory location. Recently I discovered that it is also some sort of salad.

Haha..! Does it give you infinite energy..?

[spider]

For almost 40 years, I knew that POKE was a BASIC command used to alter the content of a certain memory location. Recently I discovered that it is also some sort of salad.

Unless there's some pun there, I did not know about the salad.

[Ast A. Moore]

Does it give you infinite energy..?

Sure. Either that, or it kills you instantly.

[Ast A. Moore]

For almost 40 years, I knew that POKE was a BASIC command used to alter the content of a certain memory location. Recently I discovered that it is also some sort of salad.

Unless there's some pun there, I did not know about the salad.

No, no pun. See my post above.

[Alessandro]

Does it give you infinite energy..?

Sure. Either that, or it kills you instantly.

Honestly, that salad looks like something that is supposed to come out of one's body, not to enter it.

[Ast A. Moore]

Sure. Either that, or it kills you instantly.

Honestly, that salad looks like something that is supposed to come out of one's body, not to enter it.

Ha! It does, doesn’t it?