What do you now know many years later

[SteveSmith]

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

If that came out of my body, I'd be going straight to A&E!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

This thread is taking a weird way...

[1024MAK]

I think it needs a good poking to get it back on topic…

Mark

[Nick]

Steering this topic away from killer salads (although a Speccy game featuring killer salads sounds like fun) and back on track...

I always assumed that the Dire Wolf that can be cast in Chaos was a mythological beast. It was only when I googled it recently out of interest that I found out that it actually existed up until 9500 years ago.

[clebin]

Mikro-Gen putting random words in quotes on its cassettes - like EVERYONE'S A "WALLY", "BATTLE" OF THE PLANETS. I always thought it was very odd.

Just now I realised that the bit in quotes is the program name, as in 'Program: WALLY'.



It's not very useful when you can just type LOAD "" but at least there's some reason for it!

[Lee Bee]

Back in 1992 I upgraded from the Spectrum to the Amiga.

It took me a long time, but I finally realised that it wasn't an upgrade! The Speccy is actually a superior computer to the Amiga. And I'm not even joking, I just have new criteria, favouring beauty, simplicity and minimalism.

[bluespikey]

In DT's Decathlon, there is what looks like a Miner Willy cameo in the front of the crowd.



I did wonder whether it was purpose or not. Now I now realise that next to Willy is the character from Ocean's risible version of Kong.



So it probably is on purpose after all. All the other faces in the crowd are face-on, whereas Willy and, er, Mario are in profile.

[dfzx]

In Psion's sorta-classic Space Raiders, if you fire a bullet, then press and hold SPACE and B together, your bullet stops and hangs in midair until you release the keys, at which point it carries on. This makes it a lot easier to pick off spaceships or the last, fast moving invaders.

[druellan]

In Psion's sorta-classic Space Raiders, if you fire a bullet, then press and hold SPACE and B together, your bullet stops and hangs in midair until you release the keys, at which point it carries on. This makes it a lot easier to pick off spaceships or the last, fast moving invaders.

Hi! Can I add this bit to the ZXDB? I think it is a nice detail to preserve.

[dfzx]

In Psion's sorta-classic Space Raiders, if you fire a bullet, then press and hold SPACE and B together, your bullet stops and hangs in midair until you release the keys, at which point it carries on. This makes it a lot easier to pick off spaceships or the last, fast moving invaders.

Hi! Can I add this bit to the ZXDB? I think it is a nice detail to preserve.

Yes, of course!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I did wonder whether it was purpose or not. Now I now realise that next to Willy is the character from Ocean's risible version of Kong.

Wow! Well spotted!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

It did take me a bit of time too to realise that in JSW2 "Alienate" was probably a ''friendly wave' at A.G.C/Ultimate for Alien 8, same way they have Macaroni Ted as a 'wave at' S.Marsden and D.Cooke for TechTed.

More about this story was told by Steve Wetherill on Mastodon, speaking of Technician Ted:

✓ Reviewed

[Joefish]

In Psion's sorta-classic Space Raiders, if you fire a bullet, then press and hold SPACE and B together, your bullet stops and hangs in midair until you release the keys, at which point it carries on. This makes it a lot easier to pick off spaceships or the last, fast moving invaders.

It's not a Speccy game, but there's another 'pause' quirk in Llamatron on the ST. When you die you hear a voice shout "OH F-" and it's cut off by a loud explosion. If you hit PAUSE at the moment you die, you hear the voice sample finish shouting "OH F**K!!!", then when you un-pause you get the explosion!

[Sham Mountebank]

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.

Jetpac had a hover key?

[Joefish]

Hover Bovver had a Jetpack key?

[Oloturia]

Non-Spectrum related: you can save in Prince of Persia.
Also non-Spectrum related: the music that copters do in Amiga's Walker is a reference to Predator.

Spectrum related: the cryptic "Scimmia Lievito" text in Ninja Hamster italian bootleg version. They ill-translated MEAN MONKEY and BARMY BEE with SCIMMIA (monkey, they dropped MEAN) LIEVITO (yeast, they dropped BEE). It took me some time to figure out that they translated "barmy" (mad) as "barm" the froth of the beer that can be used to fermenting bread (in Italian: "lievito di birra"). Also in Rogue Trooper they translated "Let's grease some more Nort scum" as "Ungiamo della schiuma" ("let's grease some foam"). I always thought that in some cultures, greasing the foam was some kind of ritual to give respect for fallen enemies. Scum is also the unwanted part of an alcoholic beverage or a food, usually foamy (hence "schiuma" I think), that could be translated literally and figuratively as "feccia" (the sludgy part of the wine that deposits on the bottom of barrels).

Some more:
- How to cross the stepping stones river in Jungle Trouble.
- How to find the Agent Orange in Agent Orange
- You can collect tools in Turmoil
- You can kill the robots in The Long Way Home with bare hands (you'll get injured anyway)

[TMD2003]

- How to find the Agent Orange in Agent Orange

For anyone who doesn't know: here it is.

[1024MAK]

@Oloturia - translation of English and/or American slang will always be tricky unless you have a good understanding of it. Especially, as some is regional within countries.

Mark

[Oloturia]

@Oloturia - translation of English and/or American slang will always be tricky unless you have a good understanding of it. Especially, as some is regional within countries.

Mark

Yes, but they weren't even trying
I remember also Quazatron "reinforced plasteel" became "forzato cerotto", "forced plaster". Maybe because they didn't found "plasteel" on the dictionary so they got "plaster" instead. I know that they didn't have online dictionaries and translators but... come on! A "forced band-aid" as a robot component sounds wrong.

[Vampyre]

Non-Spectrum related: you can save in Prince of Persia.

Well, bugger me! 30-odd years later I learn this...

"From Level 3 on, you can save your game by holding the "Ctrl." button and pressing "G". If done correctly, it should say "GAME SAVED" at the bottom of the screen. To reload, you press Ctrl.+L on the title screen. The game will be resumed at the beginning of the level with whatever time and life you have (life will always be full), so don't save in the middle of a level!"

[Alessandro]

Yes, but they weren't even trying
I remember also Quazatron "reinforced plasteel" became "forzato cerotto", "forced plaster". Maybe because they didn't found "plasteel" on the dictionary so they got "plaster" instead. I know that they didn't have online dictionaries and translators but... come on! A "forced band-aid" as a robot component sounds wrong.

Maybe it's better to remember that such unauthorized (i.e. pirated) "translations" were made in a hurry and with a knowledge of English that was dubious to say the least...

[1024MAK]

… English that was dubious to say the least...

Alright my Babber. All that I have to say, is that’s it’s Gert lush ere in Brizzle, shame I can’t down a Scrumpy at the moment.

Still, ee be on my way home, so, soon I’ll be smoovin' the dog.

See you in a bit

Mark

[Juan F. Ramirez]

So many years later I knew TS stands for 'Tiger Shark':