Spectrum Computing

I'm afraid this excludes the Americas and far Southern Europe, but at this time of year many a keen eared Speccy fan (UK, Ireland,N, Central + E Europe, Russia) will hear this song while out and about:

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

Sound familiar? Can someone convert it to WAV and see if it the code block works?

After messing around with Speedlock 4 encoding, the results are in....
They didn't hide it in a safe, they didn't place it in a bank deposit box, the Stampers hid Mire Mare up the backside of a bird.

it does sound like one of those blue and black border loading noises

If I ever open a pub here in the U.S. I'll know what to call it!

Find a person in the area that is convinced they are being gang stalked/having a associative delusion.

Convince them that 'Dude, I escaped from my handler for 10 mins. I got to tell you... It's the birds, they are communicating and monitoring you.. That is why you can't find the bug.. The Bug IS the Bird!'

I wonder what he is trying to tell us, maybe we should try to load it into our machines and some encrypted message will appear

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri May 11, 2018 9:47 pm
Sound familiar? Can someone convert it to WAV and see if it the code block works?

I presume the game that we could load would be Percy the Potty Pigeon by Gremlin Graphics.

It's that time of year again!

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

I heard one last week*. Anyone else?

*It told me via a code block that Manic Miner was the best game ever, and that I should vote for it in the A-Z poll.

What a silly bird. He skipped the checksum byte at the end of the BASIC header block. Did he think no one would notice?

Beautiful! You're geniuses (genii?) R.Tape for the idea and Ast. A. Moore for the funny remark! Oh..and he's a nice little dude isn't he?

I thought the official mascot of most old computer geeks was Panurus biarmicus.

Spoiler

or 'Bearded Tit'.

It's nearly that time again! As we speak the Sedge Warbler will be making their way north and making their homes over Europe, Russia and British Isles. UK residents might have to wait another week or two. If you're allowed out, then do listen out for speccy loading sounds emanating from bushes and small trees. First one to spot/hear one gets a pack of rolos.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri May 11, 2018 9:47 pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huvAXBtMTAc

At least some things are operating as normal!

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2019 10:47 pm It's that time of year again!

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

I heard one last week*. Anyone else?

*It told me via a code block that Manic Miner was the best game ever, and that I should vote for it in the A-Z poll.

I heard one this morning when I was out on my bike. For me this little fellow heralds the start of Spring and reminds be of summer holidays in Tenby. We'd walk for miles and mile over hills and fields looking for secluded beaches and we'd constantly hear this chap. Happy Days indeed.

Hehe, it does sound somewhat like a screenshot loading.

Alien 8...?

Every year I find it cuter!

It’s the baseline for Ping Pong’s title music!
https://youtu.be/MKKTlGHkh0E

5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:04 am It’s the baseline for Ping Pong’s title music!
https://youtu.be/MKKTlGHkh0E

My all-time favourite Speccy tune. I can still hum it note for note after 34 years

stupidget wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2020 9:55 am My all-time favourite Speccy tune. I can still hum it note for note after 34 years

Ditto... it was one of those rare games that I'd sometimes load just to listen to the music. Amazing work for that little beeper speaker.

stupidget wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:57 pm I heard one this morning when I was out on my bike. For me this little fellow heralds the start of Spring and reminds be of summer holidays in Tenby. We'd walk for miles and mile over hills and fields looking for secluded beaches and we'd constantly hear this chap. Happy Days indeed.

Ooh sorry to quibble, but how certain were you? It's always possible I guess—I once even saw a swallow in late Feb—but this would be a very early sighting/hearing. Starlings sometimes do a racket that includes mimicry of various calls and random sounds. Is there any chance it could have been that?

Shame you didn't stop to record the code block. That would have proved it.

I got my first warbler of the year yesterday, one of the earlier arrivers—the Chiffchaff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyDHPlVV0Vg

I think this program gives a pitch-perfect emulation of its call:
Expect these warbler as forerunners to our favoured Sedgy:

Willow-warbler - looks almost exactly like the chiffchaff but sounds like a melodious beepola tune
Grasshopper warbler - sounds like a stuck +3 disk drive
Whitethroat - sounds a bit like that last screech when you rewind a tape

And these are not warblers, but in case you're not allowed out, start to look out for from your isolation window:

Swallow - not a very spectrummy bird at all, but still nice
House martin - makes a perfect beepy fart noise

I am rather crowbarring a ZX theme onto these, but who cares. I'll keep you posted. Do the same

Sorry to keep boring everyone about birds, buuuttttt, tomorrow is International Dawn Chorus Day. The Sedge Warbler (the official avian representative of the Sinclair® range and its clones) is now present in the UK, but due to circumstances, I'm struggling to see/hear one. Maybe someone on the forum will get lucky

Finally got one!

Sedge Warbler by the canal today.

I don't know how to embed this, so if you're interested, here's my mobile recording. The sound isn't great—I doubt even Gilby could get a usable TZX out of it. I move the phone up at the end as it flies up, but you can't really see it.

Phew! Looks like everything's going to be okay.

Sorry, but that bird's name has the word 'edge' in it so it owes Tim Langdell two million quid.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 4:57 pm I don't know how to embed this . . .

I’m afraid you simply can’t. I don’t think phpBB even supports embedding any audio/video files directly into a post.

Upload to Google Drive [mention]R-Tape[/mention] and [mention]Ast A. Moore[/mention], create a sharing link, then use the media tag in phpBB toolbar when you post it.

[media]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oLdr5u ... p=drivesdk[/media]