Today is the 78th birthday of Sir Clive Sinclair, who brought us the Zed-Ex-Speculum, a word processor that can be forced to run primitive programs vaguely resembling games.

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Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:12:41 2018 No.4942393 [Reply] [Original]

Today is the 78th birthday of Sir Clive Sinclair, who brought us the Zed-Ex-Speculum, a word processor that can be forced to run primitive programs vaguely resembling games.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:15:02 2018 No.4942395 >word processor I don't think I'd want to try using it for that.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:16:40 2018 No.4942397 File: 240 KB, 925x1050, image.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:17:15 2018 No.4942402 >>4942393 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1uEWoyhvPc Were there any Speccy games this good when it was current?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:19:45 2018 No.4942409 God I hate British people.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:20:11 2018 No.4942410 >shitting on revolutionary hardware in retrospect because it was made to be cheap

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:20:26 2018 No.4942413 >>4942397 lost

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:42:54 2018 No.4942441 >>4942397 >a bleep and a fart blap But that's not Grover's Music Maker, Seanbaby

Anonymous Mon Jul 30 13:52:23 2018 No.4942457

Alright, ZX Spectrum might not have been the perfect system but then again neither was the main competitor, Commodore 64. I think Spectrum sounds quite alright and hi-res graphics make up for the fact that it has a smaller colour palette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hy3rZkQL0w

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:04:38 2018 No.4942489 >>4942397 I love this image

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:07:29 2018 No.4942495 >>4942457 the absolute state of gaming in the uk lmao >>4942409 agreed

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:08:12 2018 No.4942497 C64 actually had these things called "disk drives" so it could have games more complicated than simplistic arcade stuff.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:15:39 2018 No.4942516 File: 41 KB, 791x375, sinclair_zx-spectrum3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4942497 Wow! Such an exclusive feature!

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:19:25 2018 No.4942527 >>4942497 >>4942516 >any British games for 8-bit machines >actually coming on disks ...

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 14:31:58 2018 No.4942557 File: 1.54 MB, 8192x4176, Tantalus.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Were these games fun?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:07:00 2018 No.4942746 >>4942557 How did they fit that much into 48k?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:12:01 2018 No.4942754 >>4942746 With proper graphics compression, each room only takes a handful of bytes and Z80 machine language is also relatively code dense so you can get a lot in relatively little memory.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:25:10 2018 No.4942773 >>4942746 It's basically a bitmap, each being a tile.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:33:06 2018 No.4942792 Tantalus is a rare platform exclusive since 90% of Speccy games were also on the C64/Amstrad.

Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:40:34 2018 No.4942806

>>4942527
The larger publishers like Ocean and Domark put out disk games, although not many people bought them. Britain at that time was rather poor compared to the US and disks were out of most people's price range. The C64 was a low end computer for Americans but it was mid-range here.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 16:47:46 2018 No.4942825 >>4942806 >The C64 was a low end computer for Americans Not really, at least not until the late 80's

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 17:36:42 2018 No.4942907 >>4942825 At $300 following price cuts in spring 1983, it was about the cheapest computer you could buy.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 17:48:02 2018 No.4942928 >>4942907 It was cheap when we talk about price compared to the competition, but in terms of what it could actually do, the competition wasn't really any better.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 30 18:03:43 2018 No.4942975 File: 199 KB, 1800x1578, 1512105633691.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >ITT in this thread:

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 02:21:31 2018 No.4943967 >>4942557 48k game image size is 1.54 megabytes!! the absolute state of modern computers,

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 03:48:39 2018 No.4944068 >>4943967 >image size is also 8192x4176 pixels ...

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 14:01:09 2018 No.4945179 >>4942975 >every amiga thread ever

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 17:02:10 2018 No.4945603 >>4945179 Welcome to /vr/

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 18:10:42 2018 No.4945736 >>4942397 Fucking lel, whoever made this image is a treasure.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 31 18:14:21 2018 No.4945741 >>4945736 Yeah but it's not really like that (sadly I must admit, britbongs are tards most of the time)

>>	Anonymous Wed Aug 1 06:33:00 2018 No.4946862 I mean, fucking hell, the US had Microprose, Origin, SSI, Broderbund, and Accolade. Europe had some guy named Stanislaw writing primitive clones of NES games in his apartment on a $20 budget.

>>	Anonymous Wed Aug 1 09:30:07 2018 No.4947093 >>4946862 >muh flamewards This is a forum about retro games.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 12:49:03 2018 No.4949693 >>4947093 ???

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 12:54:19 2018 No.4949708 File: 88 KB, 339x434, sinclair.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4942393 happy birthday, clive. your computers still suck ass.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 12:55:59 2018 No.4949712 >>4949708 They were made for British poorfags during the early 80s recession. What do you want?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 12:58:59 2018 No.4949716 File: 190 KB, 339x434, poorbongs.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4949712

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 12:59:30 2018 No.4949717
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>>4942557

You got what you paid for. When a game costs 2 pounds, all it needs to be is not shit. But emulation has leveled the playing field price-wise, so the poundland-tier titles released for 1982's version of the Raspberry Pi have to compete against NES shit.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:01:56 2018 No.4949718 >>4949717 That melty skeleton animation wouldn't be possible on the NES because it doesn't have free-form bitmap graphics. Spectrum 1, NES 0.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:04:40 2018 No.4949727 >>4949718 nes can do better animations using tile sprites and with more colors. spectrum can barely move graphics around without stuttering. spectrum -100 - nes: 1

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:07:15 2018 No.4949732 >>4949718 Wouldn't really work on the C64 either for same reason.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:12:58 2018 No.4949739 The Speccy has a much higher clock speed than the NES so IDK.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:14:25 2018 No.4949741 >attribute clash

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:17:53 2018 No.4949745

>>4949739
But it also uses a Z80 which has longer execution time for instructions than the NES and its 6502. On the plus side, Z80 machine language is more code dense so you can get more into the same amount of memory. Its 48k of memory would be more like 40k on a 6502 system.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:18:54 2018 No.4949746 >>4949716 Commodore 8-bit line was literary made "for the masses, not the classes". Most people in the US can't even afford a PC and had to settle for a Commodore.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:19:47 2018 No.4949747 >>4942402 starquake is pretty much perfect use of the hardware.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:20:28 2018 No.4949749 >>4949746 British consumers had less disposable income than Americans so the C64 was a low end machine here, but a middle tier one there.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:21:33 2018 No.4949753 >>4949745 I believe the 6502 was chosen for the Famicom mostly for cost reasons and the idea that its simpler instruction set would be easier for programmers to learn.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:24:01 2018 No.4949757 Even on that absolute ape turd of computer, you could still have nice gaems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MwtkrwNEos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUNB_pu9HU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C1r7qGyYPQ

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:24:47 2018 No.4949760 >>4949718 Speculum can't scroll

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:26:17 2018 No.4949763

Z80 has on-chip DRAM refresh while a 6502 would require an external circuit. If you look at the major 6502 systems, the Apple II and C64 used the video hardware for RAM refresh and the Famicom had SRAM so that wasn't a problem. I don't happen to know how it worked on the Atari 8-bits.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:28:36 2018 No.4949765

Seriously was there a single spectrum game which wasn't total crap by any modest standard of game decency? The only one I can think about is Shadowfire, for it's unique concept and art. It was still bad though. No wonder spectrum games never sell for more than 5 dollars on ebay.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:31:04 2018 No.4949772 >>4942746 >48k It was actually 34-35k, because you needed 2 image buffers for anything above Invaders graphics. Thanks sir Clive for wasting 16k on useless ROM which you can't even swap for empty RAM page.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:31:14 2018 No.4949773 >>4949757 Pretty good.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:33:12 2018 No.4949776 >>4949765 $5 would be more than what most people paid in the 80s. Nintendrones can't say the same of most of their deflating cartridges.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:35:27 2018 No.4949779 >>4949712 >They were made for British poorfags during the early 80s recession To make their lives even more miserable I guess

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:38:03 2018 No.4949782 >>4949779 Thatcher would actually do that.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:38:53 2018 No.4949785 Imagine playing this as kid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kueN2DMN0J4

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:40:44 2018 No.4949786 >>4949772 It's about 42k if you use everything from $5B00 to $FFFF. And again, Z80 machine language is more code dense than 6502 so you need fewer instructions to accomplish the same task.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:43:58 2018 No.4949792 >>4949786 About comparable to the Apple II+, TRS-80, and Atari 800.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:46:14 2018 No.4949797 >>4949786 Ok but see previous about needing double buffered graphics.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:47:06 2018 No.4949801 >>4949786 Nah you need at least another 6 KB for shadow image buffer where you will try to build the picture before sending it to real image buffer with inefficient LDIR command while hopelessly trying to evade horrible tearing at 20FPS framerate.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:49:52 2018 No.4949807 Get back to work, nerds

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:52:13 2018 No.4949809

>>4949786
>Z80 machine language is more code dense than 6502
Lmao Z80 was so code dense it even had "undocumented" instructions its own creators probably didn't know about. They were commonly used as protection against decompiling because they would crash early text editors.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:53:56 2018 No.4949813 >>4942907 High price computers had poor capabilities even for rudimentary graphics untill the late eighties. They cost that much only because they were pure business machines.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 13:56:37 2018 No.4949816 >>4949749 Patently untrue. It wasn't good for serious business applications, but in term of graphics and sound (especially the latter) it was absolutely high end when it was released.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:01:59 2018 No.4949826 [DELETED]

>>4949809
The 6502 had those also. And then there was the Z80's alternate register set which often didn't work on bootleg Taiwanese Z80s--Radio Shack used a lot of these in the TRS-80s because they were cheap and they wouldn't work if you tried to use the alternate registers. One of the Z80 designers said he built several traps into the chip's architecture to foil bootleggers because they couldn't implement the alternate registers properly (Synertek. Mostek, and SGS were the officially sanctioned Z80 second sources)..

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:06:58 2018 No.4949836

>>4949792
Most Apple II Pluses had a language card which gave them 64k. The Atari 800 also had BASIC on a cartridge so you would just remove it when running machine language programs to free that space up. As for the TRS-80, Don French, the original designer, later complained that the Model III was bullshit because a 48k machine wasn't enough for business software (they didn't put 64k in it because it would steal Model II sales if they did that).

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:08:04 2018 No.4949840 >>4949816 Commodore's excuse was that you should use a PET if you wanted business software.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:09:54 2018 No.4949842

>>4949809
The 6502 had those also. And then there was the Z80's alternate register set which often didn't work on bootleg Taiwanese Z80s--Radio Shack used a lot of these in the TRS-80s because they were cheap and they wouldn't work if you tried to use the alternate registers. One of the Z80 designers said he built several traps into the chip's architecture to foil bootleggers because they couldn't implement the alternate registers properly (Synertek, Mostek, and SGS were the officially sanctioned Z80 second sources). I have no idea what brand of chips the Spectrums used--given the ultra-cheap approach to the computer, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't use Taiwanese or Korean Z80s.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:13:53 2018 No.4949850

>>4949842
>One of the Z80 designers said he built several traps into the chip's architecture to foil bootleggers because they couldn't implement the alternate registers properly
So he was merely pretending to be retarded then. I guess having bugged NMIs which hanged up the computer instead of sending interrupt was part of their master plan too.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:15:14 2018 No.4949854 >>4949712 It's not coincidence that the collapse of the low end computer market in the US coincided with the economic recovery in 1983. Nobody at that point wanted a VIC-20 or an Atari 400.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:21:24 2018 No.4949867
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I'm so glad I had ZX in childhood because otherwise I would probably end up having Amiga, which means I would probably grow up to become one of those people who have weird fetish of spending thousands to get a mossy ancient hardware so they could listen to the noise of authentic floppy drive clicking. Meanwhile with ZX I just threw it away and never looked back.
I still have urges to buy Amiga sometimes though

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:28:33 2018 No.4949885 Amigafags are delusional and most of them are also furries.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:32:49 2018 No.4949896 >>4949885 I've never met an Amiga owner. Weren't they primarily bought by Brits who couldn't afford the VAT on a PC?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:34:00 2018 No.4949901 >>4949896 Germans I guess

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:35:18 2018 No.4949905 >>4949885 Sabrina is legitimately cute though

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 14:38:07 2018 No.4949910 >>4949896 >>4949901 I saw US model A500s at a flea market once.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 15:00:28 2018 No.4949949 >>4949727 zx spectum has a wide variety of game genres, nezz has only platformers, jarpigs or a combination of both. nezz: -∞, speccy: 1

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 15:10:49 2018 No.4949968 >>4949949 And puzzle games and strategy games and shmups and beat em ups and sports games.

Anonymous Thu Aug 2 15:14:35 2018 No.4949979

>>4949867
>which means I would probably grow up to become one of those people who have weird fetish of spending thousands to get a mossy ancient hardware so they could listen to the noise of authentic floppy drive clicking
A lot of Amigafags use Goteks now anyway.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 16:18:16 2018 No.4950098 The Amiga was fatally handicapped by Euro devs still trying to make the same old simplistic arcade games and not trying to actually utilize the hardware especially the much bigger memory.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 16:41:28 2018 No.4950131 >>4949979 A lot of fucking idiots use goteks. Non-plebians use WHDLoad.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:35:54 2018 No.4950215 Why wasn't the Spectrum ever released in burgerland?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:43:57 2018 No.4950236 >>4950215 I thought it was but no one here wanted it?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:44:10 2018 No.4950237 >>4950215 Like someone else said, the low end computer market fell apart in 1983. Nobody wanted a computer with a rubber keyboard and no disk drives.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:45:16 2018 No.4950241 >>4950236 The ZX Spectrum was never sold here. They did sell the Spectrum QL for a short while but it didn't go much of anywhere.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:50:13 2018 No.4950249 >>4950215 because nobody wanted it when they had the commodore 64 and the apple 2

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:50:13 2018 No.4950250 >>4949732 >>4949718 Amstrad and Spectrum had true bitmap graphics, C64 instead had a pseudo-bitmap mode organised into tiles, but most games just used pure character mode anyway.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 17:53:04 2018 No.4950253 >>4950250 This was because the VIC-II design team wanted bitmap mode, but in a way that would minimize the amount of additional circuitry needed.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 18:01:02 2018 No.4950263 >>4950215 Banned for shitposting elsewhere or deleted yourself?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 19:54:50 2018 No.4950440 >>4949757 STILL A BIGGER COLOUR PALETTE THAN YOUR 3000 USD CGA IBM PC RUBBISH.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 19:59:03 2018 No.4950443 >>4942557 >1000 screens has anybody actually beat this monster of a hellhole?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:01:11 2018 No.4950445 I thought Shamus was a beast at 128 screens.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:05:57 2018 No.4950449 >>4950445 That was designed for the Atari 400 and fit in 16k. Tantalus used the entire 48k of memory in the Spectrum and the more code dense Z80 machine language allowed more game to be shoehorned into there.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:08:45 2018 No.4950456 >>4950443 Yes, you can find longplays.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:13:35 2018 No.4950468 >>4949979 Idiot's use Goteks in general where better solutions exist. The ones using Goteks on Amigas are just hipsters.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:14:47 2018 No.4950469 >>4949867 If you just concentrate on one Amiga, it's not that expensive as far as hobbies go, especially if you're into old computer in general.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:15:00 2018 No.4950470 >>4949745 The C64 had a lot more memory than the Spectrum so it evened out anyway.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:16:02 2018 No.4950472 >>4950468 They're ok if you flash them with HxC firmware, but they can still only emulate a single floppy drive while the HxC does two.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:16:24 2018 No.4950473 >>4949885 >Amigafags >are delusional Not going to argue about that, but look at anything from (ex)NekoChan UNIX graybeards to "t. I grew up with a SNES", all fanboys are cancer.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:22:52 2018 No.4950486 >>4950470 On a Z80 machine, you can get an average of 15-20% more code into the same amount of space. On a 6809, it's about 30% more code than you can get on a 6502 machine.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:43:19 2018 No.4950514 >>4949745 >code dense Fucking kek. What youtube video did you hear that in? The only thing dense here is the 12 yo summer fag who's never written a line of code for either CPU.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 20:46:52 2018 No.4950519 >>4950514 Neat, it's the underage assembly language LARPer.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 21:04:51 2018 No.4950543 File: 183 KB, 1280x720, maxresdefault.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Is this the thread where it's ok for me to tell everyone they need to play Eternal Eclipse Taoyarin and &? Pandora's Gate is sick as hell too

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 2 21:07:25 2018 No.4950547 >>4950519 What are you even talking about?

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 03:48:21 2018 No.4951086 >>4942397 500% guarantee every video he makes has a quick cut of raster bars loading whenever he does a transition

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 07:35:04 2018 No.4951275
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>>4949718

I know this is sarcastic but there are a few games that took advantage of the Spectrum's more freeform archetecture, whether it's full 3D games like Driller, Dark Star and Stunt Car Racer or improved 2D scaling like in the surprisingly legit Enduro Racer and Space Harrier ports. Though most of the time it was stuck doing exactly what the C64 and NES did, but shittier because it was all in software.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:36:46 2018 No.4951338 >>4949765 Every Ultimate game (Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Jet Pac, etc) Most Codemasters games (Dizzy, etc) Jet Set Willy II Starquake I honestly think they all hold up to modern standards, on par with early-to-mid NES games.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:38:22 2018 No.4951343 Didn't the MSX also use a Z80 and couldn't scroll? How come nobody shits on that?

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:39:11 2018 No.4951347 >>4951275 Hard Drivin' on the C64 was absolutely a joke and completely unplayable while the Spectrum managed to come up with a relatively decent port because it had bitmap graphics and a more powerful CPU to perform 3D calculations with.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:40:37 2018 No.4951349 >>4951343 MSX (in its original form) can't really do anything but a choppy block scroll. MSX -> Spectrum port were laughably simple though and could usually be done in a couple hours.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:43:57 2018 No.4951353 It wouldn't have been possible to do Sierra's AGI games on the C64 because of the tile graphics (and not enough memory to fit the game engine). A Spectrum 128 should have been able to handle them though.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:50:03 2018 No.4951356

Plus some Spectrum games were converted to the C64 verbatim, which meant that they'd just take the original source code listing and change each Z80 instruction into its 6502 equivalent and change the I/O and whatnot code to whatever the equivalent on the C64 was. Unfortunately, 6502 coding is very different than Z80 coding and the same programming principles don't apply to it, so the result was garbage that ran at 2 fps and just used the exact same Spectrum graphics, but using C64 hi-res characters.

It was easier to convert Spectrum games to the Amstrad because they shared a CPU, but the Amstrad's graphics were otherwise completely different and everything would have to be redone from scratch.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:51:50 2018 No.4951357

>>4951343
MSX (the original MSX1) can't really do anything but a choppy block scroll. MSX -> Spectrum ports were laughably simple though and could usually be done in a couple hours. The screen resolution was identical and the graphics very similar visually (although the video hardware was very different in how it's accessed and manipulated).

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:54:30 2018 No.4951359 >>4951275 Games come out better when they play up to a particular machine's strengths. For example, the Atari 8-bit couldn't match the C64 at side scrollers but the C64 also doesn't quite cut it at 3D/FPS/vector games.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 08:59:37 2018 No.4951361

Eh...the Speccy's graphics setup is more linear and not as clunky as the C64's and you do have more freedom of pixel placement, although the attribute system is still an issue since every 8x8 block uses a fixed colour and you end up with the infamous colour clash.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 09:04:02 2018 No.4951365

>>4951361
I don't think it's that bad depending on what you're trying to do. Something like drawing a circle or ellipse on the Speccy is really easy--if you want to avoid colour clash, just set the entire attribute map to one color (say, gray) and set the pixels to produce an ellipse.

Trying to do same on the C64 isn't very nice. Its attribute system kind of works like the Speccy's but the bitmap mode has everything grouped in tiles so you go down one group of lines and then start over again at the upper left of the adjacent tile. It's quite awfully annoying compared to how it works on most computers that have a purely linear bitmap mode.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 10:41:15 2018 No.4951481

>>4951356
Unlike the C64, the Amstrad and Speccy just run in bitmap mode constantly and there's no actual character mode. While the Speccy's video setup is extremely simple, the Amstrad's is an absolute clusterfuck that was probably designed while under the influence of various drugs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 10:57:14 2018 No.4951516 The Amstrad lets you bank out all the ROMs and have the entire 64k of memory to yourself; of course you'll have to also provide your own I/O and interrupt handling routines.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 11:39:10 2018 No.4951619 >>4951357 How similar are the MSX, Colecovision and Master System? I'm interested in this stuff but I don't know much about hardware.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 11:54:42 2018 No.4951654 >>4951619 They all use the same Z80+TMS9918/19 chipset, but the memory mapping, control inputs, and interrupt setup is completely different.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 13:30:38 2018 No.4951854 >>4949708 Funfact: Clive Sinclair was incredibly butthurt that his computer was being used mainly for games.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 13:36:47 2018 No.4951867

>>4951854
>Despite his involvement in computing, Sinclair does not use the Internet, stating that he does not like to have "technical or mechanical things around me" as it distracts from the process of invention. In 2010 he stated that he does not use computers himself, and prefers using the telephone rather than email.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:00:29 2018 No.4951924
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>>4951867
>as it distracts from the process of invention
I feel that if he rereleases C5 today, it will be insanely successful with numale crowd. If he sells it to Apple, their capitalization will hit 2 trillions in no time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm1Lda_-o68

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:02:21 2018 No.4951930 >>4951854 He thought it would serve mainly as an educational tool or some such rubbish.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:05:50 2018 No.4951937

>>4951361
>you do have more freedom of pixel placement
Except frame buffer is organized in the most retarded way possible, to the degree that 16 KB ROM filled with stuff which was supposed to be heavily reused in software didn't even have a procedure to print text with per pixel accuracy, so you had to make your own routine for that with assembler or get over the fact you can only snap text and images along 8x8 pixel grid.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:07:57 2018 No.4951941 Redpill me on Amstrad. Was it really ZX Spectrum with non-horrifying graphics, or there was some hidden fuck-up which would turn it into complete lame duck for most applications?

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:10:42 2018 No.4951952 >>4951941 It had nicer graphics but the arrangement of video memory was unbelievably convoluted.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:12:52 2018 No.4951958 >>4951924 There's automated rental systems for bikes and electric scooters, so maybe. The bf subscribes to the city's bike system.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:14:05 2018 No.4951961 >>4951952 Even worse than spectrum? Can't believe this honestly.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:16:23 2018 No.4951968 The Amstrad works in a manner similar to the IBM CGA cards in how the video memory/pixel data is arranged, but with more colors.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:20:41 2018 No.4951982 http://www.breakintoprogram.co.uk/computers/zx-spectrum/screen-memory-layout I've tried but I cannot wrap my head around how this works.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 14:38:45 2018 No.4952021

>>4951982
Like this:
First, there are 6KB which encode pixel data. There are 32x24 "character spaces" on screen. Each one is 8x8 pixels. You enter 32 bytes and they encode "a row". Each bit triggers a single pixel on/off. When off, it's color corresponds to "paper" color. When on, to "ink". So after you enter first 32 bytes and fill the first row, next 32 bytes start filling screen from left, but shift 8 pixels lower. After you enter 32x8=256 bytes, first "character space" starts filling up again, but this time directly under the first row, filling second row under it. This repeats until you completely fill upper third of screen (32x8 character spaces). Then you fill the middle and lower thirds. Then go the attributes. Thankfully those are merely bytes which contain sets of flags which tell which color of ink and paper correspond to each 8x8 character space, tell whether they should be displayed in regular or increased brightness, and activate the incredibly lame epilepsy-inducing flashing effect. Those go left to right, up to down without any additional retardation. The process can be illustrated by this faggotry loading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtBoRp_cSxQ

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:03:46 2018 No.4952075 File: 157 KB, 1030x532, trs_80_coco_2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] How come this thing is never talked about? Does it even have any good games?

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:15:32 2018 No.4952089 >>4952075 I think I had those shitty PC speakers. My first set was completely passive, powered by a SoundBlaster, and we were surprised when the next computer couldn't power them.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:39:48 2018 No.4952153 >>4952089 Everyone and their dog had those Labtecs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:40:12 2018 No.4952154 >>4952075 Think Spectrum-tier stuff but everything had to be obtained from Radio Shack or out of a mail order catalog.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:44:53 2018 No.4952169 >>4952075 >Does it even have any good games? No.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 15:53:37 2018 No.4952181 File: 142 KB, 896x720, HNI_0006_MPO.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4942393 >he doesn't know that the 128k versions had more memory and a real sound chip.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 16:00:17 2018 No.4952194 >>4952181 Yeah but they didn't even have that much software because of the need to support the large 48k Spectrum user base.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 16:05:40 2018 No.4952205 >>4952075 It was all mail order because retail outlets wouldn't carry TRS-80 software (Radio Shack after all was a rival retail chain).

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 16:06:22 2018 No.4952206 Do you think video games today would be much better if the Speculum hadn't been around to cause Rare?

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 17:11:22 2018 No.4952359 >>4952075 The graphics are very much just like the Apple II.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 18:23:10 2018 No.4952478 How do you load and start a machine language program on a Spectrum? On the C64 you'd type LOAD and RUN.

Anonymous Fri Aug 3 18:31:40 2018 No.4952503

>>4952478
Same as the C64. You type LOAD followed by RUN. On the Speccy, normally you have what's called a preloader which is a short BASIC program that usually looks like this:

10 LOAD "FOOTBALL MANAGER" CODE 32768
20 RANDOMIZE USR 32768

The preloader loads the actual machine language and then executes it. It's a little bit like the BASIC headers you have on C64 programs that read something like 5 SYS(2048) except the preloader is loaded separately while on C64 programs it's usually a short BASIC extension tacked onto the machine language code.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 18:36:18 2018 No.4952509 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_BASIC The Speccy has a really nice BASIC I should add with a lot of features, much better than that joke of a Commodore BASIC.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 3 18:41:10 2018 No.4952517 >>4952509 Not fair. Spectrum BASIC is 16k while the C64's BASIC is 8k and the more powerful CPU allows more features to be fit into it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 01:25:39 2018 No.4953120 >>4950543 Please elaborate, google isn't returning anything useful.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 01:35:40 2018 No.4953131

>>4952181
>128k versions had more memory
But they didn't, really. Address bus was still 16 bit, and they still had 16KB wasted on ROM page. So it was same 48KB which could be used at once. Extra RAM had to be used as switchable pages. They could be useful for loading extra levels without need of constantly loading stuff, but it barely changed anything in the end.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 02:38:14 2018 No.4953189 >>4942557 looks fun desu. whats it like

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 02:42:21 2018 No.4953193 >>4953189 You can emulate it or look up a longplay :-) That PNG is a much larger file than the whole game.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:05:21 2018 No.4953269 File: 3.79 MB, 2974x3893, 20180421_141647~01.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4952075 I fucking love it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:09:27 2018 No.4953274 >>4942402 >nostalgia nerd This is the same guy that asked for people to buy him a new PC to play Doom 2016.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:14:53 2018 No.4953280 >>4953274 link?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:17:16 2018 No.4953283 >>4953280 I think he took down the video but let me check.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:18:57 2018 No.4953284 >>4953280 nope still here >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDC6zK6YfJA

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 04:26:33 2018 No.4953290 >>4953284 He looks like an otter but has a wife and kids. Why is this allowed?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 13:43:51 2018 No.4953945 >>4953290 Bitches love gay men

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:23:21 2018 No.4954112 >>4952075 It was a cute computer and had a nice BASIC, other than that it was pretty useless.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:34:51 2018 No.4954134

Radio Shack never released CoCo sales figures but most people guess around 100,000 to 200,000 of all three models. The CoCo 3 in particular was a poorly conceived idea--released in 1986 when 8-bit computers were on their way out and not offering enough of a performance boost over the older models.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:38:43 2018 No.4954147 >>4954134 They were afraid of making it too powerful to avoid cutting into Tandy 1000 sales. The Tandy 1000 line was hugely successful for 3-1/2 years, in fact they were probably the single biggest selling PC compatible at one point.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:39:59 2018 No.4954152 File: 871 KB, 2890x1952, Sabu_with_his_Tandy_1000_Computer.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4954147 Do they get warm?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:43:33 2018 No.4954165 I think the only good thing about the Speccy is that it created some real programming geniuses because you basically HAD to be one to make a remotely decent game for it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:46:18 2018 No.4954172 >>4954165 I liken it to the Apple II. You need to be a wizard at 6502 assembly language to code a decent game on the thing. After all, that's where the computer gaming industry was pretty much born.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:49:48 2018 No.4954183 The C64 admittedly did have a lower entry barrier. Of all the major 8-bit platforms, it's probably the easiest one to code for.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 15:57:20 2018 No.4954203 Didn't Hiroshi Yamachi said that he wanted the N64 to deliberately be difficult to code for to discourage shovelware?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:02:23 2018 No.4954214 >>4952075 It had a bunch of super early text adventures and is kinda notable for that.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:03:23 2018 No.4954216 >>4954165 >remotely decent game for it name one

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:03:59 2018 No.4954217 >>4954214 Nothing you can't find on any other computer of that time.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:09:12 2018 No.4954229

>>4954134
I liken it to the Commodore Plus/4. Whatever nice features the Plus/4 had (128 colors, better BASIC, fast disk interface, faster CPU, real hardware UART) were negated by everything you lost (no sprites, shitty sound, not software compatible with the C64, different joystick and cassette ports).

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:09:41 2018 No.4954230 >>4954203 Sounds like Sony's rationalization for PS3's weird Cell CPU

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:17:13 2018 No.4954254 >>4954216 Jetpac

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:17:59 2018 No.4954257

>>4954134
>>4954172
A lot of computer popularity was regional--from my experience in the Northeast, Apple IIs were overpriced and only seen in schools while if you ask someone from California, they're like "WTF? Everyone had an Apple II here." Not surprising since California was rich and in Apple's backyard.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:20:52 2018 No.4954263 >>4954254 Even an average indie shitter these days could program that dogshit on his own

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:23:35 2018 No.4954270 >>4954263 Coding in Java/Flash is leagues easier than coding on a Spectrum. I don't think any Millenial indie shitter would want to subject themselves to the headache of Spectrum programming.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:26:53 2018 No.4954276

>>4954270
Well I coded homebrew shit on spectrum back in 90s and I can assure you that coding something like Jetpac is nothing to write home about. Cobra is probably peak of complexity of the stuff you can code on actual spectrum. Anything above that was probably coded and debugged on PC via emulator.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:35:55 2018 No.4954290 >>4954276 Usually they used a TRS-80 or a CP/M machine to write Spectrum games similar to how the Apple II was often used to code NES games.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:38:13 2018 No.4954294 >>4954270 All 8-bit machines are a massive headache to code for against anything modern.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 16:39:15 2018 No.4954295 >>4954276 wtf sound effects and music on a speccy?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:23:08 2018 No.4954559 File: 61 KB, 564x760, matthew-smith.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4954290 Cool, it seems he was also a Cure fan. Oh well, it was that era.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:25:31 2018 No.4954563 >>4942393 Primitive games, yes. Bad games, sometimes! Theres some fun ass games on the spectrum!!!!!!

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:26:12 2018 No.4954564 >>4954563 Name one.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:30:36 2018 No.4954571

>>4954559
Radio Shack were not all that successful in the oversaturated UK personal computer market which also had Commodore, Sinclair, Amstrad, BBC, and Atari machines among others, but the TRS-80 ports of Frogger were done by a British outfit (Cornsoft).

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:35:54 2018 No.4954584 >>4954257 By 1984, the Apple II was pretty obsolete and only schools were still dumb enough to pay $1200 for a 1970s computer.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:40:43 2018 No.4954591

>>4954584
>>4954257
Mmm hmm. My dad said he didn't know any Apple II owners and most people he knew had a Commodore or Atari 8-bit. This was in Pennsylvania though and it's not as wealthy of a state as California. Commodore were also kind of local boys in the sense that MOS had their main fab in New Hope.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:44:44 2018 No.4954597

>>4954564
Mask 3 venom strikes back
Batman isometric
Avalon/dragontorc
Skool daze
Movie
Alien 8
Where time stood still
Fairlight
Nether earth
Laser squad
Rebelstar
Fire trap
3dc
Champion jetski
Sleepwalker
Crusoe
Fall guy
Roller coaster
Transfer
Chinese juggler

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:45:16 2018 No.4954601 >>4954559 I wouldn't put my disks that close to a CRT, Matt.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:49:45 2018 No.4954608 >>4954597 >C64 had Bard's Tale, Maniac Mansion, Ultima IV, SSI Gold Box games, Seven Cities of Gold, Pirates!, Hardball, Gunship >Spectrum had a bunch of shitty single load tape games

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:53:01 2018 No.4954618 >>4954608 Congratulations, Americans could afford disk drives and we couldn't. Do you want a medal for it or something.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:53:57 2018 No.4954619 >>4954601 They're fine. A refrigerator magnet won't erase them.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:54:55 2018 No.4954621 >>4954601 Maybe it wasn't turned on.

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 19:59:34 2018 No.4954629

>>4954608
Ok, those are better games for the most part, but it doesnt mean the games i listed are shitty, just turn off the volume if you want. They are actually fun to play and there is a nice selection of games there a few different genres. Platformer, adventure, arcade, sports, strategy. The old speccy has more to offer than people think and theres quite a few hood games being made still for the spectrum!

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:00:01 2018 No.4954630 >>4954608 Congratulations, Americans could afford disk drives and we couldn't. Do you want a medal for it or something?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:01:31 2018 No.4954632 >>4954629 *good games Not hood games, though i dont think the speccy had a basketball game..racism? Nah, its just british.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:04:47 2018 No.4954641 C64 had Jordan vs Bird: One on One and Street Sports Basketball

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:09:08 2018 No.4954648 >>4954641 I also love the c64, but this is a thread about the zx spectrum. Dude died bruh, show some respect and talk about the spectrums highlights, dawg!

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:09:23 2018 No.4954649 File: 142 KB, 1920x1080, maxresdefault.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4954559 Matthew Smith looks like a girl. As an adult, he looks like a baby.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:09:50 2018 No.4954650 >>4954649 >Matthew Smith looks like a girl It was the 80s. What do you want?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:10:17 2018 No.4954652 >>4954641 Yeah it also had a game about raping american indian women

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:11:02 2018 No.4954654 >>4942806 >disks were out of most people's price range. That doesn't jibe with Bongs' favorite defense against the NES being "at least we got to come home every day with a backpack full of pirated disks"

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:11:56 2018 No.4954659 >>4954654 tbf that applied to the Amiga more than it did 8-bit computers.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:18:25 2018 No.4954672 >>4954652 That was a different system.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:29:50 2018 No.4954693 >>4954672 Nah pretty sure c64 and dos had em

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:41:42 2018 No.4954718 >>4950241 That was the Timex Sinclair 2068, which was a US version of the QL. Not very Spectrum compatible, but the Spectrum never reached American customers so it wasn't a big deal.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:47:28 2018 No.4954726 >>4954229 Or it's little bro the C16. >yeah, let's sell a 16k computer in 1985 what a genius idea

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:51:18 2018 No.4954730

>>4954726
The CoCo 2 was also at least on paper still offered in a 16k version. By the mid-80s, the idea of still selling a 16k machine was laughable since RAM by then was so much cheaper than it was in the late 70s, but marketing execs seemed to not want to accept it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:54:09 2018 No.4954738 >>4954730 Even in the much lower end UK market, nobody was still peddling 16k machines in 1985. Fuck, the Spectrum was 48k and it had replaced the 16k ZX81 back in 1982.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 20:58:02 2018 No.4954746 >>4954738 The C16 had some success in Europe.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 21:07:13 2018 No.4954757 >>4954730 Besides, 8-bit computers themselves were almost at the end of the road in the mid-80s.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 21:11:21 2018 No.4954760 >>4954147 During the Christmas 1986 season you had to be on a waiting list to get a Tandy 1000. By that point, the price of PC compatibles was dropping and they were steadily getting more and more dominant.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:20:42 2018 No.4954840 >>4946862 Im a citizen of the united states of merica and i think the british people had great hardware. Not only this mate, but the speccy is fucking brilliant. What do you have to say abou that?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:25:45 2018 No.4954841 >>4951941 better graphics but slower

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:26:56 2018 No.4954843 >>4949867 Both amiga and zed ex are easy enough to emulate. Speccy is a peice of cake amiga is a bit tougher and you probably want that amiga for all thingy. But its not too hard to get running just by googling the needed disk images

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:30:25 2018 No.4954849 >>4954591 I actually kind of like the Apple II conceptually. It was a lot like the Spectrum from a design standpoint. Here, we'll just yolk a CPU to some RAM and a video generator with a few TTLs to hold everything together. Go nuts.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:34:34 2018 No.4954851 >>4953284 some stupid fuck actually donated 76 pounds for this basedboy

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:50:20 2018 No.4954871 >>4952075 Pretty weak. It had Apple II graphics and VIC-20 sound and 32-column text so it wasn't good for business software either.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 22:57:06 2018 No.4954889 No composite video on the CoCo 1 and 2 either, just RF.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 4 23:07:10 2018 No.4954909 >>4942393 What does that have to do with gynecology

Anonymous Sat Aug 4 23:15:26 2018 No.4954919

>>4953120
https://www.digitalmzx.net/wiki/index.php?title=MegaZeux

I feel that MZX must be at least spiritually related to this awesome piece of garbage and those games I mentioned are honestly hot as shit, but I also have barely enough programming knowledge to write a text adventure and I don't know how I feel about making a thread about it.

Play those games though man they're free and digitalMZX has a lot more that are probably worth the time of trying

Anonymous Sun Aug 5 04:44:26 2018 No.4955236
File: 236 KB, 466x469, 1532975101938.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

For years already, when a retro computer thread pops up, it's content is always the same.
Same bait, same shitposts, same discussion about hardware, same arguments.

Don't you guys get bored?

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 5 08:38:41 2018 No.4955442 >>4955236 >Same bait, same shitposts, same discussion about hardware, same arguments. ???

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/vr/ - Retro Games