Spectrum Computing

1. Batty
2. Moley Christmas
3. Hyperactive

I actually played Moley Christmas more (still do every Christmas) but Batty was amazing for a full game given away without having been released.

Another vote for Zeus. It works really well, and is light on resources.
It can also generate tape images in tzx/tap format etc.

(And it has a heritage going back to an actual Spectrum assembler that was released on the Speccy back in the day)

Rambo can be done in about 4 mins

Very good read. Speaking of ocean - " It was responsible for the two titles bundled with the machine and was quick to create 128K versions of all its new games. Later on it was also the first major publisher to drop support for the 48K altogether " Is this true? I hadn't heard it before. A...

Wizball. I loved that game back in the day and I recently saw on Youtube that the C64 (spit) version allows a second player to control the "cat". Genius! That would have been a great addition to the Speccy version. And probably easy to implement too, since the cat is playable by the player...

In Bruce Lee, holding down [fire] and [left/right] and defeating the ninja with 4 swift kicks.

Manual docking in Elite

I've read the specification page linked above, but still feel I don't know a lot about ULA+ Is the timing specified? I.e. how long it takes for a palette colour value to be updated when the instruction is issued? I'm wondering if runtime animations could be achieved with just palette changes. For ex...

1. Cobra
2. Green Beret
3. Hypersports

International Match Day
Match Day
HOH

I'd be curious to know if anybody here manages to get beyond the first few levels of Batty without some kind of cheat. After 30-something years I played it with pokes recently; very disappointed to find that there's no real end to the game. Life seems to have lost some of its meaning now.

I've backed this. I'm not even sure there's anything in particular I want to do with the machine when it arrives. But with Rick Dickinson's involvement I see it as the last machine that has any links to the original Spectrums. The organisers are enthusiasts rather than experienced manufacturers. The...

The CPC was released way after the Spectrum, and had multiple graphics modes. Imagine if one of those modes could replicate the graphics memory of a Spectrum. I.e. 256x192 (with the same weird layout of the Spectrum graphics memory) followed by an attribute area. Being Z80-based, the CPC was always ...

I like this topic TomD!

Personally I'd add the 128 version of Starglider - and maybe remove Short Circuit.

What would have been interesting with a 256KB machine would have been the performance increases. As has been pointed out, I can't see all that space being filled from a cassette tape. More likely that extra memory might be used at runtime for lookup tables etc. I think something similar has been don...

I've often wondered about this topic too. That sentence is somewhat embarrassing but I suppose this is a safe space for thoughts like that. Didn't the Amstrad CPC range have multiple graphics modes that could be switched in software? Couldn't a new Spectrum do something similar, booting into "c...

Carrier Command. I think the enemy carrier is automated.

Also - Glider Rider? I'm not sure if the island is computer-controlled, but there certainly aren't any other visible people.

I was a bit surprised not to see Tetris on the list, given the impact it had on video gaming and it's suitability to the graphical limitations of the Spectrum. But sure enough, Crash only deemed it worthy of 77%. Hard to believe it's not worthy, given some of the other games on the list. How many pe...

I'd love to have seen a better version of Double Dragon. I know there was an attempt at a re-implementation in recent years, but progress seems to have halted. So who could have done it? The obvious answer might be the guys who did Target Renegade - Mike Lamb, Simon Butler. I wonder what Jonathan Sm...

The RS232 interface on the Interface 1 and on the 128K models has one fundamental problem. They both lack a special chip ( UART being the most common terminology for this type of chip) that handles the parallel to serial and the serial to parallel conversion. Hence the Z80 has to do this. This is a...

The Sam Coupé was released in 1989, but I think I remember reading that it was scheduled for an earlier release than that, had been delayed, and by the time it was released it was a tough sell when compared to an Atari ST (or an Amiga, although those were more expensive). If Sinclair had released th...

This is a really good thread. I feel sorry for the professional Speccy programmers from the late 80s onwards. By then, arcade games had moved on with more advanced hardware, the 16-bit home computers were able to reproduce them somewhat reasonably, and these were the games most gamers wanted. The ty...

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:10 pm The HSE - is that the Republic Of Ireland's equivalent of the NHS?

Yep, imagine a NHS with longer queues.

This isn't really media, but I remember radio stations broadcasting programs for the Spectrum (and possibly other home computers). <edit>Oops, I see somebody above already mentioned TV programmes

Yes, the difference in contrast between a CRT and emulator/LCD screen is a good point I hadn't even thought of.

Although, for reference, most of my time on my Spectrum was with a black & white portable TV

Hi All, something that's been puzzling me... I've seen a few games that seem to have different BRIGHT levels for sprites and background. As an example, Zzoom: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/5894/ZX-Spectrum/Zzoom Is there a reason for this? It's too obvious to be something the programmers mis...