Sinclair Miscellaneous - World of Spectrum

Private Messages

SonicTHedgehog — Wed, 16 Oct 2002 19:33:00 +0000

Does anybody still use them?

SUUG Magazine

valletta — Sat, 26 Oct 2002 01:55:00 +0000

Does anyone remember the Spectrum Unemployed User Group? It had only a very short life in the UK during the mid '80s - It was a tape based magazine published bi-monthly (or so) and I was the editor for a while around about the time Clive sold out to Amstrad (84 or 85 - my memory is fading.

Game On exhibition- Edinburgh

Spector — Thu, 24 Oct 2002 21:57:00 +0000

I was there today and it was highly enjoyable. The game I enjoyed playing the most was IK+ on the C64- fantastic! The sprites look so close to Karate Champ, a great achievement. All the Atari classics were there (breakout- ace), and they had on display the first issues of Crash, Your Spectrum and Sinclair User, all donated by a Chris Owen- who is he?
The biggest disappointment was the Spectrum- as has been mentioned, Ant Attack was the demonstration game. Since Ant Attack requires dexterity with 24 keys, it's no surpise that everyone left it alone. Why didn't they put on Deathchase? Or Jet Pac? Or Knight Lore? Or Manic Miner? Or World Cup Carnival(joke)?
Anyway, apart from that glaring error, a highly enjoyable day all round, and it was good to see kids playing those old 80's games that I loved. In a way, having seen the games industry expand in recent years, it made me feel strangely proud to have been into that whole scene when it began all those years ago when it was regarded as a fad, and to see it now as a major part of an exhibition in a museum, it seems to vindicate all that excitement I felt when I was nine- video games are significant after all.

[ This Message was edited by: Spector on 2002-10-24 22:58 ]

spectrum game tunes on MP3

nevski — Sun, 13 Oct 2002 02:58:00 +0000

This may be a very strange request considering that it would be easier to just boot up the games... but do you peeps know of any sites where I could download Spectrum game tunes which are in MP3? basically so I can listen to them while I work... ;)

I have a AppleMac so MP3 is easiest. I have found over 60 already - listening to them just makes me thirsty for more... :)

cheers in advance!

Downloading games to play on a ZX Spectrum

simonp — Tue, 22 Oct 2002 20:24:00 +0000

This might sound strange but I've just got a ZX Spectrum and was wondering whether you could download files to play on it.

My idea was to get MP3 files, press to a CD, connect headphone socket to spectrum and load them that way.

Is this possible? Don't particulaly want to play them on a PC emulator!

Simon

What is a Kempston joystick?

Bacon — Wed, 04 Sep 2002 07:30:00 +0000

Just a quick question from an ignorant Commodore user (what, a Commodore user on this sacred ground? Relax, I'm a fan of all 8-bits, including the wonderful little Speccy):
Whenever reading about Sinclair computers, I always come across the phrase "Kempston joysticks". Is this the same type of joystick that the rest of the world refers to as Atari style joysticks? If so, how come they're called Kempston joysticks in the Spectrum world?

[ This Message was edited by: Bacon on 2002-09-04 08:30 ]

SpeccyBob circuit diagrams

MikeW — Sat, 19 Oct 2002 00:02:00 +0000

I've had quite a few requests for this lately, so I've decided to put the circuit diagrams for speccybob on my site in their original Protel format:

http://www.speccybob.2y.net/Circuits/speccybob.zip

This should make it easy for anyone to modify them for their own needs.

Enjoy.
MikeW

WOS site not reachable from Amsterdam ?

secarica — Wed, 16 Oct 2002 17:47:00 +0000

Being in Amsterdam some three weeks ago, I tried to access WOS site from a public internet. The request has failed.
The internet access was remarkably fast, serving all the other requests.
What should I understand ?

Best wishes,
Cristi

SAMRAM

SonicTHedgehog — Wed, 16 Oct 2002 20:28:00 +0000

I read somewhere that somebody used the SAMRAM on a real Spectrum! Possible or not?

answer me if you know or not-I have about 0 replies to a big topic below here!

Instruction Manual for FIST II

SonicTHedgehog — Thu, 17 Oct 2002 20:49:00 +0000

Where can I get the Instruction Manual for FIST II, but not Way of the exploding Fist II, I mean Mastertronic's, not melbourne house's.

:(

Buzz Tracker

cyborg — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 20:08:00 +0000

I thought some of you more musically inclinded specchums may be interested in a program called Buzz tracker: http://www.buzzmachines.com/

I meantion it because I was playing around with it and there's some very nice Spectrum machines (a machine is basically a module in the program which generates sound). If anyone wanted to do Spectrum sound remixes this would be an ideal program to do it in.

Screenshots

SR — Sun, 13 Oct 2002 07:52:00 +0000

I have a lot of games in zip archives, but I don't have screenshots for them.
It's there any app that can make screenshots from many zip archives at once ?

Development Tools

Arjun — Mon, 17 Jun 2002 07:53:00 +0000

The speccy had some great assemblers for it but there were other tools like Laser Basic, Laser Genius, Mega Basic, Hurg, etc...

I was wondering if anyone has actually used these to create games/programs?

In particular, is there anyone who has used Laser Genius for game development? I believe it has a good assembler and debugger. But has anyone actually made any games with it?

Sir Fred programmer died.

Javier — Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:51:00 +0000

Hi there,

just want to inform that Paco Menendez, spanish programmer author of "Fred", "Sir Fred" and "La Abadia del Crimen" died. These games are into the very best of spanish software ever (even thought there isnt so many good spanish games)

There is a dedicatory to him in Commandos2 from PyroStudios/Eidos.

Rest In Peace

/Javier

ZX Spectrum hardware and schematics(with PCB layout) wanted

George Peres — Mon, 14 Oct 2002 05:54:00 +0000

Does anyone here has or knows who have the
schematics (with pcb layout if possible)
of any disk drive interface controller?
In the past I had one Multiface1 and a
interface for disk drive wich was called
CHEYENNE. Does anyone knows this CHEYENNE?
Thanks for all. BYE. FROM BRAZIL-SP.

We need a new Spectrum!

Sharopolis — Wed, 18 Sep 2002 00:34:00 +0000

As it seems that all the rumours of Sir Clive working on a new machine are nothing more than just vapourware, dont you think its about time we started up some sort of petition or someting to get the man up off his backside and make us a new computer? All he's been doing for the past fifteen years is buggering about playing poker and making tiny radios that look like hearing aids.
I dunno about you but Im getting very tired of that Bill Gates strutting around the place like he's someting special, its about time Uncle Clive showed him whats what.
If we all get together and shout through his letterbox or something maybe the main man of the 8-bit years'll realise that its about time that he came out of exile and kicked some arse!
Who's with me?

Possibly weird .WAV request?

Myke-P — Sun, 13 Oct 2002 00:25:00 +0000

Hello there!

WOS has sure moved on since I last visited back in '99. Looking great! :)

Anyway, I'm in the middle of producing a little homage to ZX81 classic "3D Monster Maze" for a retro-game programming competition over at www.blitzcoder.com and I've just finished my ZX-Speccy loading-screen sequence and it looks *ahem* 'reasonably' authentic.

Thing is, I'd really love some similarly realistic sounds to go with it. What I'm after is:

a) The sound just before, during and just after the "Bytes: "
b) The sound during the loading of the picture (white on black)
c) The sound during the loading of the picture (fore/background color application)
d) Some trailing sound of the rest of the game loading.

So, after an hour's unsuccessful Googling, I figured the best place to find out if it's possible to find some appropriate WAVs on the Internet, would be with the people most interested in Speccy preservation. :D

I'm not after anything untoward, the noises could be any game, complete or otherwise, I'm just looking for a particular section of synth from a Speccy loading something or other!? If that makes sense?

Anyway. Cheers in advance. Hopefully someone might be able to point me in the right direction.

Game On exhibition at Barbican Art Centre, London

Paul van der Laan — Tue, 28 May 2002 15:04:00 +0000

Last Friday I was in London and went to see the Game On exhibition at Barbican. Really well done with more than sixty games playable on various vintage consoles. There was one Spectrum on display where you could play 3D Ant Attack. So if you have the chance to be in London between now and mid-September - this is one to check out.

Speccy +2 RGB to S-video?

Jazzbeaux — Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:09:00 +0000

Okay, so I emigrated from dear old Blighty to a land rather less Speccy-friendly, the USA. I've finally managed to get a couple of Speccies over here with me (a + and a +2, if anyone cares), and the next hurdle is getting one of the little blighters working on an American NTSC telly. Naturally, using an RF (PAL) signal is not high on my 'hmm, this might work' list.

The +2's RGB-out socket seems the most likely way of doing this, if the signal can be sent to an NTSC S-video socket that my TV could actually understand. The questions are:

1) Is this even possible?
2) If so, how do I go about it?

I'm sure at some point I'll find myself with my faithful ol' British 21" SCART-equipped telly over here too for running all my other Brit-spec systems on, but I'd love to get a Speccy working over here - and of course I have got some Americans interested in Speccies as well (like a co-worker who's an avid game/system collector, but is too young to recall when computers loaded off tapes - he fell in love with the +2 at first glance!).

Any solutions you bright and marvellous people can offer? Or is the idea of a genuine, UK-spec Speccy (pun intended) running in the USA just a pipe dream?

(At least finding a suitable power supply should be pretty easy... :) )

My Speccy 128 gets wobbly

Spector — Tue, 08 Oct 2002 23:36:00 +0000

I'm having trouble with the picture on my 128+. The picture starts flickering like crazy until it's unusable. Sometimes I turn it on and it's okay, but then it goes berzerk again, often to the extent that the TV loses the signal completely for brief moments. Yet even then, the computer never resets itself.
I suppose this is just a problem with the aerial connector- you think it's repairable?

Glad to see the ZX Spectrum is in the Science Museum in London.

thx1138 — Wed, 09 Oct 2002 17:56:00 +0000

About time too! Last tiem I looked there was just the ZX-80 but the Spectrum is in there now too, alongside a pong-clone and a Vic-20.

what add-ons did.............

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Aug 2002 10:00:00 +0000

what add-ons did people buy in the 80's for their zx spectrums? :)

windows loading screen

newbie88 — Mon, 07 Oct 2002 06:33:00 +0000

hello all, anyone got a windows98 bootup screen that looks like a spectrum tape loading screen? Will be cool isn't it?

Imagine...a grayish screen, with the sinclair copyright line at the bottom...and the red/blue line blinking at the side ...and woopeee...windows98 is loaded :)

thanks

rgds

a poke to change fonts??

Javier Alca?iz — Wed, 25 Sep 2002 11:46:00 +0000

hi ppl, there wasnt some poke in basic to change the look alike of the fonts of speccy??

I guess I did things like that in eighties..

also, there were a poke to quit "scroll? " message in basic??

where can I find those pokes and similar info?!

[ This Message was edited by: Javier Alca?iz on 2002-09-25 14:17 ]

Just how popular was the Spectrum?

Sharopolis — Tue, 24 Sep 2002 00:43:00 +0000

I was wondering does anyone have any idea how the Spectrum stands in terms of popularity as a system in General? With clones available as far afield as China it must be very difficult to tell how many Spectrums and Spectrum compatible machines were and are still being sold. I reckon only IMB PC compatibles and the Apple Mac must be the only systems to have sold more and probably only the PC has more commercial games to its name.
In terms of consoles I've heard that the original Gameboy and the NES score pretty highly, with apparently over 1000 titles available for each, but the Spectrum beats that with even conservative estimates putting it at over 6 thousand games availiable (quick scan of my WOS arcive dvd puts the total number of files in the games section as about 16000, obviously many of these are duplicates of different file types etc)
does anyone have any more concrete figures?
Whatever the true numbers are I think we can put those Imperialist lackeys, the C64 fans to shame!

How To List BASIC?

kim — Fri, 23 Aug 2002 16:03:00 +0000

Hi,

I want to look at the BASIC coding for a game. Is there a piece of code I can load into a 48k Spectrum which will read in a .TAP file and list it instead of running it?

If not, then is there some other way I can list the BASIC program?

Thanks,

Kim

[ This Message was edited by: kim on 2002-08-23 17:10 ]

Broken sound on Spec +2

mlasham — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 00:40:00 +0000

My spectrum +2 (with the +3 system board) just gives off
static sound through the UHF out. The audio out is also
full of static sound.
This is sitting at the power on menu, and also in Diag mode.

Playing sounds (eg, beep, or a game) does not change things.

The component label X200 looked like someone had tried
soldering it , and possibly had it solder on the wrong way around.
I've removed it and put it back the other way around but that
did not fix the problem. Anyone know what this component is?
It has printed on it "KBR 6.0 MC"

Something else must be wrong but I dont know how to
test. Any ideas.

BTW: I dont really know much about electronics so am applying
common sense to trouble shoot, and asking for help and advise.
I fixed a QL once this way [:)]

Cheers
Michael.

icons

bbulldog — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 09:33:00 +0000

something i found while browsing the net http://www.soft.net.uk/watkins/specicons/

[ This Message was edited by: bbulldog on 2002-09-27 10:34 ]

Hardware page

Fraser — Sat, 21 Sep 2002 19:35:00 +0000

Is anyone still updating the hardware page? It has not been updated since last November. It looks as if there is several different Magnum lightguns for different spectrums and amstrads. Is that in it? I saw this rs232 interface on ebay that is not in it: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2053708613

Fraser.

Please help me!

daikon — Sat, 21 Sep 2002 10:15:00 +0000

I'm not what you'd call "computer literate" - so... a simple question: I've downloaded a spectrum emulator, now I want to actually play a game! but my computer won't let me! it says something like "mess036b.zip" is missing, cannot open this file! what can I do!!!!?? :( (in layman's terms please).