YSRnRY TV Prog: 1986 chapter OUT NOW!

The 1986 chapter of the documentary is OUT NOW! Watch as the Speccy world changes forever with the arrival of the 128k machines! See Sinclair Research gently bow out of the computer market as they sell out to Amstrad! Cheer as the games get better and better! Cringe when you see just how bad World Cup Carnival really was!

1986 is all yours, complete with funky soundtrack that had me dancing around my computer room. It's 8m55s long and a 89MB download. Enjoy!

http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/tvprog/
Post edited by NickH on
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Comments

  • edited May 2006
    Excellent news Nick. I'm downloading it right now. :)

    Necros.
  • edited May 2006
  • edited May 2006
    Just to let everyone know - this is a splendid episode. The 8 minutes+ fairly whizz past.

    Congrats, as always, to you Nick.

    Toodle-pip!
    Gerard
  • edited May 2006
    Can I ask that people keep the torrents open for as long as possible to give others a chance to enjoy? My upload speed is limited at the moment until I change to the new server.

    Thanks.
    My test signature
  • edited May 2006
    Excellent stuff Nick. Well done. Nice selection of games. Pity there was no mention of the big adventures of that year though (The Pawn, The Price Of Magik & The Boggit aong others).

    A technical question - What is seeding exactly?

    Necros.
  • edited May 2006
    I don't feel I can do justice to adventure games in the current format. Screenfuls of text just aren't easy to carry off in a 14-second slot.

    They need covering though, somehow. Maybe a voiceover and animation...? But not in the current series.
  • edited May 2006
    Necros wrote:
    A technical question - What is seeding exactly?

    Necros.

    When you have finished downloading the file and are only uploading it to others, you're "seeding" it to the network. The more "seeds" there are, the better for downloaders.

    It's generally considered to be good practice to upload at least the same amount as you've downloaded.
  • edited May 2006
    Arjun wrote:
    Looks like you've made Beccy eat her words! :D

    Methinks you should have read my words a little more carefully :p
  • edited May 2006
    Fantastic stuff, Nick :)

    Andrew
  • edited May 2006
    I cannot seem to get it to download, I have click on ww1, ww2 and bittorent, but it hangs and does not start to download, can you please email me the torrent file, so that I can doenload it with bittorent
  • edited May 2006
    hendrikbez wrote:
    I cannot seem to get it to download, I have click on ww1, ww2 and bittorent, but it hangs and does not start to download, can you please email me the torrent file, so that I can doenload it with bittorent
    Hmmm... works from here - anyone else having the same problem?
  • edited May 2006
    I did find that clicking on the www1 and www2 link opened Quicktime and right-clicking and choosing 'save target as' tried to save the download.cgi script instead of the file. Luckily I was able to get it from the torrent link. :)
  • edited May 2006
    Necros wrote:
    I did find that clicking on the www1 and www2 link opened Quicktime and right-clicking and choosing 'save target as' tried to save the download.cgi script instead of the file. Luckily I was able to get it from the torrent link. :)
    I'll have to put a note in about that - whilst the name of the file you download will be named download.cgi, it will actually be the MPEG file...
  • edited May 2006
    I have get the bittorrent to download, now it is working
  • edited May 2006
    Try the one on Sinclair Heaven if you have problems. If that doesn't work then we've got a problem :-?
    My test signature
  • edited May 2006
    Thanks Fogartylee
  • edited May 2006
    Excellent job Nick, brought back loads of memories!

    Download works okay here, well over 1mb/sec d/l speed!
    Oh bugger!<br>
  • edited May 2006
    Excellent stuff ! Downloading it now

    These always bring a slight tear to my eye as they really take me back to that golden age

    Just seen it, as always excellent stuff and happy to see a lot of my favourite games in there, eg Bombjack / Turbo Espirit.
  • edited May 2006
    There are now 7 seeders for the torrent. That means that 4 people are kindly keeping them open to help others (the other 3 are always seeding).

    Thanks folks. Now if only the other 616 torrents had the same :)
    My test signature
  • edited May 2006
    Foggy, am happy to seed, I have the full download - how do I seed without having to download it again via torrent?

    EDIT: Forget my question, it's screaming down on torrent now (150K/sec) so I'll be seeding sooner than I thought.
    Oh bugger!<br>
  • edited May 2006
    Yay :)

    Let me know what you all think of the new chapter.

    Work on 1987 won't start for a few weeks whilst my brain reboots. Been a long year.
  • edited May 2006
    Very pretty, I like it.

    I'm not sure that the opening point is too well made though, you seem to be saying that Marble Madness suffered for arriving after its clones, but then that Gauntlet shows that the best game always wins. So isn't the real problem that Marble Madness wasn't good enough?

    And I see that you can't catch bombs in the upside down rooms in Deactivators either... 8-)
    NickH wrote:
    I'll have to put a note in about that - whilst the name of the file you download will be named download.cgi, it will actually be the MPEG file...

    Content-Disposition header?
  • edited May 2006
    mjwilson wrote:
    Very pretty, I like it.

    Ta :)
    I'm not sure that the opening point is too well made though, you seem to be saying that Marble Madness suffered for arriving after its clones, but then that Gauntlet shows that the best game always wins. So isn't the real problem that Marble Madness wasn't good enough?

    What I was trying to convey was that Marble Madness was a new idea and was something special when it first appeared in the arcades. However, as there's a delay in converting coin-ops to the Spectrum (time taken to negotiate licences, etc), Gyroscope, Spin Dizzy and Bobby Bearing came along on the Spectrum and stole its thunder. The Marble Madness conversion was a good one, but time had moved on since it arrived in the arcades so it didn't get the recognition on the Speccy that it really deserved. So, yes, Marble Madness wasn't as good as the others, but it deserved the kudos that goes with being first on the scene, and I don't think it got it.

    Gauntlet had a similar problem, but kinda in reverse. The games that got released after Gauntlet appeared in the arcades but before the Speccy version came out (Druid and Dandy) were good, but not that good, so it's Gauntlet that most people remember rather than Dandy as that was an excellent game.
    And I see that you can't catch bombs in the upside down rooms in Deactivators either... 8-)

    *grin* Sadly, that's not me playing it. I'd love to get into Deactivators as that game appeals to me greatly, but I just don't have the patience to get into new games where you have to concentrate these days. Getting old :/
    Content-Disposition header?

    Will have a word with Martijn, not too sure what to do. I think it might be a browser thing - the URL ends in download.cgi?[url]http://..../1986.mpg[/url] and is used so that I can track how many times something is attempted to be downloaded.

    Hmmm.... might be able to write a workaround myself... will have a ponder.

    Ta for your comments :)
  • edited May 2006
    Loved the video Nick! I'll be downloading your other videos now! :)

    Just one thing I thought I should point out: Sometimes the "scene" in the video switches from one game to another too quickly - far too quickly to have you read the text as well as the look at the game at the same time, if you see wot I mean.

    Of course, its a simple matter of replaying the video again and view the games you missed I suppose, but I was wondering if a voice-over wouldn't do more justice here. Then again it would mean lowering the music volume in the background during voice-overs... hmm... I guess it is better this way after all! :roll: :grin:
  • edited May 2006
    Maybe a version with an audio commentary to go with the picture ? ;-) Someone with a good voice could do that, might be fun ??? But then again, the music simply rocks, so this might not be a good idea :)

    Oh - the movie is Fabolous, really brings back the memories. Was watching it with my girlfriend and she loved it too (especially the music ;-) ).

    TC
  • edited May 2006
    Yes, if we club together perhaps we can commission Joe Pasquale to do the voice-over. Heck, he'd probably pay us!

    On a more serious note, well done on the video. I've not actually seen it, but I got around to downloading it last night (and I kept the torrent running 'til I went to bed - I'll reseed later). The download was smooth, so I can only assume that speaks volumes for the quality of production.

    Perhaps I should watch the thing later, hmm?
  • edited May 2006
    icabod wrote:
    Perhaps I should watch the thing later, hmm?
    That's generally why people download the file. :p
  • edited May 2006
    Well, I'm toying with the idea of streaming the videos on the new site when I eventually get round to finishing it.

    The main reason is that apart from new releases from Nick, the video torrents don't get hit much. I'll probably keep the torrents though if anyone wants to download.
    My test signature
  • edited May 2006
    Regarding voice-overs...

    I chose the RnRY format rather than the "I Love The 80's" format because:

    a) my voice is crap
    b) in future the subtitles could be translated to other languages
    c) reading foreign languages is easier than listening to them
    d) more music :)

    I think it works for this format, but at the expense of coverage of adventure games and some of the slower-paced RPG/strategy games.

    The adventure games are my greatest regret, but I don't feel I can do them justice just by showing screenfuls of text. I think I (or, more probably, someone else) should treat them more as interactive fiction and dramatise the storylines using actors or animations to make them more visual, whilst having a voiceover that read the text aloud.

    The more I think about it, the more I think it's a job for someone else as they'd be able to do it much better than me.
  • edited May 2006
    You could easily put some adventure games in... it only takes a few seconds to show, say, the startup screen of The Hobbit being drawn, and the associated text. Simple, but I would say something like that is a defining moment in gaming. The same kinda thing for Valhalla, etc.

    I realise that (without looking at the dates) it's probably too late to include some of the more important games, but it's a thought. Graphical text adventures should be simple.
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