WoS hits 500 permission statements
It's been a while since I asked, but since we reached our 500th permission statement from individuals today, I thought I'd remind you all again:
If you wrote software for the Spectrum and have not yet told us whether you approve of having it freely distributed from WoS, please do so.
Similarly, if you happen to know other people who wrote Spectrum software, please ask them to get in touch with us as well.
If you wrote software for the Spectrum and have not yet told us whether you approve of having it freely distributed from WoS, please do so.
Similarly, if you happen to know other people who wrote Spectrum software, please ask them to get in touch with us as well.
Post edited by mheide on
Comments
I do know I started a JSW editor (who didn't?) inspired by an article in Your Sinclair (I think, it was the mid 1980's), put together the only Spectrum screensaver I know of (which needed a +D interface to run, as of course commercial games tended to use most or all of the Spectrum RAM, and even if they didn't, unless they were all BASIC then you couldn't guarantee that the area of memory set aside for the screensaver would remain untouched), wrote a reasonable Chess game (well, it beat me, which doesn't say much), and started to write a compression program (I thought I'd be the first to write one for the Spectrum, then someone sent me Mr Pack which was better than I'd probably have managed, so I gave up).
Plus I altered (improved?) a few that were by other people.
So anyway, nothing important, plus it's all freeware anyway so you could have archived or made it downloadable without my permission, but anything you do find with my name on it (Carl Murray or ewgf) then you have my permission to archive it, distribute it, and even impress the birds with it and claim you wrote it :-o
Dude, gimmie a list of what you did because I'm bound to have some stuff you made in my library.
How do you get Carl Murray from egwf as initials?
do you still have your +D disks? Would you send them on to DEATH? He'll recover them an add them to his freeware site. (I'd say pass them on to me but I'm a lazy sod, he's much more diligent.)
Must change my sig to promote the PlusD :D
It's just not fair (stamps feet) :(
Incidentally, I've found a DVD player I didn't know I had, if it works it'll do as a spare. Didn't find any money though :evil:
Anyway, I can't see how they've got left at someone's house, but then I lost some stuff when I moved house about ten years ago (by which time I'd stopped using a real Spectrum, but I'm sure I'd have checked that my beloved Spectrum collection was intact when I moved my stuff in), including a lot of books, despite clearing out the old house and the removal van. There really is a black hole that only appears when moving property from house to house.
Anyway, what did I write? Nothing of any real value, to be honest. The biggest was the Chess program, which (from what I remember) played a fair game, but even if it was a good player it did nothing that any other Chess program didn't offer. And it probably didn't offer a good challenge, I made up the evaluation routines as I went along, based on a simple Chess points system I read somewhere. It was fast at making moves compared to Psion Chess, which looking back wasn't a good sign, as it no doubt shows that the AI wasn't too detailed. I don't even think it understood Castle-ing, and it certainly wouldn't have understood En Passent (spelling?) as neither I nor anyone I knew ever used (or understood) that move. The main reason for me writing it was that I'd been trying to find a game called Go!, which was aparently older and more complicated than Chess, but no-one I knew had heard of it. So I wanted to write my own (I later learnt that the reason no good version existed on the 8-bits was that the game was too complicated for good AI routines to exist on such limited platforms, although it would be nice to see this proven wrong), but since I couldn't find any instructions of Go!, I decided to write a Chess program and modify it when I found out how to play Go!. Which never happened; by the time I found anything out about Go!, which would have probably been on the Internet , I'd long lost interest in even my limited programming skills.
I wrote it about 1989, I probably did pass it on to anyone who was interested, just to show off (yes, I'm James Bond :evil: ), although it wasn't exactly a finished product. It would have had no loading screen (just a BASIC loader and the code), awful graphics (the 2D staunton set as drawn by me), probably no sound (maybe the odd beep), and no options at all, not even play against the computer or play as Black - it was just a work in progress, until I found out the rules of Go!. I do remember that it had a green background (green's my favourite colour), used the standard font, and had "(C) Carl Murray 1988" (or whatever year) at the top of the screen. Come to think of it, I might have started writing it when I was using a Microdrive (yep, I was an early Speccy adopter), but I definately remember working on it when I had a +D (the +D made loading and saving so convenient).
I also did that screen saver (which I think Dave Fountain took the trouble to review in a fanzine somewhere). It worked, and didn't cause any crashes or instabilities, which I suppose was a plus. Due to the limited +D's spare RAM, it just turned the screen black (it didn't even gradually fade the screen, as the Spectrum's pallette couldn't support that). The only problems were that it didn't always activate (it depended on the state of the Spectrum's interrupts at the time), though it did work (i.e. activate when no key had been pressed for a user defined period of time) with many games, and that it stopped the Spectrum dead when the screen wen black, until the user pressed a key and then the screen was restored and the Spectrum went on as usual. Actually, the stopping dead wasn't really a problem, as the Spectrum was probably just running a game, and so if it stopped dead when the user wasn't playing, then so what? Now if you were crunching lots of data, such as ray-tracing or converting an audio file, then you'd want the computer to continue even when the screen saver kicked in, but then who did these things on a Speccy?
I think I did try to keep the Spectrum program running, by storing any newly altered attribute information (I think I remember trying to), but I probably ran up against a lack of either +D RAM, will-power, or programing skill.
The only useful thing I did was actually very small. I wrote the frontend and added a few options to a program that loaded .SNA snapshot files (from PC/Atari ST computers etc) onto real Spectrums via the +D. I don't remember where I got the original program from (I didn't write it, it might have been a magazine, or maybe a Spectrum contact sent it to me), but I mentioned it to Miles Kinlock (THE +D expert, and a really nice bloke who I used to swap Specccy programs with by post), and he asked for it, so I sent it to him, and he improved it (I think it originally crashed with many snapshots). He sent me the fixed version, and I added a front end with instructions and a few simple options. I remember this (though I can't remember it's name) as I spent ages with my Atari ST converting .Z80 files to .SNA files, using a .ttp ST program, that couldn't do batch jobs... Took ages.
There was other stuff, but certainly nothing important, and probably little enough finished. I'll try to find the +D discs, I know I wouldn't have thrown them out.
Well, I was around in the AlchNews years, so if you were part of the Speccy-underground in the '90s then we might well have spoken, or met at the NSSS. I don't recognise your pseudenym though, what's your real name?
Edit: I remember sending a +2 and the Spectrum video digitiser (what was that called) to a bloke in Greece, as I wasn't using them any more. I'm sure that wasn't the modded (a cassette port, MAJOR mod!) +2. I really don't remember sending the +D or giving it away, and even if I did send the +D, I doubt I'd have sent all of the discs, the postage would have been horrendous.
My name is in pretty much every issue of AlchNews up to about issue 22 I think and I was co-editor - I used to write under the name of Demon Hacker, cos I managed to hack some games and I thought I was good at it - until Graham Collier came along and put all the Gremlin games onto +3 disk for me! Bastard :D !
I thought everybody on here knew I used to run Alchemist Software with a mate, Trevor Mossman back in the day. Oh well, my real name is Lloyd Garland and I used to live in Bristol if it's any help :)
It's possible I met you the once - We had a stall at two of the shows in consecutive years. The second time we went we met up with Paul White, Alan Cresswell, Ray Smith and a few other pretty famous guys, including the author of a darn fine wordprocessor for the Sam, although I can't remember his name. We really wanted to meet Dave Fountain, but he couldn't make it. There was a guy there with a digitiser and video camera, the Romantic Robot one - was that you?
I just know I know your name, and I still can't place you :) There are no chess programs in the library - maybe Andy had it "held back" for a while and forgot to pass it on.
Sorry, I can't remember much else (if it was even you I spoke to), but it was ages ago. Though I'm just as skint now as I was then :sad: It's called progression...
Also, yes I was there when they video captured us all (I had my image done, it's still on my +D discs if I can find them), but it wasn't me who took the digitiser and camera. I probably met you then, did you go for a drink with us all afterwards?
* If you can't remember if we did talk by phone, did anyone ever phone you up moaning about how he hated employment agencies, as they:
a) nick a quarter of your money,
b) don't care how badly the people at the job treat you,
c) send you for jobs that don't exist, or have already gone, or you're clearly not qualified for, or are too far away to commute (and you can't relocate as it's only for two weeks or whatever), and they NEVER pay your train/bus fair to the interview,
d) and so on,
and probably sounded like he was going to take a shotgun into work the next day?
If so, then Hello again, that was me. And I'm still in the land of the employment agencies.
If I can only get a gun...
I'm in (pretty much) the same situation (in that I wrote quite a few utilities that I placed in the Public Domain and am unable to access the - oli damaged - originals). Though I sent (almost) everything I coded to AR, yet many of my works are nowhere to be seen (other than a few of my demos on demotopia).
If it wasn't for these two, I wouldn't have made Fontasy4 +D, nor the KizzyQuick +D Clone utility (cheers guys - if they read this:D).
Indeed.
I was in (semi) regular contact with Miles for a couple of years. Then lost all contacts when I moved:(. Shame, 'cos there were some really cool people coding at the time:).
Why not give me a list of what's missing - I've not had chance to include everything yet - just some games. Am working on the Utils right now, only Frontpage 2003 isn't playing fair :(
That's the olde version:p.
I made a revamped version that worked with a +D (if attached there are disk options available as well as tape):).
I'll go through the image files you've currently got on the site.
It may be easier if I list all the stuff I coded on the Speccy? All can be freely copied and distributed now too - no restrictions - even on AR only titles.
Horrible, horrible program:(.
Have you not tried NVU?
Although my adventure is on WOS (with solution and maps etc, which still leaves me feeling very proud) I probably still have tapes of my BASIC games that I wrote back then, some of them at least.
Nothing amazing really, the same stuff that probably a million other people made actually... erm, forget I said anything. LOL. You already have my permission slip anyway. :D
Sooooo what are you waiting for dude?!!! You have to get the tzx of those tapes!!
and yes WoS has homebrew games and adventures, you can see mine searching the words "Pepsi Soft" :D
cheers
Will always regret not meeting up with the underground UK 90s nutters like Gasman, Paul White, Mark Sturdy and Allan Clarkson (Crashed). Met Andy Davis at his home once... I know I missed a great show.
Dave Fountain
Dave, Paul White's email addy is still the same. I'm sure he'll love to hear from you, he's a great bloke. Met him at Glouster once.
Since we reached 600 permission statements today, I believe it's worth repeating this request, what with all the new forumites that joined in the past year. :-)
Otherwise scratch that :D
That's easily checked, isn't it? :-)
I believe we already have your permission filed, but if not, please get in touch.
As you can see on the permits page, there are 8 denials from individuals (all still selling) - some partial, some full.
I was perusing the permissions and have a question. When there's no "Allowed" or "Denied" signified beside a company/programmer and just a blank space, does this mean the game(s) are an assumed permission and available to download until their owner says otherwise?
I'm just curious cause I was looking up the games by Tom Frost and Tartan Software. My dad worked with him in the 80's briefly and I got some games off him directly like Green Door, Prince of Tyndal and Double Agent.
God knows what he's up to these days, but I think he's still in Montrose.
It really means what is implied: we honestly don't know and are doing our best to locate the copyright holder. We don't assume permission, especially not for more recent material, but hope we don't get sued while we search.
I'd love to get in touch with Tom. Sadly, we haven't been able to find any working contact yet...
We asked ourselves that question for 12 years now. We might have to shutdown. :wink:
This thread was started to mitigate that particular problem. Sadly, hardly anyone cares about it at all, seeing the utter lack of help...
With all the recently joined participants, I thought to revive this thread.
After 13 years of work, there are now close to 800 permissions from individuals in the database (yay!), but with a database of over 12,000, more participants are really required. The current rate is really awesome, but still not enough by far to get everything cleared in our lifetimes...
If you care about the Spectrum heritage, please consider helping out!
A template message is available if you're willing to try.
I used to do this a while ago; when I had some spare time, I'd enter names in Google to see what might turn up. It gets addictive soon after some success!