Ta for this, I get excited looking at this sort of stuff.
Yeah, I have to agree. I've had a quick look through and visually the code looks ugly, but then you consider the end result.
There's also a [suggested] source for the Dark Star Loader with the comments:
DEFM /Boring game ! Boring game !/
DEFM /The boring game ./
DEFM /The first bit we got tired of it/
DEFM / so we wrote the second bit of this/
DEFM / boring game , the boring game !/
DEFM / Another bit , another bit , /
DEFM /another boring bit - another bit/
DEFM / , another bit , another final /
DEFM /boring bit - another bit/
DEFM / - another bit , a boring bit !/
DEFM /Looks just like the other one ,/
DEFM / is in fact another one , of these/
DEFM / boring games - the boring game./
DEFM / Oh not again !/
DEFM / No not again !/
DEFM / Please not again !/
DEFM /(c) Chewrubba/
I can't quite remember correctly, but I'd thought this had been a source of problems while attempting to load under emulation...
I always thought that Dark Star must have been one of the slickest pieces of coding ever to get such a fast and smooth 3D effect, so it's good to see that the source is a complete and utter dog's breakfast.
Anyway, it's not a bad game. It just gets a trifle repetitive after a while in the same fashion that most twitch games do.
I always thought that Dark Star must have been one of the slickest pieces of coding ever to get such a fast and smooth 3D effect, so it's good to see that the source is a complete and utter dog's breakfast.
Anyway, it's not a bad game. It just gets a trifle repetitive after a while in the same fashion that most twitch games do.
I remember years ago phoning them up and suggesting that they did a game based on Ringworld... which could have worked by using the planet surface code but splitting the attributes into blue and green for sky and grass, and have a raster backdrop for the arch. Floating buildings would have been easy to do too.
They were very funny chaps - I asked them about a quote in Crash where Simon said that he couldn't get Forbidden Planet to run at 50fps if they kept insisting on having animated clouds in the sky!
Maybe I'll have a look at the code and see if I can do it myself...
In a similar vein (a commented disassembly one), here's a very messy WIP of Dynamite Dan 2. Here's as good a place as any to post it whether JP likes it or not. :) It's a long job, the screen data alone took a week of spare time just to get it in the right format.
If anyone wants to contribute, they are most welcome (but tell me which bits). :)
I really ought to be doing other things but got carried away:rolleyes: when MartynC posted that he had spoken to Rod Bowkett and that Rod seemed sure that there was an ending. Only look below if you want to know if there's an ending in DD2.
There seems to be a neatly written (to my untrained eyes anyway) Space Invaders game in there too (a Dark Star easter egg apparently). Should be a good starting point for beginners to assembly no?
Plus, there is some over the top text in Warlock:
NameList DEFM /Design Design Software/:NOP
DEFM /It's a fair cop !/:NOP
DEFM /Oh god knows !/:NOP
DEFM /Wrong game !/:NOP
DEFM /(c) N.Mottershead & S.Brattel/
NOP
DEFM /Not enough Hobbits I/
DEFM / suppose ?/
NOP
DEFM /Ian Livingstone I presume/
NOP
DEFM /The only game more tedious/
DEFM / than this/
NOP
DEFM /Still waiting !/:NOP
DEFM /Strange thing to type !/:NOP
DEFM /Shit somewhere else !/:NOP
Clues DEFM /crystal/:NOP
DEFM /s.brattel/:NOP
DEFM /n.mottershead/:NOP
DEFM /6031769/:NOP
DEFM /(c)/:NOP
DEFM /t.bridge/:NOP
DEFM /warlock/:NOP
DEFM /thehobbit/:NOP
DEFM /sex/:NOP
DEFM /fuck/:NOP
DEFM /shit/:NOP
They seem to like having a go at their own games! The last bit featuring some swear words I suppose is there for some responses to user input of those words?
ZX Spin doesn't support colon separated statements? Plus since there is no Replace Text facility I've had to replace all # with $ using good ol' notepad. ;) The game better work after I've "ported" it to Spin! :-D
Yeah, I have to agree. I've had a quick look through and visually the code looks ugly
Well, firstly the formatting on the recovered files isn't 100% accurate, I had to do a lot of farting about with some of them, and secondly I think there's a certain degree of forgetfullness involved when looking back at old sources - the style was different back then. I used to get moaned at by Neil/Martin for putting blank lines between routines - they'd rather have more source displayed in the 25-lines available, and I'd rather have more white space.
If you're thinking about the earlier sources, Halls for example, then there's a damned good reason why they're so ugly - memory space.
They started out clean, with nice long labels and comments. But as we got short of space on the development machine we had to strip out the comments, then we had to shrink the longest labels, then eventually we had to reduce the length of lines and do really horrible things like replace "defb 0" with NOP... The logic being that "defb 0" took three bytes of memory (the editor tokenised the DEFB to one byte) whereas NOP took one byte - tokenised again.
There's also a [suggested] source for the Dark Star Loader with the comments:
DEFM /Boring game ! Boring game !/
DEFM /The boring game ./
DEFM /The first bit we got tired of it/
DEFM / so we wrote the second bit of this/
DEFM / boring game , the boring game !/
DEFM / Another bit , another bit , /
DEFM /another boring bit - another bit/
DEFM / , another bit , another final /
DEFM /boring bit - another bit/
DEFM / - another bit , a boring bit !/
DEFM /Looks just like the other one ,/
DEFM / is in fact another one , of these/
DEFM / boring games - the boring game./
DEFM / Oh not again !/
DEFM / No not again !/
DEFM / Please not again !/
DEFM /(c) Chewrubba/
I can't quite remember correctly, but I'd thought this had been a source of problems while attempting to load under emulation...
Suggested? As far as I'm aware that was the loader, or at least a version of it - I've lost most of the Dark Star sources.
The only problems under emulation I know about were that I was a cunning bastard and knew that the Z80 R register had a sticky top bit - so the Dark Star loader set the top bit if it thought that the game wasn't a pirate copy, and the game later checked that the top bit was set and crashed if it wasn't.
Early emulators didn't emulate the R register properly.
The piracy check was performed by counting input transitions in one of the silent bits of the tape between sections. I reasoned that kids copying the tape would likely use recorders with AGC circuits that would ramp up the gain and so add noise to the copies in this gap that the original tapes wouldn't have.
A few years later someone else made a big song and dance about this idea, as if it was theirs. Sic Transit and all that...
Much as I love HOTT, the original keyboard layout was truly horrible.
Gah, you humans with your deformed hands... Halls had too many keys, I'll grant you that (n-n-n-nineteen), but the layout was fine, exactly as god himself intended it ;-)
One of the files I did find was a specially adapted version of halls I knocked up for Jon Ritman, after he'd moaned for bloody ages about the keys...
Gah, you humans with your deformed hands... Halls had too many keys, I'll grant you that (n-n-n-nineteen), but the layout was fine, exactly as god himself intended it ;-)
One of the files I did find was a specially adapted version of halls I knocked up for Jon Ritman, after he'd moaned for bloody ages about the keys...
Kickaha, who art thou, truly? (My guesses are only edumacated but that does not make them correct)
Ah, yes, this doesn't automagically stick ye name up, does it. I'll have to get round to setting up a sig. [urgh]
I'm Simon Brattel, or so I've been led to believe at any rate... Founder of Design Design, for my sins.
Welcome aboard. For what it's worth, the presence of Kickaha in several high score tables prompted me to go out and find the World of Tiers series; great fun.
Welcome aboard. For what it's worth, the presence of Kickaha in several high score tables prompted me to go out and find the World of Tiers series; great fun.
Then let it not be said that everything I did was in vain :grin:
I still love that series, a prime example of an author producing their best work when writing for their own entertainment, I would say...
I almost feel it's a pity he's better known for the Riverworld books.
To be fair Zeus was a collaboration between myself and Neil Mottershead, and mostly Neil's - he was responsible for all the assembler and I was merely responsible for putting a (lousy) text editor on the front... Neil was a bloody marvel, when I met him he was lightyears better than I was as a programmer. He [spit] had his own Nascom 2, something I lusted after, whereas I'd had to struggle along building my own homebrew gear... Mind you, that meant I was a better hardware designer, which allowed me to steal his brain...
Comments
Yeah, I have to agree. I've had a quick look through and visually the code looks ugly, but then you consider the end result.
There's also a [suggested] source for the Dark Star Loader with the comments:
DEFM /Boring game ! Boring game !/ DEFM /The boring game ./ DEFM /The first bit we got tired of it/ DEFM / so we wrote the second bit of this/ DEFM / boring game , the boring game !/ DEFM / Another bit , another bit , / DEFM /another boring bit - another bit/ DEFM / , another bit , another final / DEFM /boring bit - another bit/ DEFM / - another bit , a boring bit !/ DEFM /Looks just like the other one ,/ DEFM / is in fact another one , of these/ DEFM / boring games - the boring game./ DEFM / Oh not again !/ DEFM / No not again !/ DEFM / Please not again !/ DEFM /(c) Chewrubba/I can't quite remember correctly, but I'd thought this had been a source of problems while attempting to load under emulation...
Anyway, it's not a bad game. It just gets a trifle repetitive after a while in the same fashion that most twitch games do.
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
I remember years ago phoning them up and suggesting that they did a game based on Ringworld... which could have worked by using the planet surface code but splitting the attributes into blue and green for sky and grass, and have a raster backdrop for the arch. Floating buildings would have been easy to do too.
They were very funny chaps - I asked them about a quote in Crash where Simon said that he couldn't get Forbidden Planet to run at 50fps if they kept insisting on having animated clouds in the sky!
Maybe I'll have a look at the code and see if I can do it myself...
If you recompile the code, can you change the keys to something more comfortable?
Having said that, it's years since I played it, but I think the keys were horrible, and not redefinable?
Forgot to say, thanks to DD for releasing the source code, I wish all Spectrum source was available, both for study and for modification.
If anyone wants to contribute, they are most welcome (but tell me which bits). :)
I really ought to be doing other things but got carried away:rolleyes: when MartynC posted that he had spoken to Rod Bowkett and that Rod seemed sure that there was an ending. Only look below if you want to know if there's an ending in DD2.
The link does not seem to work for me?
Yes, it works now, but was not available before.
Plus, there is some over the top text in Warlock:
NameList DEFM /Design Design Software/:NOP DEFM /It's a fair cop !/:NOP DEFM /Oh god knows !/:NOP DEFM /Wrong game !/:NOP DEFM /(c) N.Mottershead & S.Brattel/ NOP DEFM /Not enough Hobbits I/ DEFM / suppose ?/ NOP DEFM /Ian Livingstone I presume/ NOP DEFM /The only game more tedious/ DEFM / than this/ NOP DEFM /Still waiting !/:NOP DEFM /Strange thing to type !/:NOP DEFM /Shit somewhere else !/:NOP Clues DEFM /crystal/:NOP DEFM /s.brattel/:NOP DEFM /n.mottershead/:NOP DEFM /6031769/:NOP DEFM /(c)/:NOP DEFM /t.bridge/:NOP DEFM /warlock/:NOP DEFM /thehobbit/:NOP DEFM /sex/:NOP DEFM /fuck/:NOP DEFM /shit/:NOPThey seem to like having a go at their own games! The last bit featuring some swear words I suppose is there for some responses to user input of those words?
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
It's already been done in the remix version that came on the b-side of Forbidden planet:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002211
That said, I'm sure a few old school gamers out there actually prefer the original layout...
Oh, thanks mate, I might rediscover this old classic again. I hope it's not a case of rose tinted glasses.
Blow that for a game of soldiers.
Much as I love HOTT, the original keyboard layout was truly horrible.
Well, firstly the formatting on the recovered files isn't 100% accurate, I had to do a lot of farting about with some of them, and secondly I think there's a certain degree of forgetfullness involved when looking back at old sources - the style was different back then. I used to get moaned at by Neil/Martin for putting blank lines between routines - they'd rather have more source displayed in the 25-lines available, and I'd rather have more white space.
If you're thinking about the earlier sources, Halls for example, then there's a damned good reason why they're so ugly - memory space.
They started out clean, with nice long labels and comments. But as we got short of space on the development machine we had to strip out the comments, then we had to shrink the longest labels, then eventually we had to reduce the length of lines and do really horrible things like replace "defb 0" with NOP... The logic being that "defb 0" took three bytes of memory (the editor tokenised the DEFB to one byte) whereas NOP took one byte - tokenised again.
Suggested? As far as I'm aware that was the loader, or at least a version of it - I've lost most of the Dark Star sources.
The only problems under emulation I know about were that I was a cunning bastard and knew that the Z80 R register had a sticky top bit - so the Dark Star loader set the top bit if it thought that the game wasn't a pirate copy, and the game later checked that the top bit was set and crashed if it wasn't.
Early emulators didn't emulate the R register properly.
The piracy check was performed by counting input transitions in one of the silent bits of the tape between sections. I reasoned that kids copying the tape would likely use recorders with AGC circuits that would ramp up the gain and so add noise to the copies in this gap that the original tapes wouldn't have.
A few years later someone else made a big song and dance about this idea, as if it was theirs. Sic Transit and all that...
Cheers, Simon.
Gah, you humans with your deformed hands... Halls had too many keys, I'll grant you that (n-n-n-nineteen), but the layout was fine, exactly as god himself intended it ;-)
One of the files I did find was a specially adapted version of halls I knocked up for Jon Ritman, after he'd moaned for bloody ages about the keys...
Kickaha, who art thou, truly? (My guesses are only edumacated but that does not make them correct)
Oh, and welcome to WoS :-)
Ah, yes, this doesn't automagically stick ye name up, does it. I'll have to get round to setting up a sig. [urgh]
I'm Simon Brattel, or so I've been led to believe at any rate... Founder of Design Design, for my sins.
Thanks. I tried to join, half-heartedly many years ago, but the forum refused to send me a confirmation link. Who says computers aren't sentient...
The programmer of one of my favourite Speccy titles - Dark Star... Technically stunning. :)
So, quite simply:
Chris...
Crystal/Design Design games were always something to be looked forward to.
Thanks for putting the effort in all those years ago.
And many thanks from me for allowing distribution.
Joins a year ago, but it takes something special to make him post :)
Dark Star was the one with the beach ball with flippers. "I think therefore I am."
Welcome to WOS
Welcome aboard. For what it's worth, the presence of Kickaha in several high score tables prompted me to go out and find the World of Tiers series; great fun.
Then let it not be said that everything I did was in vain :grin:
I still love that series, a prime example of an author producing their best work when writing for their own entertainment, I would say...
I almost feel it's a pity he's better known for the Riverworld books.
It doesn't get better than this.
www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Simon+Brattel$
www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Chris+Pile$
welcome to the WoS forums. :)
I was quite impressed with the HOTT weird loader when I first saw it...didn't like the game though, lol. I like ROTT better.
A big hearty Welcome! (again) Loved your games (I may be one of few who prefers TWOFM over HOTT)
Do you recall who did the loading screen for IOTBS? (always loved the mountains)
Do you still look like John Lennon?
To be fair Zeus was a collaboration between myself and Neil Mottershead, and mostly Neil's - he was responsible for all the assembler and I was merely responsible for putting a (lousy) text editor on the front... Neil was a bloody marvel, when I met him he was lightyears better than I was as a programmer. He [spit] had his own Nascom 2, something I lusted after, whereas I'd had to struggle along building my own homebrew gear... Mind you, that meant I was a better hardware designer, which allowed me to steal his brain...