ZX Spectrum - Thread

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by Higgy

The diagnostic ROM feature is really useful. I used it fix a couple of Spectrums after it told me which RAM chips had died.

Don't forget to patch the Sinclair ROM so you can load (I think) .tap files.
It is all in the instructions.
http://blog.retroleum.co.uk/smart.zip
176

Cheers Higgy, I have just read the full_manual.pdf and its well presented. I wish I could say that I've been playing with the interface but as fate would have it my playtime has been taken up with family duties (nothing bad though), even the dog has been taking his time with the heat when we go for a walk

I'm hoping to get this set up at the weekend and have some real fun without the waiting for tapes to load I really thought that I would have been using this by now but life sometimes throws lots of obstacles in your way when you least expect them

[Neil79]

From the same person who gave us some of the best retro gaming books we've seen for a good few years such as The Story of the Commodore 64 in Pixels, The Story of the Oliver Twins and The Story of the ZX Spectrum in Pixels, who we know as Chris Wilkens, has launched possibly the best kickstarter yet! The Crash 2018 Annual; A revival of the classic ZX Spectrum Crash magazine, wrapped up in the guise of a Christmas annual, with a brand new Oliver Frey Christmas cover!

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...r-revival.html

[Neil79]

From the same person who brought you The Ship of Doom to the ZX Spectrum via Psytronik Software, Mat Recardo has just announced his brand new game ' Hyperskill ' that is not only available to play right now, but a hard copy will be coming to Psytronik Software very soon! This game that spans 44 awesome rooms, is according to Mat, a Cybernoid inspired blast em up with music by Sergey Kosov.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...-blast-em.html

[Allen1]

I finally got round to setting up my Spectrum and using the SMART card for ZX Spectrum from Retroleum. This is a really good interface and works very well, I wish that there was something like this back in the day. My main problem was finding where I had put the power supply for the Speccy, other than that it was sorting out some .sna files plus trying some .tap games. I am really impressed with this device and for the price it is great value for money

more info here :- http://blog.retroleum.co.uk/smart-card-for-zx-spectrum/

[Neil79]

We nearly missed out on this one but not any more, as Solaris104 contacted us to tell us that Paul Weller's new ZX Spectrum game of ' That Sinking Feeling ' which was developed using Arcade Game Designer by Jonathan Cauldwell and additional music by Grigoriy Klimenko is available to play right now! If you love your watery speccy games then give this a try, as after learning about the lost treasures deep in the depths of Atlantis, you must explore deep underwater ruins looking for treasures, while also avoiding viscous creatures, toxic fumes and dangerous free-floating mines left over from the old war.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...ers-first.html

[LuMan]

Originally Posted by saimon69 View Post
Assembly in the Z-80 was a bit simpler than the 6502 one

I'd have to agree with idrougge, somewhat here...

I learned 6502 at college and used it as a basis for learning Z80 on the Speccy. They both had their quirks, and various advantages over the other one, but hex-bashing in 6502 or Z80 is, by and large, very similar.

But Z80 does have a very useful block-move command!

[Allen1]

Thanks for the link Neil79, I had a quick go at the game on an emulator and its really good. I'm definitely going to stick the .TAP version in my card to use on a real Spectrum

[Neil79]

As many of you know by now that the ZX-DEV Conversions compo had recently been launched and gave you the chance to create awesome games where the contestants had to submit conversions from other games from other platforms, from movies,cartoons, books and even comics! Once such game that is known as ' Gandalf 'by cmgonzalez, really appealed to us as it is not only inspired by Super Mario Bros, but is based on Gandalf, using the Nirvana+ engine and it looks to feature some rather gorgeous ZX graphics indeed.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...latformer.html

[Neil79]

A long time ago, when I was but a teen. I remember going on Holiday to New York and it was the very first time I ever saw a 1980's Nintendo Game and Watch with a little guy that had to put out a fire. Sadly I was never able to buy one of them and it wasn't until now that I heard a Game & Watch inspired game is coming to the ZX Spectrum in the form of ' Baby Monkey Alba '; a game based on Donkey Kong Jr originally released in 1982!

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...ame-watch.html

[andy2004]

I had the ZX spectrum 128+2a... ah those where the days.. note: i was a commodore 64 user to begin with at the age of 8. then i bought the 128+2a. then went onto own a amiga A600. followed by A1200.. anyway lent the ZX speccy to my sister as she got fed up with the games on her 64... and that was the last i saw of it.. She didnt think i wanted it back, so threw it in the bin when she was finished playing the games.

[Neil79]

This took us completely by surprise as only today we found out that Errazking had launched a new ZX Spectrum game called 'Deep Blue', which was developed using 3D GameMaker, a piece of software originally published by Crl for Spectrum in 1987. This game which takes place deep in the underwater depths and give us a gameplay experience to that of an Isometric Ultimate Play the Game title. Features a character in scuba gear on the hunt for an immense treasure held in a gigantic Titan.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...trum-game.html

[Neil79]

Indie Retro News is almost back of our holidays so to kick it up a notch here's a new game from Rucksack Games aka John Blythe, Circuitry for the ZX Spectrum. In this game developed using Arcade Game Designer by Jonathan Cauldwell. You play as the Nan'O'Bot, a bot sent into a mainframe to save as much data as possible after a major hack at the private outsource R&D company Revanox! You have to complete this task but beware not only is the fate of human kind in the balance, but there's uncontrollable AI to deal with as well!

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...tronic-zx.html

[Neil79]

Glorious news for a Monday wake up as I've just found out through Facebook that John Blythe, the same creator behind the excellent Foggy's Quest and the electrically charged Circuitry, is now working on his next ZX Spectrum project as ' Peculiar Perplexing Perils of Professor Poldark: The Incredible Shrinking Professor! ' Looking like a play on Honey I shrunk the Kids, this in development title puts you in the shoes of Prof Poldark who, after seemingly coming under attack by Micro Lipstick Missiles and Micro-Wasp infiltration drones, has slipped into a cocktail of chemicals and got himself shrunk.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/0...ssor-john.html

[Genlock]

Nice one Neil !
btw , what formats do these latest games come as, are they all .Tap ?

[PortuguesePilot]

Originally Posted by Genlock

Nice one Neil !
btw , what formats do these latest games come as, are they all .Tap ?

Mostly. Some come in TZX as well. Z80 and SNA are now legacy and rarely used.

[BarryB]

I bought the physical releases of The Ship of Doom and Hyperkill from Psytronik and was sent a link to the respective pages on itch.io for the download versions as part of the order, The Ship of Doom was a .TZX and Hyperkill was a .TAP!

In fact, if you search for them on itch.io you can download both for free anyway!

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by Genlock

Nice one Neil !
btw , what formats do these latest games come as, are they all .Tap ?

Thanks

Most are Tap yes, some TZX as the other person said

[volvo_0ne]

Originally Posted by LuMan

I'd have to agree with idrougge, somewhat here...

I learned 6502 at college and used it as a basis for learning Z80 on the Speccy. They both had their quirks, and various advantages over the other one, but hex-bashing in 6502 or Z80 is, by and large, very similar.

But Z80 does have a very useful block-move command!

I always got the feeling that the 6502 (C64) was great at talking to other chips (SID etc)

however the Z80 (Speccy) was incredibly good (and fast) at talking to it's self.

Almost everything on the speccy was controlled by the CPU, so you didn't have to worry much about what the rest of the hardware was up to.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by volvo_0ne

I always got the feeling that the 6502 (C64) was great at talking to other chips (SID etc)

however the Z80 (Speccy) was incredibly good (and fast) at talking to it's self.

Almost everything on the speccy was controlled by the CPU, so you didn't have to worry much about what the rest of the hardware was up to.

C64 was 6510. What could have happened then with that speccy CPU and some C64 chips? Just wondering now. Let's compare cpu's:

Spectrum CPU: CPU Zilog Z80A @ 3,5 Mhz. 8 bits
C64 CPU: CPU MOS 6510 @ 1Mhz. 8 bits

Love the ZX Spectrum and I really hope I do because I run Spectrum 4Ever on Facebook.

It was one of those computers where once you used it you knew you could do quite a lot with it apart from playing great games.

Even now you have new hardware and software coming out which is a testament to how great the machine was.