Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

Geek Culture / The language that created Spectrum games...

Author
Message
Dark Flame
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Feb 2005
Location: England
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 10:33
Link
I found my old Spetrum today and I can remember how basic the games were, but does anyone know what the language was what created the games?

Thanks

Back to top
Profile PM
Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 10:38
Link
Assembly for the most part, but i'm sure some were also done with BASIC.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 10:44
Link
Mostly good old Z80 assembler.. loads of resources here (scroll down)

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/documentation.html

Two Worlds and in Between
Hot Metal and Methedrine
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BatVink
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 16:44
Link
Unlike my Dragon 32, which used Microsoft Basic 1.0! That was 1981/1982.

BatVink
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Pricey
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Feb 2003
Location:
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 17:30
Link
It had BASIC built in, when you turned the machine on but it was rather slow and annoying (pressing one key for a command was confusing!) so most people chose to use assembly for better use of the machine's resources.

I was only born in 1991 so never owned a spectrum in its heyday, I got really interested in retro consoles & computers a couple of years ago and started messing with my dad's old ZX81 (1k of ram!) and bought my self two spectrums (one 16k and one 48k) and started messing round with them.

They were great but flawed machines, the main niggles being difficult cassette loading and very delicate power sockets that were all too easy to break (I should know)

^_^

:: 3Ghz Pentium 4 / Hyper Threading, 1024mb RAM, 160GB HDD, 256mb Radeon 9600XT Graphics ::

:: Current Project: Sea Bound ::
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 17:47
Link
You could actually do a lot of internal stuff with Spectrums, like the basic language took up memory, so some leet coders would dump the basic and use the memory for other things. You could easily make your own graphic fonts, sprites, the 2D command set was much more accesible than other systems so a lot of people got along fine writing text adventures in basic. I always loved how it was possible to design a font in binary code then use it anywhere, it was perfect for adventure games - just a shame that speccy basic was so limited by the machine.


Van-B

Back to top
Profile PM Email
DBAlex
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 19:17
Link
My dad had a Dragon 32...Hes donated it to me now.

Gonna get it down one day and try and make some cool games in M$ BASIC...

I wish he would have had a cooler computer like a VIC 20 or C64... Oh well...

When i see any codes for old BASIC games it allways has the command "poke", What did that command do?

Im guessing its something to do with graphics... ?


AMD 64 3000 + 512mb RAM + 80GB HD + Radeon 9600se 128mb
http://www.dbastudios.cjb.net
Back to top
Profile PM
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 19:30
Link
POKE allowed you to change parts of the memory directly. At the time all I remember using them for was for neat tricks you read in mags, and for doing cheats if I remember rightly.

I actually had a Spectrum assembler. Bought it when I was about 11, and thought I could write a decent game (BASIC sucked on the speccy). At 11 though I didn't have that much dedication and gave up on it. Annoying considering how easy the games really are. And can you imagine the fame you would have now? Look at games like Manic Miner. Bedroomtastic with one bloke, and only a few weeks to write. Damn...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
OSX Using Happy Dude
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 19:40
Link
I've always like the C64 BASIC myself - PEEK and POKE were very powerful...


Atomz is at http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~nickk
http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BatVink
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 21:40
Link
A good example of POKE on the Dragon was to get more than 4 colours onscreen at once. The language only allowed for 4 colours, but you could alter them by POKEing the values.

BatVink
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 22:56
Link
The C64 was incredibly complex compared to the way the Spectrum worked - I mean Speccy basic was more like a script language really, by todays standards at least.

With the C64, you could do things like write assembly music programs, and have them run independently on the SID chip - even in basic though you had access to all the cool stuff, like the sprites. The C64 seemed to almost sit and mock it's owner, because it knew what it could do, like we all knew that you could do some very cool stuff on the C64, but learning all the ins and outs was a new kinda pain, I never did get far with sprites, I think that's why text adventures were what I concentrated on.

The C64 was a great intro to 16-bit coding, that's for sure.

For a lovable machine though, the CPC464 was great - the basic was great, and it had an ok keyboard and it's own monitor. I mean, if I had to choose 1 8-bit computer to write a program on, it'd be a CPC.


Van-B

Back to top
Profile PM Email
zenassem
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Mar 2003
Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 3rd Jun 2005 22:57
Link
PEEK was very important as well. With PEEK you could see what value was stored in a given memory location. Especially important, if you needed to save the original value before POKEing it with your own value. Also, certain memory locations can only be read but not written to.

~zen

http://www.mod2software.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email
dj blackdragon3710
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Nov 2004
Location: In LaLa land
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:09
Link
Ahhh, the c64....

<<<<<Used to be "djblackdragon" with being registered in January, 2003, no matter what it says on the left<<<<<
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:09
Link
Quote: " The C64 was incredibly complex compared to the way the Spectrum worked"
Aha, a C64 loving dweeb! Nah, the speccy was far superior to the C64 in every way. Mainly, and probably only, because I owned one. Ah. The good old days. Don't tell me you owned an Amiga (girlfriend)?.....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:24
Link
Pah, I owned an Atari ST - Amiga was always the enemy. Just like C64 was the enemy of the Speccy - Every 8-bit had their benefits though, they all kinda balanced out and it made playground 'my-computer-is' arguments great fun - except it was usually only poorer kids that had CPC's, because they could buy them through the Littlewoods catalogue .


Van-B

Back to top
Profile PM Email
OSX Using Happy Dude
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:28 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:29
Link
Quote: "Nah, the speccy was far superior to the C64 in every way"

Maybe in an alternative dimension - and if the C64 didn't exist, then it would be...


Atomz is at http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~nickk
http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:35 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:36
Link
Thats more like it. Good old Atari ST. I had one of the older ones with an external power pack and huge floppy drive I remember upgrading it to 1mb, and that 512kb stick cost me £120 at the time. Also bought a slimline 2nd floppy drive for about the same price

Yeah, I had a speccy 48 rubber key and a speccy 128 in the end. Top stuff. Preferred the look of most games on the speccy, because they looked more detailed for some reason. Think it was mainly because we were normally stuck in pretty much monochrome land, whereas C64 had limited colour useage (still colour clashed though!). So you ended up with a sprite on the speccy using no more than one or two colours, but detailed(ish) drawing of the face, and the C64 would have a few different colours on the same sprite, but because of it's colour limitations, the detail would dissapear, and you would end up with like a big pink blob for a head with no outline (see Renegade for a good example). For some reason C64 games always seemed much nicer for sports games though. And obviously text adventures with pictures always looked a hell of lot better.

One of my fave non-gaming things to do on my speccy was to draw loading screens. Top fun. Especially good because you had to be really sneeky to get around the colour clashing. If you knew what you were doing you could get some decent screens, that fooled you into thinking it was more colours in one area. Pixel by pixel manipulation between background and foreground colours was called for, but could be done. Ah, nostalgia injection here we come...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:36 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:37
Link
Quote: "Maybe in an alternative dimension - and if the C64 didn't exist, then it would be..."
Aha, so now we know the origin of the Bouncy Brick name! Now go back into your corner of splodgy coloured sprite hell....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
OSX Using Happy Dude
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:38 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:43
Link
Quote: "whereas C64 had limited colour useage (still colour clashed though!)"

16 colours - Colour clash would occur with some (red and brown for example) of them. There was a chart (I think it was in the Programmers Reference Manual) that detailed which colours look good with others.
Most people were careful about the arrangement of colours though, although having a TV for a display didn't help.

Quote: " Aha, so now we know the origin of the Bouncy Brick name! "

?

Its amazing what you could do with C64 sprites - more than 8 per line, put them in borders etc etc - much easier to deal with than the Spectrums UDGs (no, they are NOT sprites). Sprites need to be hardware controlled.


Atomz is at http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~nickk
http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:42
Link
I thought it had a similar problem to the speccy in that it couldn't have more than X colours in one area? That it was 4, but in an area smaller than the speccy (stupid size). Hence the *amazingly* undetailed graphics on a lot of sprites

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
OSX Using Happy Dude
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:45 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:49
Link
It depended on whether your using a hires/lores graphic mode or text...

With hi-res, it was 1 pixel = a colour, and with lo-res it was 2 pixels = a colour. Most games used a mixture of lores, sprites and UDG's...

Quote: "Hence the *amazingly* undetailed graphics on a lot of sprites "

But that was solved by having a hi-res sprite on top of a lo-res one, which solved the problem... Most sprites were incredibly detailed - See the sprites from Mayhem in Monsterland, Combat School, Turbocharge.
The only person I know of who did undetailed graphics was yours truely - 'cos I cant draw...


Atomz is at http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~nickk
http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:48
Link
Still hate my parents for giving away my speccies, and my AtariST, with all my games, to a charity shop without asking me. Fair enough they are emigrating, but grief I have a house of my own to store it all in! Emulators just don't do old machines justice.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
DBAlex
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:50
Link
Damn Dazzag...

Think how much they would be worth on Ebay now...


AMD 64 3000 + 512mb RAM + 80GB HD + Radeon 9600se 128mb
http://www.dbastudios.cjb.net
Back to top
Profile PM
OSX Using Happy Dude
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 01:51 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 01:53
Link
I sold my Amiga 600 when Commodore went bust (was brought by someone as a result of a car boot sale).
Then I sold my RiscPC when Acorn stopped doing computers.
Now I'm waiting for Mesh to stop doing computers - but fortunately they seem to be going strong...

The nicest computer to program after the C64 was the Acorn - BBC BASIC was very nice, powerful and most importantly - very quick.
WIMP programming was fairly easy - setting up a drag & drop system was so much easier than how its done in Windows now...


Atomz is at http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~nickk
http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 02:12
Link
Quote: "Think how much they would be worth on Ebay now.."
I try not to. Apparently both speccies plus all the games (about 400, with 100 or so originals) were in the window of the charity shop for £25. A bloke in work sold his 48k speccy on Ebay for £100 without any games the other day. My parents told me they had got rid of the computers just after they were sold. Nice. They also chucked my teddies on the rubbish tip. Didn't think I'd be that bothered about that one, but amazingly a little choked...

Thats not to mention the sweet pre-computer stuff like the Firefox and Defender games I had, plus one of those pong type games you plugged into the TV (had tennis, football etc), which also had a light gun game (shoot the moving square) with a seriously sweet gun that looked like something out of SWAT.

Cry

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 02:22
Link
The ultimate retro machine has to be the vectorex - it came with it's own vector display, great little things in their day, sorta unique and you should snap one up if you spot one because I imagine before long they'll be worth silly money.


Van-B

Back to top
Profile PM Email
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 02:26
Link
True. Although for sheer retrotasticness, then it will always be the machine you used most as a kid. I loved the Speccy, but when the Atari ST came along, double especially when I got STOS, then that brings the best memories. Although there was something about that rubber keyed effort. And it took a certain mindset to program quickly in speccy 48 basic considering all of it's "helpful" key shortcuts. Especially those "twister" type efforts to get the red functions to appear. Love it

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Jeku
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 02:43
Link
Hehe I also had an Atari 1040 ST, and I used to show off magazine art from the games to my best friend who had a Tandy PC. He was a little jealous as a lot of the things you could get for the Atari back then was more powerful than what you could get with the PC.

And I still have my old C64 sitting by my computer--- ahhhhh. When I was a kid my sister and I used to always put this disk in that had a selection of songs you could play, and they sounded great. The selections ranged from classical (Fur Elise) to 80's (Ain't Nothing Gonna Break my Stride), and it would take at least 5 minutes to load the song but they were excellent.... does ANYONE know what that collection was called? We literally had boxes of games back then from one of my relatives' friends at work. I would love to find some of those old games and play them again


--[R.O.B.O.I. and FireTris Coming Soon]--
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 03:00 Edited at: 4th Jun 2005 03:01
Link
Yeah, I remember when I first got into emulation and bought a CD with like 3000 spectrum games on it. Played like for ages on all the old classics, while Quake and the like gathered dust in the corner Saying that, it was also quite crushing to realise that a lot of old games seemed to have been viewed through rose tinted glasses, and actually were quite crap (I'm not talking graphically, you can't kid yourself that much, although monitor crispness takes away a little of that TV real anti-alias effect you kinda got). Double crushing when you played a game you didn't get, but really really wanted cos you had heard it was so ace etc. And it's really not that good.

Still couldn't stop playing some of the real gems though. Loved the s*it out of Dan Dare and couldn't stop playing the emulation until I had beaten it again. Great game. Reminds me, I always wanted to do a Dai Dare remake of that game (when I had the time)...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 05:14
Link
Hehe, I still have my STOS manual, I always liked the manual more than STOS - it might just be the sniper rifle toting gorilla though. I was a GFA fan, but coding on the ST was great in whatever - I liked the way you could throw memory about even without a blitter, like you could have a chunk of memory as a backdrop and just move it onto the screen in 1 command. I sorely miss interupts .


Van-B

Back to top
Profile PM Email
Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 05:55
Link
you know what.. you all crazy, we all know that the Acorn were the best. heh

they were cool, small, and quite powerful for what they were.
while i thought Atari were nice, I honestly felt the A500 had much better sound; or atleast that's what I got when playing games like Space Crusader and such.

It also felt more powerful graphically, but then it might've just been mine had 2MB RAM which was pretty rare back then. Was the A500+ with 1MB + 1MB Trapdoor Board.

Had a snazzy 80MB HDD on the side, again that was something pretty rare for computers. They were very user-friendly computers for a while, used to enjoy them a lot growing up.

AMOS was definately fun (and most of the reason why I like DB)

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dazzag
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 4th Jun 2005 09:04
Link
Yeah, I have my manual somewhere too. Was pretty good. And I *loved* the Arc, but games were practically non-existant in comparison.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-11-15 06:04:46
Your offset time is: 2024-11-15 06:04:46