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My first computer was ZX Spectrum (a successor of ZX81). By coincidence, a few days ago, I've finished reading the book "It's behind you" about development of R

My first computer was ZX Spectrum (a successor of ZX81). By coincidence, a few days ago, I've finished reading the book "It's behind you" about development of R-Type, a top-notch arcade which pushed ZX Spectrum to its limits. Here is a link to official free copy of this book: http://bizzley.imbahost.com/ http://bizzley.imbahost.com/ About game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Type Gameplay of R-Type on ZX Spectrum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6lvAXSGBpI&t=90s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6lvAXSGBpI&t=90s I'm still playing ZX Spectrum games once in a while in the urge of nostalgia.

bane 10y ago
That book is great and a nice quick read, and though it's focused on one developer's work on making one game, gives lots of insight about the environment that he worked in and how things were done. You get a lot of the sense of the milieu of the U.K. 8-bit computer industry.
stevekemp 10y ago
> I'm still playing ZX Spectrum games once in a while in the urge of nostalgia. Me too. Was playing Horace Goes Skiing earlier this week, but my all time favourite game is "Chaos: The Battle of Wizards": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_The_Battle_of_Wizards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_The_Battle_of_Wizards (This is available to play in your browser, online. Fun!) Back in the day I used to hack games for infinite lives, and received a bunch of swag from Your Sinclair, and Sinclair User for posting them. I credit the 48k Spectrum with getting me into programming, first BASIC then Z80 machine code. (Largely because the "bundle" we received had a dead tape-deck, so for the first couple of weeks the only thing we could do with it was read the manual(s) and type in simple programs..)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I swear i ran into a clone of that game for either DOS or early Windows at some point. Would love to find it again.
jesuslop 10y ago
Don't know R-type, but Rockman did speech [1] on a machine whose buzzer only admited 2 states (some sort of PWM?), and Uridium [2] did multicolored characters by changing colors in interrupts handled in controlled TV scan-lines. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFrOHDDXrU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFrOHDDXrU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S8rGc4Osu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S8rGc4Osu4
- digi_owl 10y ago
  That latter trick was used on many an early micro that was designed for TV use. Back then games had a very intimate relationship with the CPU and the electron beam of the TV. For example using the cycles while the beam was moving from the bottom right to the top left to start a new image to do non-graphical work.

bane 10y ago

That book is great and a nice quick read, and though it's focused on one developer's work on making one game, gives lots of insight about the environment that he worked in and how things were done. You get a lot of the sense of the milieu of the U.K. 8-bit computer industry.

stevekemp 10y ago

> I'm still playing ZX Spectrum games once in a while in the urge of nostalgia. Me too. Was playing Horace Goes Skiing earlier this week, but my all time favourite game is "Chaos: The Battle of Wizards": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_The_Battle_of_Wizards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_The_Battle_of_Wizards (This is available to play in your browser, online. Fun!) Back in the day I used to hack games for infinite lives, and received a bunch of swag from Your Sinclair, and Sinclair User for posting them. I credit the 48k Spectrum with getting me into programming, first BASIC then Z80 machine code. (Largely because the "bundle" we received had a dead tape-deck, so for the first couple of weeks the only thing we could do with it was read the manual(s) and type in simple programs..)

digi_owl 10y ago
I swear i ran into a clone of that game for either DOS or early Windows at some point. Would love to find it again.

jesuslop 10y ago

Don't know R-type, but Rockman did speech [1] on a machine whose buzzer only admited 2 states (some sort of PWM?), and Uridium [2] did multicolored characters by changing colors in interrupts handled in controlled TV scan-lines. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFrOHDDXrU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFrOHDDXrU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S8rGc4Osu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S8rGc4Osu4

digi_owl 10y ago
That latter trick was used on many an early micro that was designed for TV use. Back then games had a very intimate relationship with the CPU and the electron beam of the TV. For example using the cycles while the beam was moving from the bottom right to the top left to start a new image to do non-graphical work.