4 ms·

I never had a Spectrum, however I recognized the game being displayed in the screenshots. TIL that "Star Quake", that I played on a 286 w/ a Hercules card and a

I never had a Spectrum, however I recognized the game being displayed in the screenshots. TIL that "Star Quake", that I played on a 286 w/ a Hercules card and a horrendous TSR CGA "emulator", was actually a Spectrum game first[1]. Maybe I should give the Spectrum a look. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starquake_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starquake_(video_game)

rahimnathwani 3y ago
Another cool spectrum-first game was Nebulus. I remember buying it at a shop on Tottenham Court Road. I recently learned Nintendo released versions of the game as 'Castelian'. The level design, at least for level 1, is the same as in the original Nebulus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulus_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulus_(video_game)
- JNRowe 3y ago
  There is a fun SDL remake¹, packages available in Debian and a few other distributions too. ¹ https://gitlab.com/roever/toppler/ https://gitlab.com/roever/toppler/
- mrspuratic 3y ago
  aka "Tower Toppler" or "Castelian". The 3D tower rotation was mind blowing--on an 8-bit with no coprocessor or even hardware multiply! Walk-through video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLgJeXBB-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLgJeXBB-A
  - vardump 3y ago
    Why would you need a coprocessor or hardware multiply? It's all tiles and sprites just like Super Mario Brothers. Ok, on the Spectrum software emulated, but still. Tower rotation is achieved by scrolling (well, rolling really) 8x8 character bitmaps at varying rates. It gives a very convincing 3D-rotation illusion, while being nothing like it at all.
    - mrspuratic 3y ago
      I was simply marveling at what could be done without on a ZX Spectrum, when contemporary 8-bits usually had some mix of sound, scroll, sprite/video hardware.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      > Ok, on the Spectrum software emulated, but still. ...that's exactly the tricky part on an 8-bit home computer without hardware sprites and tile layers.
NikkiA 3y ago
I suspect, given their widespread adoption by devs at the time, that the tatung einstein 'port' would 'technically' have been the original, but the spectrum version was the first released version that more than 10 people cared about. The tatung was an absolute beast of a z80 dev machine, and the favourite of many Spectrum and CPC devs.
- nickt 3y ago
  I’m aware of the Apricot PC based PDS - Programmers Development System [1], but unfamiliar with a Tatung Einstein based dev environment, it’s mentioned briefly in this (interesting thread) [2], but would love to know more… [1] https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/PDS_development_system https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/PDS_development_system [2] https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3314/how-were-the-first-zx-spectrum-games-written https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3314/how-...
  - NikkiA 3y ago
    The tatung was designed in bradford, UK, then manufactured in Korea, 4MHz Z80, 64KB of RAM (upgraded to a 256k option by the EOL), AY-3910 sound, 2x 3" floppy drives built in, a built in 80 column monitor, and a video system comparable to the MSX, it ran CPM, which meant it had access to a plethora of good Z80 assemblers, Turbo Pascal, Wordstar, and other useful dev tools (including hisoft C). The 3" drives meant that it had a native advantage for the spectrum +3, CPC 6128, and amstrad PCW since it was trivial to write a disk writer to write native disks for those systems. As a system of it's own standing, ignoring the MSX software catalog, which was largely unavailable in the UK, it was probably the best Z80 system by specs until the Elan/Flan/Enterprise 128* finally was released; which upped the high-tide mark for Z80 systems even further with again CPM compatibility (requiring a 3rd party copy of CPM though) and amazing hardware. Both the Einstein and Enterprise were commercial failures for the most part, to the point that in early 1986 I was presented by Dixons offering either the Einstein or the Atari 130XE on a massive discount at £50. I chose poorly and picked the 130XE, which turned out to be the last one they had in stock, had 100% ram failure, and Dixons were unable to repair it under warranty. I still wish I'd gone with the more useful Einstein. In the early 90s, you'd often find Einstein's knocking around in storage rooms of most UK development studios from when they got adopted as dev machines. Sometimes you'd find a PCW or 2 too, again CPM and the 3" disks rendering it useful. There's lots of Einstein info here: http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/ http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/ And info on the Enterprise should that tickle your curiosity here: http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/enterprise-128.html http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/enterprise-128.html
oniony 3y ago
I bought my first Spectrum (a Spectrum+) in 1985. It was a great machine for its time and cost. I learnt to code using the manual that came with it and can probably thank it for my career as a software developer. I still have fond memories of that computer, the games I played on it and the time I spent hacking about on it, but it had some serious capability limitations compared to its competitors, most notably the Commodore 64, and I spent several years longingly looking at the C64 screenshots of games in Crash magazine, wishing I had gone down that route instead. Check out Paperboy on Spectrum versus C64 for example, where the Spectrum version is practically monochrome in a window that's approximately half the screen size.
- Marazan 3y ago
  Sure, but then you look at Carrier Command on the ZX Spectrum vs the Commodore and the jealousy fades awy.
  - oniony 3y ago
    That's so weird. Any idea why they decided to do the C64 version as a top-down.

rahimnathwani 3y ago

Another cool spectrum-first game was Nebulus. I remember buying it at a shop on Tottenham Court Road. I recently learned Nintendo released versions of the game as 'Castelian'. The level design, at least for level 1, is the same as in the original Nebulus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulus_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulus_(video_game)

JNRowe 3y ago
There is a fun SDL remake¹, packages available in Debian and a few other distributions too. ¹ https://gitlab.com/roever/toppler/ https://gitlab.com/roever/toppler/
mrspuratic 3y ago
aka "Tower Toppler" or "Castelian". The 3D tower rotation was mind blowing--on an 8-bit with no coprocessor or even hardware multiply! Walk-through video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLgJeXBB-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLgJeXBB-A
- vardump 3y ago
  Why would you need a coprocessor or hardware multiply? It's all tiles and sprites just like Super Mario Brothers. Ok, on the Spectrum software emulated, but still. Tower rotation is achieved by scrolling (well, rolling really) 8x8 character bitmaps at varying rates. It gives a very convincing 3D-rotation illusion, while being nothing like it at all.
  - mrspuratic 3y ago
    I was simply marveling at what could be done without on a ZX Spectrum, when contemporary 8-bits usually had some mix of sound, scroll, sprite/video hardware.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    > Ok, on the Spectrum software emulated, but still. ...that's exactly the tricky part on an 8-bit home computer without hardware sprites and tile layers.

NikkiA 3y ago

I suspect, given their widespread adoption by devs at the time, that the tatung einstein 'port' would 'technically' have been the original, but the spectrum version was the first released version that more than 10 people cared about. The tatung was an absolute beast of a z80 dev machine, and the favourite of many Spectrum and CPC devs.

nickt 3y ago
I’m aware of the Apricot PC based PDS - Programmers Development System [1], but unfamiliar with a Tatung Einstein based dev environment, it’s mentioned briefly in this (interesting thread) [2], but would love to know more… [1] https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/PDS_development_system https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/PDS_development_system [2] https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3314/how-were-the-first-zx-spectrum-games-written https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3314/how-...
- NikkiA 3y ago
  The tatung was designed in bradford, UK, then manufactured in Korea, 4MHz Z80, 64KB of RAM (upgraded to a 256k option by the EOL), AY-3910 sound, 2x 3" floppy drives built in, a built in 80 column monitor, and a video system comparable to the MSX, it ran CPM, which meant it had access to a plethora of good Z80 assemblers, Turbo Pascal, Wordstar, and other useful dev tools (including hisoft C). The 3" drives meant that it had a native advantage for the spectrum +3, CPC 6128, and amstrad PCW since it was trivial to write a disk writer to write native disks for those systems. As a system of it's own standing, ignoring the MSX software catalog, which was largely unavailable in the UK, it was probably the best Z80 system by specs until the Elan/Flan/Enterprise 128* finally was released; which upped the high-tide mark for Z80 systems even further with again CPM compatibility (requiring a 3rd party copy of CPM though) and amazing hardware. Both the Einstein and Enterprise were commercial failures for the most part, to the point that in early 1986 I was presented by Dixons offering either the Einstein or the Atari 130XE on a massive discount at £50. I chose poorly and picked the 130XE, which turned out to be the last one they had in stock, had 100% ram failure, and Dixons were unable to repair it under warranty. I still wish I'd gone with the more useful Einstein. In the early 90s, you'd often find Einstein's knocking around in storage rooms of most UK development studios from when they got adopted as dev machines. Sometimes you'd find a PCW or 2 too, again CPM and the 3" disks rendering it useful. There's lots of Einstein info here: http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/ http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/ And info on the Enterprise should that tickle your curiosity here: http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/enterprise-128.html http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/enterprise-128.html

oniony 3y ago

I bought my first Spectrum (a Spectrum+) in 1985. It was a great machine for its time and cost. I learnt to code using the manual that came with it and can probably thank it for my career as a software developer. I still have fond memories of that computer, the games I played on it and the time I spent hacking about on it, but it had some serious capability limitations compared to its competitors, most notably the Commodore 64, and I spent several years longingly looking at the C64 screenshots of games in Crash magazine, wishing I had gone down that route instead. Check out Paperboy on Spectrum versus C64 for example, where the Spectrum version is practically monochrome in a window that's approximately half the screen size.

Marazan 3y ago
Sure, but then you look at Carrier Command on the ZX Spectrum vs the Commodore and the jealousy fades awy.
- oniony 3y ago
  That's so weird. Any idea why they decided to do the C64 version as a top-down.