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[File] Manic Miner ZX81


Spider

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Manic Miner ZX81


This is a port of the ZX81 version of Manic Miner back to the Spectrum, written by Russell Marks in 2003. The 'original' ZX81 version was authored by Alex Martinik around 1984 and is available here as per the 'original' the actual in-game language is Czechoslovakian.

 

Note this does actually require a 128K Spectrum to run.

 

The authors notes and documentation read as follows:

ZX81 Manic Miner patched to run on the 128k Spectrum....

 

COPYRIGHT..The original Manic Miner is/was copyright Matthew Smith...
Ales Martinik was responsible for the ZX81 clone/port/whatever...
All the stuff I did (patching, emulation, etc) is public domain.....

 

PLAYING THE GAME..It plays pretty much like the speccy version - I mean, the other.speccy version - but with fewer levels, and cranky collision.detection.....

 

PROBLEMS WITH THE PORT..Emulating the pseudo-hi-res screen is a real CPU hog, even.in this case where only two-thirds of the screen is hi-res..So as usual the display is staggered, and this results in.quite jerky animation, most noticeably in the attract mode...Due to the above, the scrolly message is incredibly jerky.....

 

WHY ZX81 MANIC MINER? ISN'T THIS UTTERLY POINTLESS?..Probably.....

 

WHY IS IT 128-SPECIFIC?..ZX81 programs effectively run in the speccy's screen memory;.128s have an alternative screen...

 

TITLE SCREEN..The title screen graphic is a scan of the speccy tape inlay..I used the one from the Software Projects release as the ZX81.version is based on that (see Zasobarna, aka The Warehouse)

 

-Rus


 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Andy, thank you for all the files, the meticulous research you have done on them, the descriptions and POKEs provided, and for the modified versions you have supplied! All of this is greatly appreciated :).

 

Concerning this particular game, I just need to mention that there isn't anything such as a Czechoslovakian language. There is the Czech language, and there is the Slovak language. They are very similar (native speakers of both can communicate easily), and yet distinct both in the formal sense (they are considered to be two different languages) and in the real sense (there are minor, but numerous differences in spelling, vocabulary, probably grammar and pronunciation, etc.).

 

The in-game language is Czech, judging by the screenshot of the first cavern on WoS.  The name "Central Cavern" is "Centrální jeskyně" (to be precise, with no diactritical marks and capitalised, so "CENTRALNI JESKYNE"), which is Czech. The Slovak name would be (if Google is to be believed) "Centrálna jaskyňa" (which actually shows you nicely how similar and at the same time different the two languages are).

Edited by Spider
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  • 4 years later...

I have just corrected the Czech co-author's name on JSW Central (on the game's page and also in the main list of games), adding diacritical Czech characters both to his first name and surname.

Although I haven't been able to find any reference to Aleš Martiník, written with diacritical characters, in the context of "ZX81 Manic Miner", I am positive that the original Czech spelling of both his first and last name must be with the characters I added. 

Come to think about it, I once shared the room in a dorm with a Czech guy called Aleš, for a full academic year. So I should know... 😇

EDIT: I added the diacritical characters which I had initially omitted thinking they could lead to technical problems with this post.

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  • 11 months later...

It would be possible for the Sam quite easily, well relatively. Take a look at the Sam version of Manic Miner to see how it kept the original layout but with updated graphics:

mm_sam.png

More info on the Sam version if you're interested can be found here

The '81 version of JSW may have to be a very cut down one, possibly like the BBC version of JSW2 minus the 'Space' screens (the mansion is small on this variant, the tape based one anyway, there are two versions of JSW2 for this)

 

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I saw that version, yeah that’s done quite well too, also quite faithful to the original but with an updated 16-bit look.

On 8/4/2022 at 7:18 AM, jetsetdanny said:

Welcome to the forum, Trolmite! 🙂 

I am not aware of the existence of such a version. I don't see any pertinent file here and I think this must be one of the most complete collections of ROMs for the ZX81.

However, I may be missing something and perhaps someone else will know better and let us know 😉 .

That’s a long list, where is manic miner though?

 

 

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