Richard Hallas

I agree – and it appears that that's what's probably happened with Alien8 and some other familiar titles. But JSW? Surely that's authentic, isn't it? The scrolltext pictured in the video says that the Lynx port is by Tim Titchmarsh for Phoenixx Softwarre (note the double letters!), and it doesn't appear to be a straight port of any other existing version. I've tried Googling Tim Titchmarsh in association with Phoenix/Phoenixx and Lynx, and I haven't found any results – which you'd imagine there probably would be if this were a modern conversion. But if it dates from 1984, it's obscure enough to not have been recorded online. Also, the forum poster who provided the tape (and credits the game to Tynesoft rather than Software Projects) refers to having gone through his "old" Lynx tapes and transferred them – and JSW was one of them. (Notably, the other possibly modern conversions, like Alien8, were not from this source.) He also mentions that the tapes are over 35 years old. This all certainly points to Lynx JSW being authentic from 1984. Was it known about already by any members of this site, or is it new to all of us? Whether it's really from 1984 or is a more modern conversion is immaterial in a sense, if it's a new platform that wasn't previously known either way; it's one more new version of JSW to catalogue either way. But it'd be quite nice to think that it's a new discovery of a previously unknown yet authentic 1984 conversion, as that'd make it one more platform for JSW to have appeared on back in the 80s.

Hi all, I was browsing YouTube recently and came across a video that claimed to demo ALL the games ever published for the Camputers Lynx. Unfortunately it's in French, but never mind. It's broken into chapters and just shows a bitesized bit of gameplay for each game listed. (I'm really not convinced that it's actually complete, as claimed, not least because I know that there were at least three early Level 9 adventures for the machine, and I don't see any of them demoed here, but that's by the by…) Anyway, to my great surprise, one of the included games is JSW! As published by Tynesoft rather than Software Projects (like the BBC versions), apparently. Until seeing this video, I'd no idea that there was a version of JSW for the Lynx. Indeed, I didn't know of any 'mainstream' games for it – but it turns out that there was a handful of 'big name' games for it, including, notably, Ultimate's Alien8, Melbourne House's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Mined Out! by Quicksilva, plus a few other familiar lesser ones like Oh Mummy. But the highlight for me was seeing a version of JSW that I'd never previously known existed. Here's the video, with playback starting at the JSW segment: JSW for Camputers Lynx on YouTube As you can see, it's an 'interesting' version: plenty colourful, with quite authentic Spectrum-like graphics, but with some weird differences, such as Willy changing colour in each room (including the hard-to-see blue on black combination), and with AWFUL stepped staircases like in the Commodore 64 version. There's also weird corruption in the lower part of the screen (maybe an emulator issue, maybe not) and the in-game music sounds awful (like it sounds when you've lost multiple lives in the Specturm version, but from the outset here). A quick search revels that the archive containing the game tape file (and, separately, a disked version) can be found here, in a forum thread: JSW for Camputers Lynx in tape and disk formats I don't have a conveniently set up emulator to try these out myself, but I thought I should mention the subject here in case it's useful information. I doubt I'm the only JSW fan who previously had no idea there was a Lynx version. (Shame there doesn't appear to be Manic Miner too.) I previously thought the most obscure versions of JSW were those for Memotech and Einstein machines, but I really didn't know of ANY commercial software for the Lynx until the other day. UPDATE: Hm, further investigations suggest that some of the big-name titles (notably Alien8, and probably the Melbourne House adventures from the way they look) may well be modern conversions from the Spectrum originals. I'm not entirely sure. However, the JSW conversion does appear to be authentic, from back in the day…

For what it's worth… I am Mr Scratcher. (It's just an old nickname that I sometimes use online.) I stumbled across Bob Fossil's conversion of Manic Miner 128 to .tap format and was delighted to find it. But on playing it through, I found that it crashed in Skylab Landing Bay. I contacted him to let him know about the problem, and this led to his creating the two nice new versions that we now have. (He gave me a decent real-name credit in his new Bug-Byte version's loader.) You can read the correspondence in its entirety on his dedicated blog page: The Fossil Record: Room for Improvements.

Apparently it is. 🙂

Just as a quick follow-up… I finally got it! 🙂 My own Willy with crash helmet, as seen in Join the Jet-Set!. I requested the 'one foot in front of the other' pose, as I prefer it to the striding position.

Yes, I definitely fancy a lamp with my JTJS version of Willy in it. 🙂 I may be the only person who'd want such a thing, but I think Alan Grier will make one for me; I mentioned the possibility when ordering the one I've got, and he reacted positively. As for your animated illustration, yes, the cycling speed looks pretty similar. It's hard to judge a video like that against real life with LEDs, as they never seem to video as well as they look in real life, but I think the speed of fade is similar. Looking at my lamp in real life, the colours look more intense and the fading arguably smoother, but, as I say, it's probably to do with the video quality. Anyway, the colours produced by the lamp are certainly rich, intense and lovely.

I realised, but it was still worth considering! 🙂

Concerning the ideas for alternative images in the lamp… looking at mine, it's clear that if the same of image size is retained, there's room for a 10×16-pixel design, though note that the curvature of the 'tongue' could potentially affect the top three rows of pixels, so these need to occupy less than the full width. Doubtless it's possible to scale the designs down to fit more pixels in the available space, but still, it's clear that a tall (roughly 1.6:1) aspect ratio is going to work best. Unfortunately, the 'pointing Maria' sprite is nearly square (14×16), so she'd have to be scaled down quite a bit and would come far short of the curved top of the tongue. It's the pointing arm that's the problem, of course; in her folded-arms guise she'd fit a little better, though she's still dumpy compared with Willy (12×16), so would have to be shorter. Concerning the flying pig sprite, in its 'wing up' position it's actually 10×14 pixels, so that should work pretty well, though the top, curved part of the lamp will be largely empty. Also, it's an unfortunate fact that the top tip of the wing is a filled pixel just at the point where the lamp starts to curve, so fitting it in without clipping it may be a problem (assuming there's no scaling down), and even if it can be made to fit, it'll be very close to the edge of the perspex. Anyway, I'm sure that Alan Grier would be open to doing custom designs if approached, and he'll obviously be able to tackle any practical difficulties there may be with particular designs. I plan to ask him to do me another one featuring my version of Willy with a crash helmet from Join the Jet-Set!. And I'd think that a Miner Willy variant (with miner's lamp) would definitely be on the cards, since it's as iconic as JSW.

Greetings all, I'm posting this at the suggestion/request of Spider. Recently on Facebook, a guy called Alan Grier advertised some LED lamps he'd created that feature Miner Willy in his Jet-Set Willy guise. Here's the thread: Facebook thread on JSW LED lamps He'd only made five of them, and they all sold out within minutes. I was lucky enough to get the last one. However, he's making more. Should anyone here want one, it's probably best to approach him via Facebook (direct-message him). However, he divulges his email address on ordering, so I have that too. I don't want to publish his email in public here, but if necessary (e.g. if someone tries to contact him via Facebook and can't get through), contact me privately on this forum and I'll supply it. The lamps cost £15 each, inclusive of everything (even postage via Hermes) – which seems like excellent value to me. Here's mine, illuminated blue in a dark room at night with the other lights off: It appears a little over-exposed here, but in real life it looks fantastic. It's illuminated from below by a row of LEDs, and they're surprisingly bright and distribute the light pretty evenly. If I were being picky, I could say that there's a slight dimming in the centre of Willy's head and a touch of extra reflected brightness at the top of his hat (which you can see in my photo), but that's being overly critical. It's not bad enough to worry about, and the lamp looks really great. Also, the lamp is bright enough to be very easily visible and solidly coloured in full daylight. The lamp arrives as the plastic base unit and the clear perspex 'tongue' containing the engraved artwork, which just pushes into a slot and is then quite secure. (But also easily removed, if you happen to have more than one insert and want to swap them.) Also included is a USB cable and an infra-red remote control (with battery already included). The engraved perspex tongue is very nice quality: extremely clear and ideal for its purpose. The base unit is just plastic and not especially high quality plastic, but it's perfectly fine for the job. It's maybe a little lightweight, but it's heavy enough to do its job, and won't blow over if you walk past it too fast! The base unit can be powered by the USB cable or you can instead insert three AA batteries into a compartment underneath. There's a touch-sensitive on/off control on the front (which you can see easily in my photo): holding a finger over it will power the lamp on/off, and touching it briefly will cycle through a series of steady colours. For full control of the lamp, you need to use the infrared control unit, which offers a surprising range of options, as follows: • On/off buttons. • Brightness control buttons (seven levels, from 'clearly visible' to 'very bright', though the levels only appear to work with steady colours). • Solid colours: White, plus three 'scales' from R to Y, G to C and B to M, each with three intermediate steps. In other words, there's a grid of colour buttons with RGB at one extreme and CMY (in the order YCM) at the other, and three intermediate buttons between each of those colour pairs. Plus White. So, there's a choice of 16 steady colours if you don't want the lamp to flash. • Four animation effects: Flash, Strobe, Fade, Smooth. These all appear to work at full brightness only. Their effect is as follows: † Flash: Makes the lamp rotate through the solid colours Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, White, spending about a second on each colour. † Strobe: Same as Flash, except that it only uses the colours Red, Green and Blue. A bit boring. † Fade: Makes the lamp cycle slowly through the same set and order of colours used by Flash mode, but this time slowly fading from one colour into the next. Each fade takes about four seconds (with one second spent in each colour-stop), so the lamp is constantly changing but in a very non-distracting way. Also, because the fades are so smooth, you get some nice colours along the way (e.g. on the way from Red to Green you get a brief orange and yellow). It looks really great. † Smooth: This uses a similar fade effect to Fade mode (though faster, at only about two seconds), but it only alternates between two colours: pure white and deep blue. A bit boring, frankly. So: two good animations and two ho-hum ones. Flash is good if you like flipping between seven solid colours; Fade is good if you prefer a slower and gentler fading version of the same thing. I personally like Fade best: it's nice and gentle and non-distracting, but allows you to see the full range of lovely rich colours. (And they really are lovely and rich, especially red, which seems incredibly intense.) As a final note, Alan Grier has reacted positively to the idea of doing alternate and/or custom designs. So I intend to get him to produce a version featuring Willy wearing a crash helmet, as designed by me for use in my own game, Join the Jet-Set!. If I do get such a version, I'll post a photo of it here. Anyway, I think the lamp's great. I'm really pleased with mine and plan to leave it on all the time. I've got it plugged into my Mac and it continues to illuminate even when I've put the Mac to sleep, so it also acts as a night light during the small hours and possibly helps to avoid stumbles on the way to the toilet!

I get the strong impression that the Elkulator version is there just to work with Elkulator, which evidently doesn't get the timing quite right. I think the non-Elkulator version is intended for real machines and other emulators that do get the timing right. Certainly, with Clock Signal, the 'real machine' version works perfectly, whereas the Elkulator version has some slight colour bleed in the high score numbers on the title screen. (Haven't noticed any other problems with it yet, but I haven't spent a lot of time with it.)

Yes, it's an impressive achievement. In terms of the screenshots, it may be worth deleting all that black space at the top of the screen, since it's just wasted space. I'd be interested to know how this looks on a real Electron; i.e. whether the graphics really do appear at the bottom of the screen, or whether the timings of the 'custom mode' cause the image to be vertically centred (which would obviously be preferable). Concerning the cheat… yes, I agree, it's a good solution. I only wish I knew how to turn it off again once enabled, short of just reloading the game! I also had a bit of trouble discovering the Delete/Copy key mappings when using my favoured Electron Emulator on the Mac, but I discovered that Delete is mapped to both Backspace and Delete, and Copy is mapped to the `/~ key, immediately to the left of Z on a Mac keyboard. Obviously, your mileage may vary… Speaking of emulators, the one I now use for emulating an Electron is a little-known and quite new multi-emulator that supports an increasing number of systems (including Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, ZX80/81, Spectrum, VIC 20, Apple II, Mac, ColecoVision etc…). It's called Clock Signal, and it seems to handle the Electron very well. (It doesn't need the 'fudged' version of Manic Miner that was specifically created for Elkulator, anyway; it runs the 'proper' version perfectly.) Give it a try; it's an impressive piece of work and appears to aim at being able to handle 'everything' eventually. Clock Signal may be found here: Clock Signal on Github EDIT: Forgot to say… Clock Signal appears to be for Mac and Linux, not for Windows… though who knows; I haven't looked into that, as I'm not a Windows user. Anyway, it makes a really nice change to have a good emulator for Mac that isn't available for Windows, rather than the other way round, which is the norm!

Yes, it'd be great to have it here too, in a similarly nicely presented format. That in-development screenshot's interesting, but I hope it doesn't put anyone off! The final release looks *much* better, and doesn't have the half-screen of visible garbage. Admittedly having the score line and Air bar above the playing field feels a little eccentric, but it makes this version unique! And it retains the nice new colour-switch from the BBC version, which gives the Air/Score area a different palette from the rest of the display and makes the whole thing look better and more colourful. One final point worth noting is that the cheat mode from the BBC version survives intact. (Well, it's more a practice mode than a cheat mode, because when you've got it turned on you can access and play any screen directly, but if you complete it, you restart the same screen rather than progressing to the next one.)

OK, hoping that this hasn't already been covered in some other post that I've missed… Further to all the recent stuff about TonyLobster's amazing work on the BBC version of Manic Miner… A chap calling himself 0xC0DE has adapted TonyLobster's work to produce a brand-new version of Manic Miner for the Acorn Electron! This is actually an amazing achievement, as the Electron wasn't all that powerful a machine, and it was a lot slower than the BBC too. Its memory constraints show up in the fact that this new Manic Miner port uses the minimum amount of screen space it can get away with, and just occupies the bottom half of the available space, in effect. Some screen elements have had to be redistributed because of this (in particular, the Air bar and the score/lives/status line are now at the very top). Nevertheless, this is a really good conversion – just like the new BBC one, really – and could have been a very successful Electron release if issued back in the 1980s. And it's the first time Manic Miner's made it to the Electron, which is quite something. It only took 38 years… Find it here, in both tape and disk versions: Manic Miner for Acorn Electron (2021 release)

Thanks. And as for hosting it in this way – excellent. 🙂 What better place for a copy to live?! Yes, it's a really great improvement, isn't it? Finally, it feels as though the BBC has a decent version of Manic Miner to do the platform justice, rather than the rather clunky reduced-fun effort it was before. It was always quite an interesting version because of the differences in the final two screens, but now it's a good and playable game too. Indeed, it'd be nice if TonyLobster would apply his skills to the BBC versions of the JSW games, as they're very much in the same class as Manic Miner…

Oh… sorry about that; obviously I hadn't realised. He didn't post about the disassembly he made only a couple of weeks ago, so I assumed it would be helpful for me to post again on this same thread. Guess I should have checked first. Apologies for the wasted bandwidth.