Spider

Thank you for this. If I recall this was at one stage on my "rebuild the Basic" list of tasks, but I see you've managed it. 🙂

I'm sure we all appreciate the extra efforts you've gone to Danny to try to get this to work "both ways" 🙂

One thought: Are you using an opened .rzx (ie not finalised) You could perhaps save it as a .sna or .z80 then reload in a different emulator and not restart recording, merely save the snap at the cavern before just before completion. That might effect it. I think unclosed .rzx's do save snapshots as that's how they work and they are removed upon finalising it...

Different emulator maybe, I'm not sure if tis using 'FRAMES' to do anything. I'd suggest a different emulator if its practical to do this quickly though, unlikely but you never know! 🙂 I'm open to either terms. Problem you run into here is American 'English' vs British 'English' , 'torch' for instance has different meanings. Unsure on the majority of other countries that use this language as primary or secondary, fwiw one friend who uses English as a secondary language, her spelling is nearly always the American variant...

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation and your findings! @jetsetdanny @Norman Sword , one thing I did mean to ask about actually, you mentioned the Attic Bug and said that with the previous to last version I'd not found it. I'm assuming this is still there to be discovered ? , I'd guess its not also going to corrupt the game fatally. 🙂 Again before I forget! , Conservatory Roof: Thank you for the small re-arrangement of the 'roof' to allow items to be collected without fatalities, as you said Matthew would of likely rectified this had it been noted at the time. I did actually take a look at JSW1 and JSW2 on at least half a dozen different machines to see how they dealt with this screen, my conclusion here was (there's a topic somewhere but its ancient) the majority either left JSW1 'as is' or used the JSW2 layout for the items/fire cells, the latter I did in the 'bug fixed' edition. I ought to redo that really as I'm much more versed in the intracies of it since then but I'll probably wait for @Metalmickey to see what he has planned for his "As manufacturer intended" variant first.

Thanks @MtM , it is useful to know! 😮 I've not used that product since the late 90's , I seem to recall reading something about iexplore.exe at that time not being checked. I still have my original Norton Utils 2003 which worked well with Windows 98x and NT4 (yes I used that too!) and did work with Windows 2000 until service packs appeared (iirc SP4) , then it stopped working, and there was no Utils update to 'fix' this. 😞 Regarding 'what is really running' there's a useful tool from MSDN or SysInternals I think called 'Autoruns' that will show you exactly what is running. This I found very helpful to disable a broken 'UltraDefrag At Boot' process that was otherwise completely out of sight. You can very easily I think with Autoruns brick your install though as it does show everything, care needed.

Moved to 'Chat' as its not JSW specific as such. 🙂 As Danny has said, reviews are fine, please simply provide us with the link to said review when you've published it. 🙂

@jetsetdannyI'm curious, did you have any issues with Cuckoo's Nest collecting the object while avoiding the rolling boulder guardian ? I am about 95% convinced its me, but I'd like your thought on it too. The game plays fine on this location compared to the original, I even had that open at the same time to watch the movement. Just can't explain why I struggled with that screen so much 😄 even on slow speed, as per my .rzx I slowed it down for that one and a couple of others. @Norman Sword Although I did not check myself I'm sure that you kept the 'top exit' from Watch Tower and Esmerlda as per the original. Interestingly the BBC version of JSW has these (as far as I can tell, last time I looked a few years back) hardcoded in, so they remain faithful to the original.

Did post a few thoughts but I don't on reflection think they would help. hmm. Did find this buried however, and it is sort of "on topic" with your monitor issue, its still relevant today although these modern times it is much more likely to be 1920x1200 or (if one can stretch a few more ££ to it) 3840x1600

I was thinking about this again today. I suspect the thoughts of the site continuation were considered and dismissed.

Thanks Danny. The only thing I see missing for December 2021 is a mention of your .rzx recordings for Manic Jet Set Willy 🙂 I have a few ideas in mind, its a case of actually finding time and concentration for them. Including some 'unconventional' JSW/MM based games, well two at least.

And yes before anyone asks, in "Blue Peter" style... "Here's one I made earlier" Happy New Year 2022.tap 😊😊 Please load at conventional (or multiple of!) speed, i.e. disable flash/edge type loading to see the effect.

In regard to this post containing the Music and Carols .tzx files, what is not that obvious is that there are two pages of music. Pressing space will switch between each screen. The point here being, it does include "if I Were A Rich Man" in AY, of which an audio file is attached here, converted from a large 24mb .wav produced via Spectaculator's audio output to a sanely sized 2.5mb .mp3: rm.mp3

Thanks for your walkthrough .rzx's Danny, I'll watch them later 🙂 @JianYang, now that is an excellent idea. 🙂 I'm hoping he will be interested in doing it.

🙂 Yes true. Have to bear in mind (for me at least) on a standard game Solar Power Generator is very time/air tight, whereas your version was very easy, albeit at a huge score cost. A better player could avoid the beam a lot more I think. Yes, my second .rzx did this, just enough slowdown to have the tune play sensibly, about when the first "S" is fully shown. Must admit I did not wait for Kong on one attempt, so yes there's something to be gained by waiting. Looking forward to watching a highly skilled player 😉 EDIT... Merged my posts together, for some reason it decided it wanted to create two separate posts

I've added a mp4 video (it was a huge 895mb .avi before I converted it) to the post above with my .rzx in, although relatively large for an attachment here at nearly 48Mb Tt is quite good quality and its potentially longer than it could be as I let it run through the demo screens afterwards too, however for quickly checking a certain section of the gameplay its useful as you cannot 'fast forward' or 'fast rewind' an .rzx 🙂

To add to Norman's stats: Via 'tapir' the loading times are: 3m 16s for 'mjsw v1-05.tap' 3m 57s for 'mjsw v1-05a.tap' I was going to suggest with my trickery (for my own curiosity) not for distribution without permission I may be able to get that down to a fair bit less however initial tests show I can only really compress it down to about 28(ish) KB , so even with a 4K loader (about the max you'll sanely get to work) you'd be looking about 1.5 to 2 minutes loading time at a guess.

A bit out of my area. Are you able to temporarily use another 'retro' display for this ? I'm assuming the monitor you have obtained now via Santa was a PC VGA/SVGA type, rather than a legacy RGB one. The scan rates are quite different between the two, its even worse if you go back to ancient PC's aka pre 086's etc when you needed a different type of monitor again (iirc)

Thanks 🙂 Just seems a bit more 'complete' with a loading screen somehow! Perhaps that is just me.

Thank you. 🙂 Other players could take a more efficient route however I did not take such an extended tour so much in JSW this time, I passed via The Attic twice instead of three times, taking the floor then the top for variety. I did note the nicer effects on those special screens, Skylabs especially actually. 🙂 I do think this is well worthy of submitting to the Downloads section please, along with a short description (copy/paste really from the topic) of the control keys that are not 'standard' i.e. the speed option. If I had to say anything negative it would simply be:

One more from me, no .tap only a .gif of it:

Thanks again Norman. I've just replayed it. I took a different route in JSW and also played the MM caverns slightly differently too. All good. Final score : £0040426130 mjsw v1-05_AndyF_25th_Dec_21_Score_0040426130.rzx EDIT... Including an .mp4 format video of the .rzx with the addition of the demo mode afterwards: mjsw v1-05_AndyF_25th_Dec_21_Score_0040426130.zip 🙂

@MtM Cub's are OK , avoid the metal cased ones if you can. They don't have a 'bright' signal input so yes you're right its plain 'no bright' Archimedes units: Yes I think you're right they are rebadged Phillips units. Thinking again their power lead is just a very short IEC socket, so you'd need a lead or rewire. Neither of mine gave any real issues although when at one moment they were side by side you could just about tell one was slight better focused. 🙂

Thank you. 🙂 I was going to replay it, but upon thought I'd rather leave it a day or so, to give others the opportunity to create their own .rzx Failing that I'll do a recording of it on the 26th all being well.

😅🤣 Its fine. I half wondered if it was purposely missing. Ah yes you can see I like to run on faster speed. Although I did this in Spectaculator, my preferred emulator is ZXSpin, simply as I can 'fine tune' the speed. I tend to have everything run at about 110% , Spectaculator only offers large jumps. I do appreciate the speed bar however as it made it more fun on the easier rooms/caverns and allowed me to slow it down on ones I find a bit tricky timing wise. It was also good to note the sound was disabled on 'max speed' If I am completely honest here, I would not object if it ran a bit faster than that at 'full warp' either. I don't think it is too fast. If however the speed option was only possible on the title screen it would be different, it does need I think to remain 'in game' to allow adjustment as I'd of never completed Cuckoo's Nest or Nightmare Room at full speed. No issue to code mistook 😉 My route, well the third Attic visit was accidental due to forgetting the Front Door item. It was as mentioned not a speed-run and I did not take an efficient route at all, I was simply wanting a very leisurely game, if that meant I revisited rooms again, so be it. I did enjoy it, and I think that's one of the primary factors. 😇😊 In regard to maximum speed and efficiency I think you'll likely find jetsetdanny is about at the top of this. It;s a quandary, my first thought was "well that is simple enough, simply add a couple of POKE's into the Basic loader before the USR" , but if you're going to do that, and it is as simple as it seems (assuming that section is not compressed) then another minute would 'fix' it. Hmm. Maybe something to mull over for a day or so, assuming the 'codes' are being released tomorrow maybe that would be the ideal time, unless you wish to hold those back to New Year...