Spider

I'd not be too worried at this stage. The thoughts of it are hugely appreciated.😊 🙂 If you wanted me to take a "wild guess" aside from it being a few months away in normal times perhaps peeps would plan ahead but with the constantly*** changing Covid situation it has thrown things into a bit of disarray perhaps... *** 10 LET POLICY = RND 20 IF WEEK = NEW THEN GOTO 10 ELSE PRINT "No change yet!" : GOTO 20

No need 😉 😄

I can confirm this does indeed work but not on the 'demo' limited version, only the full release. It is quite easy to activate despite my long winded instructions! 🙂 On the main title page itself hold down these three keys: T A Z While holding them down, press and release (keep those three keys pressed) RETURN Release the three keys. Start the game as normal. Now press and hold these three keys when the game is playing: L F C Keep them pressed for a second or two. Then release those keys. Do not press Return again during this second key sequence. Cheat is now enabled but inactive. 🙂 Press F7 to enable or disable cheat mode. The lives 'men' will toggle green when enabled and back to default pink when disabled. Provides infinite lives and also some immunity in the cavern as well as infinite air (the game continues when the air supply is exhausted) Press F8 to move / advance forward one cavern. Press F9 to move / advance forward five caverns. Press the NMI button to enable 'Test Mode' (not fully tested) , when enabled 'Test Mode' will flash under the lives counter. You may need to reload the game to disable this. Its actual effects may vary depending if cheat mode was active or not. Pic of 'enabled' ie: Green Men: Enjoy 🙂

That's good 🙂 Thanks Norman. An interesting variety of blocks. I'm attaching three small screenshots as further examples for others: Although it is quite fun to just watch it 🙂

Random pixels, ink cycled 0 to 7. Press SPACE during 'plotting' to cycle background (border/paper) colours 0 to 7 Basic + Compiler + Code Relocation + Compression... 16K Spectrum Friendly! 🙂 random_pixels.tap

BBC Micro, just some random lines. Similar to the Spectrum version I put a video of with and without colour clash a few pages back. This one increases the colour value by .1 hence it draws 10 lines of each colour. In between each colour it then also draws a black line too, to ensure the screen is not filled too quickly. Listing: Short 40s (3mb) video, not great quality. Not going to do similar on the Amstrad / CBM / MSX etc as its all a bit "samey" 🙂 for this type of output of lines.

I think perhaps this is open to other machines too 😉 If required.

Almost, I forgot. The loaders vary a fraction but essentially do the same job. Some of the MAD versions are a byte short, ie code length 32767 not 32768 resulting in a missing pixel or so for the Final Barrier horizontal yellow floor guardian.

There's been a JSW hardware error 😉

Impressive collection! 😮

Most welcome. I suppose I should of taken a pic of the code card and possibly hunted a bit more for JSW2 (I did not see it when going through a box as I was after other 'series' too) though, but it was more in some ways a "my JSW history" I suppose 😮 😄

Yes 🙂 I keep thinking somewhere I have the re-release version of Ted (budget not full price, says "Rack It" on that inlay) but I can't find it. Possible I am mistaken! No matter no need more than one 😮 😄

The Tech Ted topic made me think to do this. Top row: Amstrad CPC versions of MM and JSW2 . JSW1 was never released 'stand alone' on tape for the Amstrad. I do have a copy of it I extracted from my original 'Sold A Million' Speedlocked version, both 'as is' and 'Andy patched' 😄 thankfully SPL is almost identical to the ZX version and just as easy to take to bits 😉 Bottom Row: All Spectrum versions. The far left JSW was the original one I purchased back in the day, yes the same tape and yes it still loads. Same with MM but that was got a few months later. Around a decade or two later ( ! ) I then aquired the Software Projects version of MM and at the same time the MAD version too, they are actually almost identical*** , the far right JSW1 I think I purchased in about 2000 give or take a year. Finally the middle top right JSW is actually JSW2. Its a 'combi' tape of Spectrum one side and Amstrad the other. In regard to JSW2, somewhere I do have the original and re-release versions of it for the Spectrum but I cannot find them at this moment in time hence no pic, sorry. The original release was a 'new back then' purchase too, the budget re-release was acquired around 2000 to 2005 I'd say. I have no CBM or MSX or BBC tapes, as I do not posses these machines. 🙂

I meant to do this a month or three ago 😞 oops. Pic taken this afternoon. Anyway: The slightly larger 'clamshell' type case on the right, the 128K 'MegaMix' version is the very same one I brought new back in the day. The left cassette tape I purchased I think in the late 90's or early 2000's , I could be mistaken. I did at one point have the original I'm sure, although a friend did have a 'backup' ahem, but I did not copy it, I did borrow it on occasion I'll admit. Yes they still load 😉

Great 🙂 Does look better from a distance I agree ( I say that in a positive way 🙂 ) , I found standing about 2 or 3 metres*** was ideal. *** say 6ft to 10ft for those who prefer to operate with this measurement scale.

Excellent 🙂 🙂 Pleased to hear he was able to accommodate your request 😄

Thanks for the explanation Norman. That is a fair bit by the sounds of it to keep track of. I can imagine how slow said routine would be in ZXBasic if it were written, depending on how one chose to do it either with an array (slow) or endless variables. 🙂 Slightly off topic: Quite a few years back now, I tried a couple of simple routines along the same lines as my 'Basic Plotting' with a few different compilers and also if memory served wrote them in slightly different ways. Not to avoid the compiler complaining, merely to see if a more efficient piece of Basic would compile 'better' for want of a word. It did not seem to make that much of an impact, it varied more with the compiler and what you were trying to do, by that I just mean if you wanted to read a shedload of data and display it instead of say drawing endless lines on the screen a different compiler would suit better than restructuring the Basic to make it more palatable to to compile code... There are more modern ones now however some of the 'golden oldies' are still quite good enough for the very very rare occasion I use them. ST FPC3 is about the 'best of the bunch' in my opinion, its quite happy in general at least with even a badly written mess.

I like that. I first thought upon its first few seconds of running that it was (sorry) similar to just a PLOT INK RND*7 ; RND*255 , RND*175 , then I saw it did more and within a couple more seconds the explosion effect. 🎇 ^ Apparently that's a 'firework' emoticon/smile when you search for said term in the box search field.

Did you note the blue power led on the +2A/B ? 🙂 I did 'back then' have one of the very first grey +2's , complete with the sound slightly out of sync with the TV picture. It also featured 'quick snap' tape keys 😞 , a few months out of warranty, possible before that too. Used half a wooden clothes peg to operate , it was fine like that for the next few years. It was not be being a harsh hamfisted teenager then either 🙂 As I discovered much years later the thickness of the plastic keys where they 'wrap over' the metal support bar was slightly thicker, certainly I've not seen another one do it. That's where they snapped anyway on the 'bend' part. Did not have any real loading issues with the grey +2 that I recall, I'd guess just a bit of good luck in that part at least. Sorry to hear you had some issues with yours. Perhaps it was just a slightly off duplicate runoff or tape itself. I do remember the original Dynamite Dan I had, the leader tones for the speedloading part were warbling a bit, I'd assumed it was normal until I tried a few other tzx's years later! So a slightly iffy original tape even a high quality one is possible I guess. Mind you, the multipage codesheet -was- really annoying on that, the colour choices too, reminded me of the Amstrad one (no surprise there) I do have a 'one byte change only' original release, the one with the single headerless block (well its original apart from that one byte) tape file, the single and only change is to let it accept any code, avoiding any nonsense! 🙂 It was about the same time as me, I do recall as pennies had been saved for a long time and I was Speccy-less for a few months getting one from Curry's as soon as they appeared.

A YT review is here , not yet watched myself.

Another YT review is here , at the time of posting this I've not (yet) watched said review but the reviewer has done several videos of our 'creations'

Following on from the recent YT review of Geoff's creation " Willy Does the Great Pyramid! " , the same reviewer also had a video on this title too here At the time of posting, I've not yet watched this.

@geoff, its a good review well deserved. 🙂 Top work. I do note the reviewer does have reviews of some other games here, three at least from a cursory search so I'll add the links (not watched them, could be good or bad!) to each relevant topic too. @jetsetdannyYour joke sort of reminds me of "Fork Handles" by The Two Ronnies. You may wish to check out a YouTube or similar video of this if you've not seen it. 😉 Back on topic: Once again, top work Geoff. Could not find a 'Pyramid' smilie quickly so I thought the 'triangle' one and a camel (desert/pyramids) would suffice: 🐫🔺

Do have a couple more although not posting just yet. I did try compilation too, but the speed increase was not actually great say 20%.