jetsetdanny

It's good that you've found what you needed :). In the TOSEC zip which can be downloaded from the link I mentioned above, there are two files which may be of interest. Here they are: Manic Miner (19xx)(Steven Green)(fr)cr F.T.Pirate-Prospectrum port.zip ZZZ-UNK-Manic Miner Conversion by N.Hawaworth (PD).zip

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but have you tried this download?

The author of 'April Showers', the (then) new room in 'Jet Set Willy', published as a type-in in 'Your Spectrum' magazine in April 1985, is apparently John Nicholls, not Nichols. His surname is spelled with a double 'l' in the original article (page 41) where it appears three times. I have always seen it spelled with one 'l' on JSW-related websites. This incorrect spelling is also present on WoS. I imagine the error was perpetuated by people copying the surname from sources where it appeared earlier, without consulting the original article. I am sorry to admit I contributed to it, too, including in the text files which accompany 'Jet Set Willy: The 2010 Megamix' and its earlier incarnation 'Jet Set Willy: The 2005 Megamix', where Dave is credited because the room 'April Showers' is included in these games. So, thank you for 'April Showers', Dave Nicholls, and sorry for misspelling your name over the years!

Krazyminer, it's great that you have joined this community, and thank you for the links to your webpages and the info you have produced and are hosting there :). In the last few years this community has been the central point for MM/JSW-related activity, and I hope it will stay this way for a looong time to come :). Previously, for about a decade, the MM & JSW Yahoo! Group was the main meeting place of the MM/JSW community. It is hardly active these days (apart from Ian [iRF], one of the most active members here, posting his amazing insights about the workings of the JSW game engine, in reference to old messages over there), but there is a lot of valuable info there in the over 7000 messages which have been posted so far. And, of course, if you are interested also in games which are remakes of MM and JSW for the ZX Spectrum (using the original game engines or the extended ones developed by John Elliott), I couldn't fail to encourage you to visit JSW Central :).

I tried Spectaculator. It seems to work in the same way as far as loading is concerned, i.e. I need to have a TAP file with the screen (my picture) data following the Screen Compressor data immediately within the structure of the TAP file, so that it loads and gets processed correctly. Otherwise, if I use a regular Screen Compressor build and try to drag and drop a screen file onto it to load it, nothing happens. Anyway, I have been able to process a couple of my loading screens (for micro-projects which will be made public in the near future) successfully. So thanks for Screen Compressor, Andy, it's a very useful tool! :thumbsup:

Andy, I've devised a successful workaround to solve the problem :D . It allows me to achieve exactly what I need, although it's not optimal in the sense of general usage of "Screen Compressor". I did this: Using ZX-Blockeditor, I created a new TAP file, which was your "Screen Compressor" with my picture attached after the last block of "Screen Compressor" data in the TAP file structure (my picture as BYTES ""SCREEN$ header plus Screen Data, 6912 bytes in length, starting at 16384). I ran this file in SPIN. Immediately after pressing "L" to load the screen, it loaded my picture and processed it, compressing it correctly. Then I was able to repeat the steps I had previously succeeded in doing, i.e. I saved the compressed screen, inserted it into a custom BASIC loader, and then loaded the whole game to see if it worked. It worked like a charm! :) So at this point I am able to use "Sreen Compressor" efficiently by creating new, individual TAP files of it for each project, by inserting my picture blocks into the "Screen Compressor" TAP file structure right after the last data block of the Compressor. This is perfectly enough for me, but it's not exactly the right way to use this otherwise excellent program; certainly not the normal way. I'll try using it the proper way in Spectaculator tomorrow (I don't have Spectaculator on this computer), just out of curiosity what Spectaculator will do. Anyway, thanks *a lot* for your help, I am very glad I am now able to use this whole technology of compressing pictures and loading them (used as loading screens) without the loading lines :D .

Andy - I am totally at a loss here. The "demo" file you uploaded looks like a final product *after* the compression and turning a picture from a 6912-byte-long SCREEN$ into a piece of code which gets loaded and then decompressed. I don't have a problem now with this whole part - I've managed to do it. My problem is that I cannot *load* a 6912-byte-long picture into Screen Compressor so that it processes it correctly. When I load a .scr picture, Screen Compressordoesn't process it correctly. The picture is displayed on the screen of the emulator and nothing happens. When I press the "Start or stop the virtual tape drive" button, something gets loaded, visibly corrupting my screen (the upper part of it only) and then - without my doing anything else - the Screen Compressor shows its screen with the results of the compression (from this point on, I was able to save the file successfully and put it into a working BASIC loader - hence I say that I don't have a problem with this whole part). I know that I wrote previously that I had solved Part 1 - loading the uncompressed picture into Screen Compressor - but I take it back. I did *not* solve this part yet. When I said I had solved it, I didn't realise that the corruption of the picture would perdure beyond the compression. So my problem now is how to load the file into Screen Compressor so that it processes it correctly. Now I know it should be a TAP file, not a .scr. So my question is about what structure this TAP file should have and what the BASIC loader should say. Obviously it cannot be a kind of file like the "demo" you uploaded above, because this demo is already processed by Screen Compressor, it's *after* the compression. And I need to know what a TAP file should look like *before* the compression - the file which I need to load into the Compressor. :)

Andy, thanks a lot for your help! :) I got Part 2 right, so to speak. I was able to save a compressed screen, then insert it into a "full" TAP file (with a loader, etc.) and run the whole thing. It works like a charm :) . However, I've still got a problem with Part 1. When I drag and drop a .scr file onto Spin, it shows my screen in SPIN's screen, but then nothing happens. So I tried pressing the "Start or stop the virtual tape drive" button in SPIN (at the lower left). When I do that, SPIN loads something (with the stripes and the sound) - I suspect it may be the "Screen Compressor" code itself - which corrupts the upper part of my screen. It is only after it has stopped loading that Screen Compressor shows the screen with the results of the compression (compressed size and savings). The compression works OK, I guess, but my screen had been corrupted because something was loaded onto its upper part. Any ideas? As for the SPIN's Tape browser, after my screen has been dragged and dropped and shows in SPIN's screen (and nothing happens), when I go to the Tape browser, the only tape it sees is the Screen Compressor itself.

Andy, OK, I've got the file loaded into Screen Compressor and processed. Now I've got the screen where it shows the total compressed size and the saving (how many bytes were saved). So now I want to save my compressed screen to the PC. How do I do it? This time I cannot drag and drop anything. When I press "S" it asks me for the file name, then, when I have input the name, it shows me a screen with info that "The screen is relocatable...", etc. and it says, "Start tape, then press any key". When I press a key, the program does what it would do on a real Spectrum - it shows the moving border stripes and makes the sound typical of data transmission. However... it doesn't save any file on the PC, AFAICT, it only saves whatever it does save virtually "within the emulator". So how do I save the processed (compressed) screen, please? :)

Andy, I've had a go at it, but I'm missing a key piece of information here, and so I'm unable to use this tool. How do I load and save files "within the emulation" on an emulator? Here's what I mean: I open an emulator. It is either ZX Spin or Spectaculator in my case. I load Screen Compressor. I see the menu, like in the screenshot on top of this page. I press "L" and I see the message "Load in your screen now...". And the program is waiting for my input. What should I do at this stage, either in Spin or Spectaculator? How do I load something into the emulated program? I can't figure it out. Your help on this will be appreciated :).

The official Software Projects POKEs in Hex: #EB47,00 - Removes a Fire cell from the Conservatory Roof #E9FD,52 - Fixes the 'Attic Bug' arrow #A4C7,0B - Moves the invisible item from the First Landing to The Hall #DE2C,04 - Changes an Earth cell in the Banyan Tree to a Water cell so the tree is climbable.

Thanks, Andy! I have corrected the typo.

A further thought: The game allows the player to choose the starting room (among other things). It happens after the game has loaded; the selection cannot be modified after losing all lives or aborting the game. It occured to me that a solution to the problem described above would be to start in "I'm sure I've seen this before.." (room 15), collect the item there and then continue the game (without being able to return to this particular room) to complete it. However, when the starting point is set to that room, Willy emerges at the same coordinates as in "The Bathroom", i.e. at the floor level. In "I'm sure I've seen this before.." this effectively means he is trapped at the bottom, without being able to do anything meaningful and / or get out of this room...

I have tried to complete J. G. Harston's version of "JSW", which has some extra rooms, new technical features and minor edits of the original rooms and sprites. Sadly, I have found out that this version is impossible to complete in its current shape :( . There are 90 items to collect within the game. 89 can be collected. One item, though, is in the room "I'm sure I've seen this before..". This item cannot be collected, because the room is inaccessible. In the original "JSW", this room is located between "We must perform a Quirkafleeg" and "Rescue Esmerelda". However, in J. G. Harston's version the right exit from "We must perform a Quirkafleeg" leads straight to "Rescue Esmerelda", and, similarly, the left exit from "Rescue Esmerelda" leads straight to "We must perform a Quirkafleeg". So there is nothing between them, where "I'm sure I've seen this before.." should be. From what I can see by looking at the game in JSWED, the only room from which there is an exit leading to "I'm sure I've seen this before.." is "Up on the Battlements". However, it is the downwards exit - you would have to exit this room downwards in order to enter "I'm sure I've seen this before..", which is, of course, impossible. Therefore, the room "I'm sure I've seen this before.." cannot be reached (except for using the Writetyper cheat, I presume), the item located therein cannot be collected and hence the game cannot be completed without cheating. A question to Jonathan, then: Would you kindly release a bug-fix of your version of "JSW" and update your website accordingly? It would probably be a few minutes' job :) . In fact, modifying the value of these four addresses: #D0EA - should be changed from #0E to #0F (to change the rightward exit from "We must perform a Quirkafleeg" so that it leads to "I'm sure I've seen this before.."); #CEE9 - should be changed from #10 to #0F (to change the leftward exit from "Rescue Esmerelda" so that it leads to "I'm sure I've seen this before.."); #CFE9 - should be changed from #29 to #10 (to change the leftward exit of the currently inaccessible "I'm sure I've seen this before.." from leading to "The Attic" to lead to "We must perform a Quirkafleeg"); #CFEA - should be changed from #28 to #0E (to change the rightward exit of the currently inaccessible "I'm sure I've seen this before.." from leading to "Dr Jones will never believe this" to lead to "Rescue Esmerelda") will do the trick, I believe, and make the game completable. It would be nice if you could spare a few moments to do this :) .

Thanks, Ian! I have corrected the text by removing the comment about Willy being killed upon entry.

I am pleased to announce that JSW Central has been updated. The changes are: Chronology has been updated. Please let me know if you think anything is missing. The section of the main list of games which lists games using the JSW48 game engine has been divided into two subsections: "New games" and "Advanced modifications of the original JSW". "Jet Set Mini" has been included at No. 48 in the list of "New games". I had my reservations about it, but I decided to give it the status of a "new game", given the overall amount of changes which have been applied, including special effects (my reservations were due to the fact that visually it is not as radically different from the original as most of the "new games"). Three games have been listed as "Advanced modifications of the original JSW": "Jet Set Willy: The Nigthmare Edition", "Jet Set Mixup" and "Jet Set 40-40". Individual pages have been created for the four above-mentioned games. The first three feature full-blown screenshot galleries. In the case of "Jet Set 40-40", only a stub picture gallery is presented so as not to give spoilers (I intend to publish a full gallery once a year has passed since the release). A placeholder for a new section has been added in the main menu: "Minor mods of the original JSW". This section will list a selection of mods of the original "Jet Set Willy" which are not "modified enough" to be considered new games or "advanced modifications", but which are interesting for various reasons: because they feature new individual rooms, new sprites, new technical features, etc. Work on it will be my JSW priority in the near future. The "Scope and principles" section has been updated to reflect the recent changes. Please let me know if you have any comments or come across any problems with the website :).

Just as a curiosity: When I entered the site a few minutes ago I saw this sign: When I refreshed the page after taking the screenshot it worked fine, though, so everything's OK :).

Kweepa has announced the completion of a port of "Manic Miner" to the 16K VIC-20. The topic is on WoS, along with a video of the game being played. I am not familiar with the VIC-20, but it looks like he did a great job! :thumbsup:

Well, let's see. If I were to work on making an efficient RZX recording of "Mini" at this time, I would be doing it with the intention of submitting it to the RZX Archive, not just for the fun of it. My action would be result-oriented, and the desired result would be to have the recording hosted on the Archive. I wouldn't do it if you asked me not to submit it to the Archive yet, the release being too recent (less than a year ago). However, if I make the recording and let you know the completion time and you beat it (making a recording of your own), then it won't make sense to submit my recording to the RZX Archive any more, but rather yours. And I take it as a very serious possibility that you will beat my time :) . So, from this perspective, it doesn't make sense for me to make the recording now :o . Which is OK, I have plenty of other JSW-things to do, updating and expanding JSW Central being my top priority at the moment :).

OK. My idea, though, is that if I record an RZX walkthrough, it will be done in order to submit it to RZX Archive (now). If you'd rather I didn't submit such a recording at this time (so as not to provide any spoilers for people who were not involved with the project), that's fine, I don't mind giving "the outsiders" some more time to solve the mysteries of the game (I think that once a whole year has passed since the release, I won't have any qualms about it, because those who may have been interested will have had enough time to have a go at the game). If it is your preference not to submit the recording at this time, I will not be doing it for now. It can wait :).

OK, I *may* do it in the near future, but I'll see how things go.

Would it be OK if I recorded an improved walkthrough and submitted it to the RZX Archive?

There's a nice map by Pavel Pliva (Pavero) on https://maps.speccy.cz/. Would it not be a good idea to create a download of this file? I mean, in the Downloads section? (just wondering).

There's no recording of "Jet Set Mini" on the RZX Archive yet, AFAICT.

There's no recording of "Heaven and Hell" on the RZX Archive yet, AFAICT.