andrewbroad

Should one say >original "JSW"< or >the original "JSW"<? For example in a sentence like: >A classic example of this in the original "JSW" is the red guardian on the left side of "Orangery"< [or whatever].

 

I'm asking, Ian, because in "WNM SE" Readme you didn't correct <the original "JSW"< (which actually appears a lot of times), but in a comment you added yourself, you just said, "original JSW" (no article).

 

Any guidance on this will be appreciated  :) .

If I ever get round to writing my H* game engine, then I will name my first game H* Original, so that I will never have to write

Looking forward to your retirement, Andrew!

 

A humble suggestion for your life: make a lot of money in the next 9 years, retire at 50 and spend the following 50 years designing ZX Spectrum games  ;) .

I'm not working to any predefined retirement age. My philosophy is to make hay while the sun shines, and maybe make H* when it does not (depending on which dark eventuality forces me to stop working).

I cannot imagine living to 100 unless the nanobots of everliving life are invented soon. Perhaps there's a game idea in that...

Yes, the H* games would be platformers (without excluding the possibility that they may contain minigames of different genres, although that

Back in 2009, topping the list of projects which Andrew declared he would prioritise, was

 

1. the JSW64 game currently identified only as H***** .

 

Is it the same word, by any chance?  B)

It was the same word, but then I decided to abbreviate it to H*, and to avoid any commitment as to what it stands for.

My vision for H* has changed radically since 2009. Rather than make it a JSW64 game, I would now write the H* game engine from scratch, hence my interest in Jonathan Cauldwell

I

A little more time and you will start writing your own Spectrum games!  ;)

That's something I'd love to get into, if I have time between my retirement and my death. ?

How does the Spectrum/machine/emulator know that it should commence interpreting code at the address #8400?

The BASIC loader calls USR 33792.

A millennium fetish?

By

I think it would be better to check for Earth cells at head height when walking, but not when jumping, as this would retain a spectacular class of quirky features.

So the following features would be removed...

• walking left through Earth cells at head height;
• walking up through overhead Earth cells on

Thank you for that clarification Andrew.

 

Is there a word or phrase that we should be using, to avoid confusion, when referring to a subsection of code within a particular routine (i.e. not a 'subroutine' called up from elsewhere)?

There isn

To be honest, I use the word "subroutine" from time to time, but I'm not 100% sure how it should be defined. I perceive it as a part of a "major" routine, if that makes sense.

 

Wikipedia has this to say about it:

 

In computer programming, a subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that perform a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Subprograms may be defined within programs, or separately in libraries that can be used by multiple programs. In different programming languages, a subroutine may be called a procedure, a function, a routine, a method, or a subprogram.

In Z80 machine code, CALLing a subroutine pushes the address of the next instruction after the CALL instruction onto the stack, and sets the program counter to the address specified by the CALL instruction, so as to execute the subroutine.

RETurning from a subroutine pops the return address off the stack, and sets the program counter to the return address, so as to execute the next instruction after the CALL.

Whereas a jump (JP or JR) instruction simply sets the program counter without affecting the stack.

So a subroutine is a CALLable sequence of instructions with at least one RET instruction.

And one more reflection about inserting two "main" patch vectors. While probably possible technically (why not?), I think it simply wouldn't make much sense. A patch vector is a subroutine, a chunk of code, which does something special in the room, and the two bytes in the room data point to where the patch vector for this particular room should be activated from (where it starts). The patch vector may include various elements, including calls to other subroutines. So, once you have been able to call a patch vector, you can make it perform all the tricks you want for this room. So you don't need a second patch vector.

It could be useful to have a room-setup patch vector in addition to the main-loop patch-vector.

John Elliott

It looks to me like a guardian is colliding with the pixels for the picture that appears in the upper eight character-rows of the title screen and of Room 19.

If this is indeed the case, then the three possible solutions would be:

(a) to edit or delete the offending guardian;

(b) to clear enough pixels from the picture to accommodate the guardian;

(c) to patch the Manic Miner game engine so that guardians collide with the pixels of the player only.

Issue 150 of Retro Gamer magazine has six pages devoted to Matthew Smith and his classic Spectrum games Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.

Booty is one of my all-time favourite games, too: an atmospheric and very scary platformer. There's actually an article about it in the latest issue of UK magazine Retro Gamer.

How wonderful it would be to see a game that combined the features of Booty (ladders, doors, lifts, vanishing floors, exploding items, &c.) with the exquisite game-mechanics of JSW!

"Tree Root" [46] has its right-exit set to 47.

Congratulations for solving my final challenge to the MM/JSW community (at least while I still have my current job).

To load