JSW Central

[jetsetdanny]

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Willy's New Hat".

[jetsetdanny]

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Spaceman Willy".

[jetsetdanny]

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Dr. Jet Set Willy".

[jetsetdanny]

I've just added complete screenshot galleries to the pages of "Jet-Set Willy (again)" and "Escape of the Snails".

[jetsetdanny]

I've just added complete screenshot galleries to the pages of "Jet-Set Willy Ivy" and "Mr Top Hat".

I've also added some supplemental information/corrections on these pages.

 

1.

In case of Jet-Set Willy Ivy I realised the number of rooms accessible without cheating I was indicating previously (64) was wrong, as obviously the room "Was It Worth It?" (08), with a big word CHEAT written on the screen, can only be accessed by using the Writetyper cheat or POKing the game.

I also corrected the number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game. I described it as "not more than 63" with the following comment:

("Was It Worth It?" [08] should be omitted, as it cannot be accessed without cheating and has no items. Omitting "The Waxworks" [25] might perhaps be possible, at the expense of extending the route unnecessarily.)

I could not force myself to try to complete the game without visiting "The Waxworks" (and I won't force myself to do it any time soon). However, if someone took up this kind of challenge and confirmed that "The Waxworks" can indeed be omitted, I would be happy to correct the information on JSW Central once more, to introduce certainty instead of probability.

 

2.

In case of Mr Top Hat, I did spend some time trying to verify whether the rooms "The late Mr. Springs" [59] and "The lost Sundays - 1/7th of life" [60] are actually accessible by using the Writetyper cheat. I managed to activate Writetyper in-game (i.e. without POKing the game), after some 20 attempts or more, in the lower left-hand corner of "The original?" [28], and teleport to room 00 from there. I did not actually reach either "The late Mr. Springs" or "The lost Sundays - 1/7th of life", but I think that theoretically it should be possible to do. 

However, I don't know if it is possible to enter the long Writetyper codes for these rooms [654219 and 65439, respectively] on emulated keyboards (it's not possible in Spectaculator, as far as I can tell), and I don't have any way of checking it on the real hardware right now or in the foreseeable future. Hence, in the picture gallery I included these rooms as ones which can "probably be accessed by using the Writetyper cheat".

If anyone should be able to verify this, I would be happy to correct the information on JSW Central.

 

If you see any errors or dubious information on JSW Central, please let me know and I will be happy to look into it and correct everything as necessary. The same goes for language issues, typos, etc. - please let me know about anything that might need to be changed 🙂 .

[Norman Sword]

Jetsetdanny said:-

However, I don't know if it is possible to enter the long Writetyper codes for these rooms [654219 and 65439, respectively] on emulated keyboards (it's not possible in Spectaculator, as far as I can tell), and I don't have any way of checking it on the real hardware right now or in the foreseeable future. Hence, in the picture gallery I included these rooms as ones which can "probably be accessed by using the Writetyper cheat".

If anyone should be able to verify this, I would be happy to correct the information on JSW Central.

 

My response:-

Problems scanning keys. Running my program

 https://jswmm.co.uk/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=7279

Shows I can (with my gaming keyboard - on fuse)  hold any of the above key combinations.

The difficulty being I can't hold the first (654219) set of keys and navigate the mouse to do a screen shot. I can with the smaller combination 65439.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Norman Sword

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for this info, Norman Sword!

I download the Fuse emulator (Windows version), which I hadn't used before, loaded "Mr Top Hat", POKEd it so that Writetyper would work (POKE 34275,10), and tried introducing various key combinations.

I was able to make the codes 6519, 6529 and 6539 work, but I couldn't get 6549 to work. I couldn't get 65429,  or 65439 or 654219 to work either (Willy does not teleport when all those keys are pressed).

I tried it also on ZX Spin and (once again) on Spectaculator, with pretty much the same results. I can't get 6549 or combinations of key with these digits and one or two additional digits to work.

This was on a laptop running Windows 10 with a (non-gaming, very regular) USB keyboard attached. I also tried using the laptop's keyboard, but the results were the same.

Could someone try actually inputting these codes (i.e. 6549, 65439 and 654219) with the Writetyper cheat turned on (POKE 34275,10) in a JSW48 game to see if you get teleported to room 56, 60 or 59, respectively?

[Norman Sword]

Did you try running the simple program I wrote, it will display keyboard scanning problems very clearly?

Downloaded the game (Mr Top Hat) and pressed the cheat key combinations.

Emulated on fuse.  

Off to bed - its 4.35am

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Norman Sword

[Norman Sword]

A more extensive scope/explanation of why I wrote the keyboard scanning program.

 

When emulating the zx spectrum, it can sometimes not respond to certain keyboard key combinations. When I was writing various utilities and even playing games on the zx spectrum. I was constantly aware of key combinations that did not seem to work.

The cheat combinations of JSW and Manic Miner are a good example of key combinations that on various emulators and various pc's. Seemed to not respond correctly. The problem varied between my various pc's and changed according to the keyboard used. 

The problem was big enough for me to investigate what the emulator on my pc was showing as a key press.  If I am writing a routine that needs key presses then having an emulated pc that can not respond to those key presses becomes a big problem. For example Manic Panic uses "ASD" "SDF" and "DFG" as groups of keys that have an action that changes the game play. Those key combinations work on my pc. Yet IRF has stated they do not work on his PC.

To find out what my PC says is being pressed as a key and passed through its hardware/software to  an emulator etc I wrote the keyboard scanner.

Running the keyboard scanner, does a constant key scan of every key on the spectrums keyboad and displays which keys are being pressed. This should show clearly any key combination. The spectrums hardware and the emulated spectrums hardware should not have any problems responding to any key pressed. The keys pressed will show up on the simulated spectrum keyboard.

When I originally wrote the keyboard scanner, I was suprised to find that certain groups of keys would not respond, when more and more keys were pressed. Most of my keyboards attached to most of my Pc,s had one problem or another. They were fine with one or two keys but failed as the keycount increased.

I changed my code to remove key combinations that did not work.

As stated earlier the most commen multiple key press combination program I used was JSW and Manic Miner. Both of these programs failed the multi keypress test. Running my keyboard scanner showed the scope of the problem and which key combination did not work.

It will be noted that every re-write of JSW and Manic Miner I have done. Does NOT use the multi keypress type cheat that is in the originals, mainly beacuse of the keyboard problem.

-----------------------

I mentioned elsewhere (another post) that I had a keyboard that was configured with a reset on the keyboard. To overcome accidently pressing the keyboard reset, I bought a gaming PC keyboard. 

-----------------------

Every problem I used to experience with scanning multiple key presses on an emulated spectum disappeared. Running my keyboard scanning program showed that the problems of groups of keys, seemingly stopping the response of other keys on my emulated spectrum where gone.

I can now press any combination of keys and they will all show up on my keyboard scanning program.

----------------------

 

Concerning Mr top Hat

Running on an emulated machine.

The problems described by your inability to press the combinations of keys in an emulated spectrum game. Are more than likely, the problem of your keyboard. Running the keyboard scanner will remove the game from the test loop and focus only on what the emulator is seeing. If the keyboard scanner I wrote allows those combinations of keys to be pressed then the problem is the game. If it does not show those combinations of keys being pressed then it is the keyboard you are using.

  

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Norman Sword
Clarification.

[Spider]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Norman. I did at one time wonder if using an older 'legacy' type PS2 keyboard connector vs USB (either wired or not) would have any bearing but I think not. Spectaculator and some other emulators do offer a slight variation in Issue emulation regarding keyboards , but I -think- from memory this was partly to help with the 'dead cockroach' modification on the Issue 2 machines, as I do not recall too many issue with having it set to "late" vs "early"