ZX Spectrum VEGA - JSW 2 not working

[Scott James Barber]

I just received the Vega last week, and it is great to have my hands on a Sinclair product again. I was a little disappointed with some of the 1000 games it comes free with. Most I've never heard of, with the exception of a few old classics, Ultimate, Gremlin and the Skooldaze collections.

 

Most absent is JSW and MM, as I know Elite has the rights to these games, and are bringing out their rival Speccie this year.

 

I've since downloaded them both from the WOS site, and they work perfectly on the Vega. Unfortunately JSW 2 doesn't work as good. For whatever reason, the Kempston joystick default setting for the Vega doesn't seem to be recognised for JSW 2, which is annoying, so the control pad is useless.

 

A few of the Willy spin-off games struggle on the Vega too, although Join the Jet Set works fine (which I think is the best unofficial JSW game anyway).

 

 

 

 

[Spider]

Hmm.

 

I've not really looked into the Vega much although I have read a few others thoughts on Facebook about it. :) It seemed to have a mixed reception.

 

Have you tried the 128K JSW2 ? Its the same game it just got some built in cheats, that might actually work better. The only reason its 128K only is simply as the 'menu' for the cheats (in game) could not go into the existing space (as there was none!)

 

What format does the Vega accept on its memory cards ?

 

 

*************************************************************************
**  Jet Set Willy 2 - Fixed version. This version has been altered     **
**  by James McKay so that when Willy loses a life, he is then         **
**  invulnerable for three seconds, which prevents Willy from getting  **
**  caught in a no-win infinite loop.                                  **
**                                                                     **
**  Also, James has added a feature to this version, whereby when you  **
**  are playing, you can press the [T] key, and a menu will appear.    **
**  From this menu you can select from a variety of cheats, such as    **
**  Infinite Lives and so forth, and also select the number of any     **
**  room you wish to be 'teleported' to.                               **
**                                                                     **
**  Please note: In order to fit the fix, the cheats and the teleport  **
**  routines into JSW2, it was necessary to convert JSW2 to a 128K     **
**  program. There are no new screens or anything, this is merely the  **
**  48K game in 128K with the above additions.                         **
**                                                                     **
**  Original teleport routine is copyright Your Spectrum issue 18      **
*************************************************************************

 

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002595

 

You'll have to turn it into a .sna / .z80 or possibly a .tap , I'm assuming the Vega will accept a 128K file. I do not have a 'real' Kempston interface to check this though.

[Scott James Barber]

Hmm.

 

I've not really looked into the Vega much although I have read a few others thoughts on Facebook about it. :) It seemed to have a mixed reception.

 

Have you tried the 128K JSW2 ? Its the same game it just got some built in cheats, that might actually work better. The only reason its 128K only is simply as the 'menu' for the cheats (in game) could not go into the existing space (as there was none!)

 

What format does the Vega accept on its memory cards ?

 

 

 

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002595

 

You'll have to turn it into a .sna / .z80 or possibly a .tap , I'm assuming the Vega will accept a 128K file. I do not have a 'real' Kempston interface to check this though.

It reads TAP files. I'll give the 128k version a whirl, see if that is any better....

[jetsetdanny]

I just received the Vega last week, and it is great to have my hands on a Sinclair product again. I was a little disappointed with some of the 1000 games it comes free with. Most I've never heard of, with the exception of a few old classics, Ultimate, Gremlin and the Skooldaze collections.

 

Most absent is JSW and MM, as I know Elite has the rights to these games, and are bringing out their rival Speccie this year.

 

I've since downloaded them both from the WOS site, and they work perfectly on the Vega. Unfortunately JSW 2 doesn't work as good. For whatever reason, the Kempston joystick default setting for the Vega doesn't seem to be recognised for JSW 2, which is annoying, so the control pad is useless.

 

A few of the Willy spin-off games struggle on the Vega too, although Join the Jet Set works fine (which I think is the best unofficial JSW game anyway).

 

Thank you for this info.

 

Could you please tell us exactly which "Willy spin-off games" struggle on the Vega? And what you mean exactly by "struggling"?

 

There are 3 basic types of JSW game engines in existence: the original one (48K, nowadays often referred to as JSW48) and John Elliott's engines developed from the original one: JSW128 and the more advanced JSW64, both 128K. Among the JSW48 game engines there are also modified variants, such as the so-called "Geoff-modes" (1 & 2) and "Erix1-mode".

 

I see no reason why a game using an unmodified JSW48 game engine should behave any differently on the Vega than the original JSW or Join The Jet-Set!. If the original JSW works fine, they should work fine too. I would not be equally sure concerning the modified JSW48 engines and the JSW128 and JSW64 engines, although I would give it a 99% probability that they should behave exactly as they do on emulators, i.e. work just fine. This said, I am not referring to the use of joystick, because I have no experience with it using emulation.

 

I keep a list of gamma-released MM and JSW games, cathegorised by the game engines they use, on JSW Central.

[Scott James Barber]

Thank you for this info.

 

Could you please tell us exactly which "Willy spin-off games" struggle on the Vega? And what you mean exactly by "struggling"?

 

There are 3 basic types of JSW game engines in existence: the original one (48K, nowadays often referred to as JSW48) and John Elliott's engines developed from the original one: JSW128 and the more advanced JSW64, both 128K. Among the JSW48 game engines there are also modified variants, such as the so-called "Geoff-modes" (1 & 2) and "Erix1-mode".

 

I see no reason why a game using an unmodified JSW48 game engine should behave any differently on the Vega than the original JSW or Join The Jet-Set!. If the original JSW works fine, they should work fine too. I would not be equally sure concerning the modified JSW48 engines and the JSW128 and JSW64 engines, although I would give it a 99% probability that they should behave exactly as they do on emulators, i.e. work just fine. This said, I am not referring to the use of joystick, because I have no experience with it using emulation.

 

I keep a list of gamma-released MM and JSW games, cathegorised by the game engines they use, on JSW Central.

A few of the JSW spin-offs I've tried don't appear to load up correctly. I can't exactly remember which games now, but I remember one showing a loading screen, then locking up. Another shows a loading screen and then resets itself with the usual black square/white border flash, and then back to the original home screen (1982 Sinclair Research).

 

I must admit, it was nice to see that reboot again though. It immediately brought back endless memories of trying to load games, waiting patiently for 5 minutes before seeing that black and white flash.

 

I'd also give anything to see another `R Tape loading error' message too.....   :D

[jetsetdanny]

Thank you again for the info. It's interesting. If you should happen to notice exactly which JSW game / games behaves / behave the way you described above (or in any other abnormal way) on the Vega, please let us know.

 

A huge thrill for me back in the 1980s was being able to make a back up copy of a tape which would not normally load. I had some tapes like this, showing the "R Tape loading error" perhaps 95% of the times I tried to load them. But then, after an endless random adjusting of the volume controls, once in a blue moon the game would load correctly. And the big thing was to load it into a copying program and to be able to dump it onto a clean tape - and then to know that I could load the duplicate pretty much any time I wanted, without any problems. I remember rescuing "Alchemist" in this way and it happened with some other titles as well.

 

Recovering data from scratched CDs or DVDs is a little bit like this these days, but "The Thrill of Triumph" (room #215 in "JSW: The 2010 Megamix"  ;)) is not quite what it used to be. Oh, well, perhaps I am a trifle older now than I was back then...  :rolleyes:

[Spider]

I'll see if I can whizz you up a quick config keymap file for it if needed when I get my hands on one to sort it.

[Spider]

I'm just waiting to get ahold of a micro SD card so I can test this to be sure what's going on. I have the keymap details.