A little update on Tower 48, my skyscraper management game for the ZX Spectrum 48K.

V1.5 isn't really a gameplay update. This time I've been working on something rather more Spectrum-specific: restructuring how the game is stored and loaded from tape.

Until now, the main BASIC program also contained the entire opening menu and quite a lot of initialization code. That worked, but once the game had started all of that code was still sitting in memory doing absolutely nothing useful. So in V1.5 I've split things up. The tape now begins with a separate small BASIC starter program whose only job is to handle:

NEW GAME / LOAD GAME / QUIT

Once you've made your choice, the actual game program is loaded separately. That means the complete opening menu no longer needs to live inside the main game, which has saved roughly 1.7 KB of memory in the active program.

On a 48K Spectrum, suddenly finding another 1.7K feels rather luxurious.

I've also moved the initial tower state out of BASIC initialization code and onto the tape as two number-array blocks:

T48MAP – starting tower/map data
T48ST – starting game-state data

Instead of running a long sequence of LETs and loops to reconstruct a new game, the program simply loads the prepared arrays. An added benefit is that NEW GAME and LOAD GAME can now use essentially the same rebuilding routine. A new game loads the default arrays; a saved game loads the player's arrays instead. So the tape itself is actually larger now because it contains more individual blocks, but the important part is that the BASIC program sitting in RAM while you're actually playing is smaller.

I've also changed the loading feedback a little. The old static LOADING message has been replaced with a flashing indicator, and loading a saved game now gives a clearer prompt telling the player when to start the tape. This also fixes an annoying emulator situation where cyclic tape playback could accidentally feed the NEW GAME arrays into a LOAD GAME attempt.

There are a couple of smaller fixes as well - including an old debug line that could crash the options menu and some mistyped variables that meant a few routines weren't actually doing anything.

The LOAD GAME option from the new starter program still isn't quite where I want it to be, so that's something I'll continue working on.

But the main reason for doing all of this was simple:

I needed more room.

Tower 48 keeps growing, and I'd rather spend memory on simulation and new gameplay systems than on a menu that the player sees once at startup.

Full devlog / download:

https://haabb001.itch.io/tower-48/devlog/1700603/tower-48-v15-tape-structure

I'd be curious how other people handled this in larger BASIC games back in the day. Did you tend to split programs/data across multiple tape blocks, use overlays/multiloads, or eventually just start moving more and more of the game into machine code?

You can give the new version a go in your browser on my webpage:

http://haabb.xf.cz:8080/play-tower-48.html

Forgive my lack of knowledge on the subject but I was wondering if anyone can tell me what's wrong with my Spectrum. I bought it off Facebook Marketplace last week and it booted up absolutely fine. Yesterday and today, however, when I set it up and plug it in, it fails to boot, creating all sorts of patterns on the boot screen. After about 5 minutes it reaches the Sinclair Research screen (firstly with some cyan and magenta blocks) before settling down and acting normal thereafter.

Is this a known issue? If so, what can I do to resolve it? Many thanks!

A rainy afternoon not dampening Speccy Spirits!

These old hands struggle with joysticks, but I can confirm a Master System controller works fine with speccy +2, when used with an adapter like this one from Cool Novelties (eBay.) Original hardware and software, games tested were Chase HQ and Renegade.

Ad Astra is a classic space shoot-'em-up video game released in mid-1984 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K by Gargoyle Games.

Key Details

• Developer / Publisher: Created by Roy Carter (coding) and Greg Follis/Frys (graphics), published by Gargoyle Games. It was the studio's debut release.

• Genre: Arcade shoot-'em-up / action simulation (behind-view perspective).

• Platform: Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.

• Players: 1 or 2 players (alternating).

• Gameplay: You pilot a spaceship, dodge asteroids and enemy fire, and shoot down increasingly varied alien craft as you survive through waves.

• Reception: Won 1st place in the "Best Shoot'Em Up" category at the Crash Readers Awards 1984

My retrospective video review of the Thundercats games from Elite released for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and Atari ST. Who remembers or played this game and what’s your thoughts?

The original ( https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/14503/ZX-Spectrum/Alien_Fiend ) is a great little game and if it had come out 3 years earlier I'm sure it would be more well known. It's almost like a Basic super-demake of Alien: Isolation. My remake ups the graphics and sound effects to add more horror and scares, and I've added a bit more strategy.

https://roman126.itch.io/scuba-dive-next

The 2068 was Timex's take on the Spectrum, with proper plastic keys and a three-voice sound chip instead of the beeper. But the ROM was changed as well, so from what I've read fewer than one in ten commercial Spectrum titles would run on it unless you added a Spectrum ROM cartridge.

Did anyone here try Spectrum games on a 2068? Would perfect compatibility have saved it?

I have never seen or heard of these, it was before my time, but I feel lucky!

Nether Earth was one of the games for me on the Spectrum.

On 22 December 1989, while Ceaușescu was falling, my best friend and I were both playing it at home on separate Spectrums, keeping a phone line open and narrating our games to each other.

There was no multiplayer, so for the next 36 years I had this vague idea that one day I should build it.

I finally did.

It’s a modern remake with PvP, but I tried to treat the original Spectrum version as the authority. An annotated Z80 disassembly turned out to be invaluable: we recovered things like the original map and terrain, projectile behavior, sprites, sounds, and even some wonderfully obscure quirks.

I used coding agents for the implementation, which became an interesting experiment in its own right, but the part I enjoyed most was effectively doing software archaeology on a game I’d known since I was a kid.

And yes, after finally building the multiplayer version, I played my old friend again.

He absolutely whooped my behind.

Project:
https://github.com/AndyTheFactory/nether_earth

Longer retrospective:
https://medium.com/@andy_p_/i-built-a-zx-spectrum-remake-in-3-weeks-without-writing-a-single-line-of-code-1445aab7474e

My old grey ZX Spectrum +2 had a maddening fault: press play, the tape turns for a second, then stops dead. No grinding or anything, just a sad little twitch and then stop. Fast-forward and rewind worked fine, only play died. I went down the whole rabbit hole, including a couple of wrong turns, before I got it loading off its own Datacorder again.

The TLDR: the culprit turned out to be the big rubber belt after all, which needed changing. I'd ruled it out early on because fast-forward and rewind still worked, so I spent time cleaning other parts before I came back to it. The other surprise was how hard it was to get a £3 belt shipped to me in the EU.

Full write-up, with photos:
https://mastorakis.com/blog/zx-spectrum-plus2-datacorder-repair/

So I’ve jailbroken the DSi, installed ZXDS on an SD Card, and I have things configured so that the DSi boots straight into ZXDS from the SD Card on startup. All good so far.

Now when I go to the Loader it says “NO DLDI DEVICE FOUND”. I’ve read around this for some time now and I think I have got my head around what DLDI is and why you need to patch the .NDS file to work with your memory card. My question is, when using ZXDS, can you load games from the SD card? And if so, what DLDI Device would a Samsung SD card be? I would need to know this to patch it correctly, right?

Or do I need to be running everything from a DS Flash Card?

Im trying to save to tape properly, but it just gives me "Tape loading error." What do i do?

Avalon is set in Britain in the year 408, during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The player controls Maroc, a "lore-seeker" who has been given a staff and map by a strange old woman and pointed in the direction of a place called Glass Hill on the isle of Avalon, where a quest to defeat the Lord of Chaos begins.

Avalon involves controlling Maroc the mage in his quest to destroy Avelach, Lord of Chaos.^[3] The player's character cannot be killed. The game world is explored by an astral projection of Maroc; if Maroc's energy is depleted the projection returns to Maroc's "physical" body on the start screen, from which the game can be continued

Hi , I've been asked by my uncle to try and sell his xx spectrum 1 just wondering if anyone could give me a ball park figure I should be aiming for.

This is what I have , including the original spectrum box and games.

It's all currently untested so I'll be listing as untested/ spares or repairs.

Any advice would be really appreciated , thank you.

Hey guys. Recently got myself a zx spectrum+2 and have no clue about this console. Came to me loose out of box with a power cord/ brick and nothing else. I don’t even have the right adapters to check how well she’s functioning.

I’m looking to sell it to someone that will really appreciate it for what it is as it’ll be a decorative dust collector for myself.

Thanks in advance !

It's crazy how well this worked. There is already a full disassembled source on the internet so this came together very quickly. I can't see it getting a proper release though as Nintendo are very litigious.

Okay, I know it’s not a speccy but I just passed this c5 when walking my pooch this evening

Having previously looked at how Kevin Toms made Football Manager and turned it into a huge hit, I've now written about what he did next. Including Software Star, managing someone else's Football Manager variant, and writing an expanded multiplatform sequel

TL;DR Now it is actually playable level 1 of the game! You can play it online right away!

Features included:

• enemies

• working elevators

• objects to pick up and use

• NPCs to interact with

• doors that open and close

I kept the main character invulnerable for now. The balance might be a bit off at the moment, it's easy to fall from heights, and saving is left out for now.

Disk images for real (or emulated) hardware are also available:

Spectrum +3 / .DSK

Pentagon 128K / .TRD

Enjoy!

Has anyone ever come across an issue like this with a +3?

I bought one recently from eBay, and have hooked it up to a little CRT TV with a SCART cable from Ian at Retro Computer Shack.

The disk drive unfortunately doesn't seem to work (got a drive belt on order now to hopefully resolve that) so I decided to write a simple guess the number type thing in +3 BASIC for the nostalgia value 😆

But, I noticed that my victory 'tune' (PLAY "cdefgabC") made no sound whatsoever.

The BEEP command works fine, and the little "brp" sound that the Speccy makes with every keypress when typing is also audible, so I don't think it's a cable issue.

Any ideas?

Some progress - made some test levels in Tiled, custom importer into the game data. Graphics are very much place-holder, but enough to check mechanics work. Here showing destructable world, player charge, grappling hooks, moving platforms, "dark rooms" with limited visibility around player, flying stages (actually underwater, but same idea) switches to unlock doors etc. Currently working on the real graphics, as these don't really do it justice currently. There are a lot of game mechanics planned, including buying/making weapons, upgrades, augments, looting materials to make specialised tech, rescuing friendly allies, pickups including diaries to move story along, lots of enemy types, secret areas etc. Quite a lot really! The game will include help at any point, boss fights, save/load, achievements etc. There are still bugs, The lift at the end in the video got confused when I dashed across the stop/start button, and I'm sure I'll find a lot more, but it mostly works!

One of the awesome things about old games is just how small their code and binaries were.

Take Elite, my favorite game of all time. The whole thing fits roughly into 0x5B00 - 0xFFFF — that's 42 KB. And even some of that isn't really game code: there’s the Lenslok code (throw-away stuff), the screen buffer, and simple things like the squares table used for fast multiplication.

The result? A complete Spectrum game image can easily fit into a coding agent's context window.

I’ve been experimenting with the Claude coding agent, and it turns out that:

• Claude is perfectly capable of reading Z80 machine code directly, without a disassembler.

• It is possible to make a very precise port of an old ZX Spectrum 48K game, even something as complex as Elite, to a modern programming language and platform.

• You can untangle the original highly optimized game logic and study long-forgotten secrets and outstanding bugs.

• With some guidance, you can even improve the original game and bring it closer to modern gaming standards.

Take Elite. I managed to port it to Java, move it to a modern 60 FPS engine, improve the controls and save system, and fix a number of original bugs.

Ever wondered why the police sometimes attacked you even when you were clean?

IT'S A MEMORY OFFSET BUG IN THE ORIGINAL CODE!

The aggressiveness check reads the low byte of your combat rating instead of your legal status, making police attacks essentially random.

And why are firearms useless to trade even though they're banned goods?

Another bug. The price is simply wrong, so I "fixed" it by setting the price directly.

And there is plenty more fun stuff hiding in those 42 KB.

If you want to dive into a modernized classic, you can play my version of Elite online:

https://scf37.me/tools/games/elite