ZX81 Software

[rwap]

I have now added some ZX81 Software to my website for people to
download and try - see http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/zx81/zx81_software.html

This heralded a discussion on the ZX80/ZX81 forums over what hi
resolution software was released for the ZX81 and there has been a
surprising amount - see
http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ZX80_ZX81/forums/programs-which-use-hi-res-graphics-on-the-sinclair-zx81-t289.html

[Goblin]

Looks really great....The ZX81 is one of the emulated machines I am
guilty of neglecting. Great site! I'll link you on mine!

Regards

--
Openbytes the Linux/FOSS Blogazine! - http://www.openbytes.wordpress.com
"Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui."
Catch me in #boycottnovell on freenode.net

[Ian B]

Goblin wrote:
> rwap wrote:
>> I have now added some ZX81 Software to my website for people to
>> download and try - see
>> http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/zx81/zx81_software.html This heralded a
>> discussion on the ZX80/ZX81 forums over what hi
>> resolution software was released for the ZX81 and there has been a
>> surprising amount - see
>> http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ZX80_ZX81/forums/programs-which-use-hi-res-graphics-on-the-sinclair-zx81-t289.html
>
> Looks really great....The ZX81 is one of the emulated machines I am
> guilty of neglecting. Great site! I'll link you on mine!
>

My major memory of the Memotech HRG pack, as I bought one, was that the ROM
routines were all so ghastly slow as to be utterly useless. Even just
drawing a line across the screen took many seconds, and there was a "shoot"
command of some kind which drew a line until it hit something, supposedly
for games, but again so ridiculously slow that you could virtually make a
cup of tea in the meantime. Not much use for zappy hi-res shoot'em'ups.

I was very disappointed. I did I think write some machine code routines (but
I may be wrong about this) but it was really the point when I realised the
ZX81 just wasn't going to be much use any more. I have this strange memory
that doesn't quite make sense though, so it may be false. But I present it
here for comment.

I was obsessed at some point in time with the arcade game Vastar, which had
a robot on the left of the screen flying above a scrolling landscape. I
wanted to program this myself, and got at least as far as a machine code
routine that drew the robot, and moved him up and down with (presumably) the
6 and 7 keys, that ran as an interrupt service routine, and thus the
slightly weird thing (and I do remember this very clearly) of the robot
being displayed while using the ZX81 basic editor, and he'd nudge up and
down every time I typed a 6 or a 7. Thing is, I'm sure my robot was high
resolution, but surely the HRG pack didn't display the ZX81 basic listing in
its high res display file, did it? Am I imagining things again?

Ian