The Spectrum Show EP144

[@slacknhash]

Could have sworn it was always called the Microsource. The Greek letter µ (mu) denotes 'micro' in scientific notation. Although obviously µ looks like a U...

[@robsretrostuff]

Would have loved one of these back in the day

[@Nosaveddataretro]

One the chip it has microsource on it

[@scottishwildcat]

Yep, you're correct. The Currah Microspeech was also branded as the µSpeech, in both the adverts and on the unit itself.

[@ChrisWalshZX]

I was going to say exactly the same - it never was a U, but greek letter mu - hence "micro"

[@saintuk70]

Bonkers, 40 years ago as a teenager this was my Saturday night......

[@MarquisDeSang]

Quebecois here, I pre order my first spectrum on amazon uk. After 20 years, I will finally see the beast in person, if only a replica.

[@lawrencemanning]

If you mean The Spectrum? The two things these emulators/reimlentations don’t reproduce: crappy picture quality and the hazards of tape storage. And neither of those two things are small, in terms of recreating what using the original machine was like. For an authentic experience buy yourself a known working +2. Sorting out video is probably not that hard.

[@MarquisDeSang]

@@lawrencemanning well i don t have the patience for the real thing. I am more of an fpga guy or mini guy

[@lawrencemanning]

@@MarquisDeSang I’d stick to emulation then. I’m guessing that’s what The Spectrum is, a Pi equivalent Linux board, Pi Pico or it might be a custom FPGA solution, which would be much more cool technically. It’ll be interesting to see how closely they replicate the feel of the keyboard, wether it supports tape loading as an option, etc.

[@AtariForeva]

@@lawrencemanning Ontarian here, sadly we are in NTSC land and any "real" Spectrum from UK or Europe would require voltage transformer and given Spectrum's RF out only the TV with PAL standard would do, not counting expensive converters that may be another option. So The Spectrum is what I'm looking for as well. Growing up in 80's all my friends had C64s, some had 128s and only 1 kid had Spectrum and I was the only one with an Atari 800XL, so we would switch our computers for a week or 2 to play games that we didn't have on our machines so Spectrum has a special place in my memory.

[@marcoferrandi6191]

The first Good that comes into my mind is Bubble Bobble. The Speccy version was incredibly playable. Oh, and R-Type, of course. That was out of this world.

[@diverdriver7028]

Thatnks for the memories, spent many happy hours playing wheelie!

[@coffeecuparcade]

Thank you so much for this episode! I discovered Night Gunner and it is exactly the type of game I enjoy playing! CHEERS! How you described the fishing game had me rolling on the floor. I think Sega Bass Fishing was the only fishing game I loved, well.... there was a simple 8x8 grid fishing game on the PET back in the day that enthused me. I truly love the Spectrum, and this coming from a kid that grew up in the USA and the UK. What a cool computer. Thanks Paul!

[@berry5593]

Oh. Wheelie. I loved that game!

[@lawrencemanning]

I was doing something else and not looking at my phone when suddenly… those sound effects!!!! It must be Wheelie!!! 😂😂😂

[@berry5593]

​@@lawrencemanningThe sweet sound of nostalgia. :-)

[@ChrisWalshZX]

I had and still have the original MicroSource and I used it extensively between 1987 to 1991 to code all assembly developments on the ZX Spectrum. Without it, I wouldn't have broken through into assembly programming as I didn't have a software assembler and I probably saved hours of not having to load the assembler before loading my source code each time. My version came in a MicroSpeech case and I assume the beautiful case shown in the ads were never mass produced - but I've never met or know of anyone else who ever had one - until now - if Chris Smtih indeed lent you one? I worked with Paul Farrow in getting the ROM dumped so the community could have a copy of the ROM. Would love to have a second model as it's still my most valued ZX hardware. THanks

[@vandammesque]

Wheelie was wheelie hard.

[@Inaflap]

Not as hard as parking a double-decker bus in such a tight spot.

[@tschak909]

Thank you for making these.

[@1969gawa]

I picked Moon Cresta up in a second hand shop ,think I got it for ten bob. I was amazed about how good it was.

[@VampireJack10]

I always look forward to the 16k games, as it showed what was possible with so little, and often the games were great! This months though/ Not so much.......don't reckon I'm gonna sample those delights on my Ngo....

[@TRONMAGNUM2099]

I ordered my preorder Spectrum as well. Wanting to see how it stacks up to the original. Hopefully Paul is able to review it and tell us what he thinks of it.

[@fuzzix]

Great stuff! Used to play a lot of Wheelie and Night Gunner back in the day. From what I remember, the protection code on Night Gunner was the same every time, though it was different on each side of the cassette... if that makes sense :)

[@firsteerr]

i recently added a blu tooth receiver to my spectrum 48k + and it really is good for downloading from any device

[@mrpositronia]

Good, Bad and Ugly is a tough one. There's too many to choose from for each category. I wouldnt want to single-out any. But Goods are definitely Chase HQ, Shinobi, Star Wars, R-Type... That'll do for now.

[@stevenice8320]

Thanks for another great show Paul.

[@frankowalker4662]

We first got Night Gunner on the ZX81. When we got the Speccy version we were blown away by all the different levels, the 81 version had lots of missions but they were all the same as mission one.

[@t00ty_fru1ty]

Awesome show. BombJack FTW 💣💣💣

[@andrewdunbar828]

μ isn't the letter 'u', it's the symbol for "micro". But it's true that people often replace it with "u" when they don't know how to use Greek symbols. So yeah μSource and MicroSource can be pronounced the same.

[@frankowalker4662]

Or electronics where μf is microfarrads, which is what capacitors are measured in.

[@lawrencemanning]

Even today you’ll be lucky to find an electronics schematic which uses something besides uF. So u for micro is a perfectly reasonable shortcut, depending on the specific scenario.

[@frankowalker4662]

@@lawrencemanning Well, there's pf for picofarrads and nf for nanofarrads. They are popular.

[@Nosaveddataretro]

On the chip it says microsource

[@pablorai769]

Yep, it's the greek letter mu...

[@letsdiscussitoversometea8479]

Sorry, I can't comment now - can't hear you, have to go now - I have many work.

[@galbaum33]

Night Gunner was one of my favorite games. I played it so much. never got too far.

[@LuciferStarr]

I still maintain that while not a good game due to its slideshow-like speed, "Outrun" on the Spectrum was the *best-looking* home computer conversion. The detail in the car (even down to the flip of the logo on cornering) was not seen on any other computer platform. You had to go to the Megadrive conversion to get that detail. I'm still certain that Sega had some hand in ensuring the 16-bit versions looked bad, so as to ensure the Megadrive version was best.

[@AmbersKnight]

Excellent episode as always. I have always wanted to look at Assembler to program in, both Z80 and 68K, but I keep looking at all those numbers and sequences and I can't get my head round it. Wish I could. The Aliens game is one I think I will have to pick up as it does look fantastic. SOme interesting arcade versions there, can't argue with Krazy Kong as it is pretty terrible.

[@Retroguyuk75]

Thanks soo much for reminding me of Mooncresta, I too loved this game back in the 80's.. time to fire up the Next KS2 :) YAY!!!!

[@adw147]

A cracking show as always

[@heavysystemsinc.]

The Spectrum Show live from Abu Dhabi!

[@frankowalker4662]

Embassy Assault looks like my sort of game. Found it on WoS. It's all writen in BASIC. LOL. I bet it could be improved with M/C.

[@gwishart]

It does have a very short (approximately 100 bytes) machine code routine embedded in a REM statement on line 1; which seems to be responsible for drawing the walls. The game is also hampered by having to fit into the roughly 9k of free space available to BASIC on the 16k Spectrum: the programmer has had to define variables for the numbers 0 to 10 and use them instead of the literal values, which saves a few bytes each time but slows things down even more.

[@frankowalker4662]

@@gwishart I only had a quick look at it, but I'm sure I can make it faster for the 48K. I enjoy projects like that.

[@bryanbridgwood6923]

Thankyou

[@samuelharvey1898]

It is not the u Source it is the µ source. The symbol means micro. Similarly it is the Currah µ (micro) speech. However, it does look like a u.

[@ChrisWalshZX]

2:40 I assume you mean Chris Smith, not Matt Smith!

[@Metal_Maxine]

It's a shame that the Krazy Kong cover illustration has so much personality and fun.

[@frankowalker4662]

That fishing game could be made easier with each player having a two button controller of their own, (these could plug into IF2 or +2 joystick ports as they correspond to the numbers 0 to 9). But you would have to reprogram the game to accept '0' instead of to fish. Otherwise you and your friends are crowded round the Speccy. Not fun if there are eight of you. LOL.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Would it have been better if it had been written in Machine Code.

[@TheOnlyPommyman]

Funny I had the Uspeech, but never heard of the usource

[@ChrisWalshZX]

They are very rare, but I bought one second hand and it transformed my assembly programming from paper-based compiling (Sandy White style!) to property compilation from boot up!

[@chrisainsley3533]

Why didn't you choose Commando as the best one?

[@VampireJack10]

I think the real question is why didn't they choose Commando as the best one?

[@geoffneil5073]

Commando was my second choice if Paul had picked Bomb Jack, it is a terrific conversion which is why I mentioned it at the end. If was kind of my honourable mention.

[@paulpetroleum]

Good Chase HQ Bad Kung Fu Master (can't believe you didn't choose this) Ugly E Swat (utterly awful looking, those sprites looked deformed)

[@gedbyrne8482]

1 DUP DUP DROP DROP DUP . Pushes 1 to the stack, duplicates and drops twice then duplicates. Finally the . Prints the top of stack. Thats the 1 in the output. Duplicates the 1 again and adds the two 1s to make 2, which is printed. The basic thent prints 3 Finally the 2 is duplicated and the two 2s are multiplied to give 4, which is printed. Thats how we get the output: 1234.

[@3dhYT]

👍👌

[@kins749]

Fishing fans (and I am not one) had already had their fun with Activision's Fishing Derby on the Atari VCS, more of an arcade game and equally as pointless

[@Alancalan]

Booooohhh, really like P47