Category: Good Old Days Blog
[youtube uEZWAcr39lg nolink] Article written by Martin Maly, and published at www.uelectronics.info Everyone who had once owned a ZX Spectrum, surely had at least once seen an amazing loading effect and wondered: How are they doing this? So, come and have a read… It will be a long story and perhaps you might even learn something. Because ZX Spectrum didn’t…
This year we have the most Pi day of all Pi days you can get in a life time (unless you gonna be around 3.14.2115!). Retrocomputaria, the Brazilian retro computer podcast and blog made us remember the that ENIAC was the first computer that calculates the PI number back in 1949. At that time, John von Neumann and his crew…
I’ve downloaded the free ebook ‘It’s behind you – The making of a computer game’ by Bob Pape a while ago, but I never got around to actually read it. If you haven’t heard of it, the book was released in 2013 and it tells the story of the making of the ZX Spectrum port of R-Type. This weekend I…
A2Central brought to my attention today this interesting piece of software: DiscoRunner BASIC. DiscoRunner is a native BASIC interpreter that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and it is different from other BASIC interpreters in that it is 99.5% compatible with the original languages. It accomplishes this by heavily simulating the host hardware (the Apple II) almost to an emulator…
A BBC News featured article shows the boom of collecting retro computers, and how that can become an investment. One of the people interviewed makes a good point when he advises new collectors to narrow down their choices for a particular brand, or even time period. Although it is always nice when I see our hobby featured on mainstream media,…
So this is the end. The Retrochallenge is over and I couldn’t meet the deadline with a complete working game as I planned and promised. Although I couldn’t finish the game, I have a very good foundation ready, and if I had about six hours more, I would finish it. That’s too bad to get so close and not be…
Having work with Microsoft BASIC most of the time, I have the clear idea how strings work in BASIC, but few moments after starting to work with Atari BASIC my world feel apart! First, in Atari BASIC you have to declare string variables before using it, giving the maximum size that string will need and for that you have to…
Are you looking for some Commodore 64 technique? Bad timing! We are in the midst of Retrochallenge Summer, and for the month of July I’m all Atari! Today I managed to draw the playfield, which is going to be a view of the goal area in 3D-ish view: The first concept that I had to grasp is the Atari colours…
It is been a busy week at work leaving no time for the Retro Challenge other than setup the machine and read some books about Atari Graphics. After a lot of thinking I’ve decided what is the game I’m going to make (or die trying!): World Cup Penalties It seems appropriate since we are going towards the World Cup 2014 finals…
I’ve learned few weeks ago about the Retrochallenge that happens every winter and summer, which is , according to its website, a loosely disorganized gathering of RetroComputing enthusiasts who collectively do stuff with old computers for a month. The challenge will be held from July 1st to 31st. Excited about it, and with tons of interesting stuff to do but very little…
