Mark Szeliga Szolkowski's Blog

Been playing with the SP1 sprite library today. Managed to get a sprite moving around the screen and bouncing off the edges

There's a good thread over at WoS where I've been getting some pointers from some kind chaps!

The screenshot shows a few of the masking methods available using the sprite library.

MetalBrain's SevenuP graphics package is good for defining the sprites and masks in a format that the sprite library can use.

Labels: ASM, C, graphic, library, mask, masking, sprite, World of Spectrum, WoS, z88dk

Long time no see!

Last week I went to the Play Expo show in Manchester where I met some of the guys from WoS, or the World of Spectrum.

Winston showed me his Spectranet ethernet interface for the ZX Spectrum and I ordered one from RWAP software.


Since then I've not done much reading or playing games, but I *HAVE* installed a set of C and assembler development utilities and been having fun writing network code.




And no - that might look like my Spectrum has a faulty lower RAM chip to *you*, my friend, but I can assure you it is the result of some painstakingly hand-crafted code to write 6912 random bytes to the display file - seeded by the current time, no less.

Labels: 2013, ethernet, Play Expo, RWAP, Sinclair, Spectranet, Trafford Centre, World of Spectrum, WoS, ZX Spectrum

(Click images for larger versions)


No, not a screensaver for the Spectrum!

See the WoS Forums for a download details for this screensaver and be sure to send the author feedback as since he is trying to work out why this strange vertical striping effect is occurring at 32bpp on some graphics cards:

Labels: Dunny, screensaver, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, World of Spectrum, WoS

I loved Bored of the Rings when I was at school - and it is one of the few games I have ever completed, especially when it comes to adventure games.

I probably stuck at it so long not just because J.R.R. Tolkien's works were very popular at my school at the time, but also because I found the game very funny.

I bought the game, but my Mum chucked all my stuff out years ago so today I had to resort to getting the TZX file from World of Spectrum and trying to get the three parts of the adventure and the bonus "Telextext"-style program out of it. This led to a bug being identified in fuse-util's tape2wav program.

ANYWAY - got it downloaded from my Mac to my "new" Spectrum+ and finished the game with help from The TipShop - sending save games every so often back to my Mac.

The end screen of the game mentions phoning the software house Delta 4, so out of curiosity I found Fergus McNeill's email address and cheekily asked him if there was an automated message! Here is his reply:

I'd forgotten about that. No, not an automated message - in the 1980s that number would have got you through to my desk whereupon I could have lavished congratulatory words upon the caller "live from Delta 4 HQ". Don't recall many people calling though... ;-)

Labels: Bored of the Rings, Fergus McNeill, TipShop, World of Spectrum, WoS

Well, maybe not but after ordering SEUD, PGD and splATTR it was nice to hear the following from Simon:

Many thanks for the order of games - I've had so many orders since posting on WOS, it looks like we'll be around for a while yet!

He's sent me the emulator versions of the titles while I wait for the tapes. splATTR looks great under ZXSpin on my PC/Windows but resets as soon as I load it under Fuse/Mac OS x :-(

Labels: Bob Smith, Chaosmongers, Cronosoft, Jonathan Cauldwell, PGD, Platform Games Designer, SEUD, Shoot Em Up Designer, Simon Ullyatt, splATTR, World of Spectrum, WoS

Monday 23rd April 2007 will be the 25th anniversary of the ZX Spectrum's release. There's a thread on World Of Spectrum.

Also, there's going to be a new edition of ZXF! Excellent.

Labels: Sinclair, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, World of Spectrum, WoS, ZXF