 Previous Messages |
Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-28
09:18:53
|  Re: Retro Tech Club
hmmm. the ZX81 came in a TS1000 box. the previous owner has his own notes written and and corrections for some of the programs. along with some american computer catalogs :o Pretty neat stuff.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-10-27
11:04:56
 | Re: Retro Tech Club
The Timex 2068 had a new ULA, with a really fantastic 512x192 monochrome resolution, almost perfect on a normal TV for GUIs, and still did not require very special monitor or special output connector.
The Timex 256x192 resolution had a very special color attribute mode too (almost HIRES FLI  ), in each line you could have a new attribute byte, so in each character place you could have 8 ink and 8 background color, and that is also a fantastic idea, but required 192 x 32 byte (6K) color memory. With even those limited colors (8 bright and 8 dark versions) you can get fantastic colorful results. maybe can link later.
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2016-10-27
09:47:17
| Re: Retro Tech Club
@Csabo - the Timex Sinclair 1000 (not two separate machines) was the US equivalent to the Sinclair ZX81. The TS1000 is the machine that Bil Herd called the "door stop", the one he "ripped the Z80 processor out of" when designing the Commodore 128.
Timex Sinclair is one of the companies that Tramiel targeted during the Computer War of 1983. Customers could buy a TS1000 for $50 and send it to Commodore to get a $100 voucher toward the retail price of a Commodore 64 -- which is how Commodore acquired so many "door stops" to start with.
If one looks at the styling of the later Timex Sinclair computers (the TS1500 and TS2068), one might notice a strong similarity to the styling of the Commodore 116. 
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-10-27
08:13:12
| Re: Retro Tech Club
Although I'm not closely familiar with either scene, I do think the Spectrum is still pretty popular. I know they make demos for it, there's "World of Spectrum" and a quick google search turned up an active forum. Timex 1000 I know nothing about.
Did you manage to get any of the games suggested above?
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-26
17:34:42
| Re: Retro Tech Club
Well I picked up an NTSC Sinclair and Timex 1000.... This thing is TINY I can fit the computer and the TV I use for it in one bag. I don't suppose this has some sort of weird following like the plussy :P
Anyways the first REAL meeting is next Wednesday
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-10-17
15:35:23
| Re: Retro Tech Club
Here's the post (project?) you mean: http://plus4world.powweb.com/forum/18770
Making games NTSC compatible... It is more complicated, as you suggest. There's no general rule: probably a few of them can be done easily, there might be a few which would require a complete re-write. BTW, BushRat did NTSC versions for several games.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-10-17
04:37:22
| Re: Retro Tech Club
I fully agree with the list, all of them are nice and good games, I have fond memories of them from my childhood.
BTW there was a project to mak the C16 games again REAL 16K games again to able to run on stock 16K machine (C16, C116)
To hack the PAL games to become NTSC, only that $40 value in Register $FF07 need to be kept continuously? Or it is more complicated, related to timings, etc?
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-10-15
11:21:35
| Re: Retro Tech Club
I see, so you do have a way of transferring TAP files, that's excellent! In this case, I'd refer you to that long list from my other post, that was all NTSC compatible English-language commercial games. However, I realize that's a very long list. So, if you're up for it, tape recorder fiddly-ness be darned, these are the games I would go for:
* Big Mac
* Fingers Malone
* Fire Ant
* G-Man
* Icicle Works
* Mr. Puniverse
* Reach For The Sky
* Treasure Island
IMHO these are the best looking, most fun-to-play games from that longer list. Any one of these would be way better than Pizza Pete. Chess and text adventures... Meh. I love the both, but if you want to show what the machine can do and you want the participants to have fun, you could do better.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-15
09:01:13
| Re: Retro Tech Club
I've got this thing called the TAPdanncer app on my phone. It converts the TAPs to audio for me. It's worked a few times but the tape recorder I have is super fiddly. I really just need to try and get one of those SD addapters but where is the fun in that :P And I need to stop my quest for a working SX64...
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-10-15
05:42:19
| Re: Retro Tech Club
OK, but there is the TAP2WAV tool by GAIA.
So, if you have an NTSC compatible TAP file on Plus4World (there is a nice collection),
-you can save the TAP file in WAV audio format on PC
-then you can play the WAV with your PC, while connecting your PC audio output to an audio cassette tape drive/mini hifi
-record the WAV sound output on the tape
-and finally it can loaded into the Plus/4 it from the datasette.
Or?
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-10-14
17:40:59
| Re: Retro Tech Club
Ah, let me get this straight: you're not able to transfer PRG files to your Plus/4 or TAP files to actual cassettes? In that case, your original question becomes... "What (currently available) game should I try buy, which has an NTSC compatible game on it?" Is that what you're after?
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-14
15:24:40
| Re: Retro Tech Club
I've got Master Chess. an arcade game of Pizza Pete or an adventure game Strange Odyssey. I think pizza pete might be the best option for now unless I wanted to spend some time with the TAPdancer app. Trying to get these programs onto tape is a bit obnoxious
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-14
15:21:20
| Re: Retro Tech Club
If that doesn't work I might be able to bribe a music student to see if they could play some sort of song with the Music Machine cart for the 64
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-10-14
10:31:48
| Re: Retro Tech Club
Adventures in Time 2 Preview is a very nice one, my kids really enjoyed it yesterday.
It is a PRG one file game, with nice (almost arcade quality) GFX and funny music.
I see it is a PAL only, but is there any easy way to make it NTSC compatible?
I think it is also an outstanding product to show people.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-10-13
23:10:23
| Re: Retro Tech Club
IMHO Pizza Pete is a poorly done game that didn't age well. Other than nostalgic value, it doesn't have much to offer and it really doesn't show off what the C16/Plus4 can do.
If you check the games section of the Top List (see menu), you can try to check which games are PAL & NTSC. A couple of them:
* Adventures In Time (It's on a disk image, but you can same the game file to tape.)
* Pac-Pac
* Xplode Man
* Quadrillion
These are much more colorful, better sounding and more playable.
As far as demos, Crackers' Demo 5 is the first and only Megademo that runs on NTSC machines. If you did get your hands on a disk drive, CD5 should be on your list. (If not... I was planning on making a TAP version, just never got around to it. The file would be huge though )
(Oh, and absolutely, we'd love to see the photos!)
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-10-13
18:37:54
| Retro Tech Club
I'm going to try and run a Pizza Pete competition during the first club meeting! That and were going to make mix tapes on real tapes! Woo.
Would y'all be interested in some pictures of the Plussy in action during the club?
OH any is there any other competition worthy NTSC Plussy games?
What else should I show off with the plussy? Any cool type in programs or near effects?
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