The Sinclair QL Forum

On the main Spectrum forums I said this:

END OF WEEK 43:

Grunt, snarl, froth. Once again I've had a blank week, and the competition is marooned on 46 entries with four to go in order to allow The Great Bonus to be revealed.

This update has to be short, because I've got a very interesting day driving a hired van on a 400-mile round trip ahead of me, half of which will be in pitch darkness. Fortunately, I know where I'm going, at least until I get to the M6 at Birmingham...

{some of this post has gone down the memory hole}

Hi,

Are the source code available to these games as I have been trying to convert dome Spectrum games to the QL, which all look crap...

TMD2003 posted:-
Some people out there still think SuperBASIC is beyond them.

It's not only SuperBasic that is nearly beyond me but programming in general. I looked at a Boggle algorithm in Python. I could not follow it, even though it was short. Looking at the code I got the impression that it contained some powerful "Objects" that did most of the work. This kind of assistance is not available to the SBasic programmer.

As I have posted on a number of occasions, I try and program for fun (weird, I know). I have an SBasic programming environment derived from the original SMS2 setup (SMS2 did not contain an interpreter). I use this to learn how to program and thought I would have a go at writing a very basic but playable Boggle program.

It's playable in the sense that one can use the cursor keys to select shuffled characters to make words that are then stored in a string and then displayed in a daughter job. The program should really be written using QPTR but I am only just beginning to understand it, so it's a fixed window program with flashing cursor control.

It's currently 45 lines of code, plus 8 lines for the daughter job. There's no dictionary and I only shuffle each dice in a fixed location.
There's no symbol for a "Qu" so I add a "U" if "Q" is selected. There is quite a nice shuffle animation.

It is certainly a "crap game". It was designed to run on SMSQE at 1024x768 (or more) its in B&W so that it can run on my Q68 setup. I don't use any special instructions (apart from WAIT) , it could be "shrunk" to fit QL resolutions and so I see no reason why it could not be classed as a "crap" QL program.

The WAIT instruction is an SMS2 instruction but I am sure there is a SuperBasic equivalent.

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,
Are the source code available to these games as I have been trying to convert dome Spectrum games to the QL, which all look crap...

Load any Spectrum BASIC games into Fuse, or ZX81 games into EightyOne, and LLIST. For the ZX80, you'll have to copy them off the screen manually...

For Fuse you'll have to make sure "Emulate printers" under Options > Peripherals > General is selected as well as the actual ZX Printer option, and then find out where printout.pbm and printout.txt are stored. EightyOne has an on-screen pixel-perfect ZX Printer output, though no option to convert it to text.

Some of them have .BAS files attached, and all Salvador Camacho's ZX81/80 efforts have the C source code linked in the review.

Slightly earlier than usual, because I'm going to be very busy this evening...

END OF WEEK 44:

Technically, there's only been one entry this week, {some of this post has gone down the memory hole} and now, retrospectively, this is true.

Dave Hughes' bare-bones scene demo, Twinkle Twinkle, which plays a strange version of a nursery rhyme that even my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew would know is full of wrong notes!

Meanwhile, the RZX page has been updated again, with all the games submitted up to the end of August. (If anybody here cares, that is...)

Any more for any more from the wonderful world of the QL? Six weeks remain...

END OF WEEK 45:

Everything has been put into sharp perspective.

When I'm posting these weekly round-ups, I start at Spectrum Computing, move onto World of Spectrum, then Sinclair ZX World, then here - unless I've had a QL submission in which case I'll go here before SZXW. Opening the SC forum, I was greeted with a topic titled "RIP Daren Pearcy". He ran the RZX Archive, which has been actively updated for 19 years, and has been one of the pillars of the Spectrum scene for all that time and more. I've made enough contributions to that site in the past, and I've met him in person, so it hurts. I have had to update the CSSCGC RZX in a way I really didn't want. Yes, I know that RZXs aren't entirely relevant to the QL scene, and it's unlikely that there ever will be (or will ever need to be) an equivalent - but it's something you should know.

In short, this week, there was Salvador Camacho's Fall Palo T was a successful demake of Nohzdyve from the interactive Black Mirror episode.
{some of this post has gone down the memory hole}

Five weeks remain for any more entries, for the QL or otherwise.

It's been a very hard kick somewhere that it really hurts, but come hell or high water, I will finish this competition. And I will nightly pray to the gods that I have never believed in that I can have just two more months on this planet, two measly months, to close the competition, award the awards, get the world's most dubious prizes sent out to their winners and fulfill all my responsibilities as the guardian of a Sinclair tradition that's a quarter of a century old.

It may be that I'm just shouting into the void here at this stage, but you never know...

END OF WEEK 46:

Four weeks to go! The competition closes at 11:58 pm (Iron Maiden will helpfully explain why) on Friday, 17th December. Meanwhile, this week:

{some of this post has gone down the memory hole}

- Later in the week, Enrique Pimpinela Santos, a.k. +3code, chose a different way to relax, with Fishing Simulator (16K Spectrum, just without any colour).

- AND NOW, at the same time as the weekly round-up, I have just had time to review another entry. Salvador Camacho has converted a Spectrum type-in game from a Spanish magazine for the 16K ZX81, and Z88DK was not involved at all: Escarabajo.

END OF WEEK 47:

Gah! At this late stage, I've had another blank week! I wasn't expecting that.

Three weeks to go, only three weeks to go... 21 days, if you prefer.

END OF WEEK 48:

Two weeks to go! As the competition runs into its final phase, the entries have started to come flooding in...

(1) Earlier this week there was Salvador Camacho's Highway Robbery 2021, which brought the total of ZX81 entries up to 14.

(2) Hot offf the press: Dave Hughes has taken a break from editing this year's WOOT! to throw together a game involving a frog and a fish, and no dogs, which he nevertheless titled Dogspawn. I suspect it's compiled BASIC and would have fit into the 16K Spectrum that way, but if I'm right, the compiler's shoved the code to a point where it'll only work on 48K machines.

(3) Since Dogspawn hit my email inbox this morning, I have had three further entries, which will be reviewed over the weekend - though in the case of two of them, don't get too excited.

I'm still accepting QL entries, if anyone has any! Next year's host might not be so accommodating (though it won't be for the lack of trying on my part!), so better now than later!

END OF WEEK 49:

One more week to go! One more week of these round-ups, and then I can give the job to someone else...

"Firelord" is responsible for the three clones, all of which will run on the 16K Spectrum:
#51: Find Santa
#52: Find Easter Bunny
#54: Find The Book

Meanwhile, Titanius Angelsmith probed around in LOGO, mounted on top of a 48K Spectrum, so I allowed Seven/Eleven (#53) to qualify for the White Challenge.

And earlier today, Andy Jenkinson - 99% certain to be next year's host - sent me A very basic CHR$mas NOT IF e.t. (yes, that's its real name), in which you help some old men deliver some wildly expensive gifts to a small baby somewhere in the Middle East... with one control key.

The competition finishes when timeanddate.com shows 23:58 in London on 17th December. This differs from my PC clock by a mere two seconds, so I've always got it in front of me.