gooner73

Not exactly, i know 2 games (hum..let say prototypes) that work only on PAL/SECAM and not NTSC. Our games are tested on both NTSC and PAL systems Thankyou!

Hi are these games going to be playable in the uk/pal ? looking amazing, i really hope so!

The US had moved away from the C64 by the time those large bank switching cartridges from European devs like Ocean and Domark started to appear. No, because PAL and NTSC C64s have different timings so anything travelling between the US and Europe almost always requires modification; that's why US games like Rocket Ranger needed to be fixed for Europe and Wizball or Delta had to drop their upper border status bars because they wouldn't have been visible on NTSC. As far as conversions go, in some cases (presumably where source code wasn't available) it was probably just deemed easier in the long run to commission someone else to do the work from scratch. In pretty much all the cases i can think of, the European-developed version was the better game... Agreed , the us version of ikari warriors is pathetic! I just assumed that once the license was obtained then the only company who could release were the license holders.

so it kind of went the opposite way in the end, as carts were not common here really, bar a few early games, but then they tried to make it the format of choice just as america had given up on carts. I also had an atari 800xl, which i got quite cheaply with a disc drive, but by then software releases were pretty low quality in comparison with the early 800 games, like Mr.do, spelunker,Bruce lee etc.And again they were hard to come by on disk, so ended up getting a 1010 data player and got the better games on tape. I think i only knew one person with a ffds and he only had a few games where we all had plenty on tape. most people had spectrum, or amstrads, in the early days there were a few bbc and electron owners that i knew, but the bbc was pretty much unaffordable for the average family back then. i suppose we were lucky in the uk, in that there was alot of choice for home computers and lots of fun to be had trying out the different formats on a saturday morning in currys and dixons!

Just been wondering about the differences between the Uk and Us market for games, i have Pang, Toki,robocop and navy seals carts for the c64, but never seem to see them on ebay form the us. were they released over there or was it just a european thing? also there a few big arcade conversions with different versions-ikari warriors, space harrier, 720 etc, so i assume it was not like it is now where one company make the games for all countries? There is always lots of Uk bashing by the Us and a definite feeling of superiority form there, but what they seem to not be able to grasp was the price of disk drives over here, stupidly expensive and more than the price of the machines, so tapes became the better option and sold more than disks for this reason, but did the Us have tape games too or was it disk only? any answers would be great!

First up for me was the 128k zx spectrum in about 84??? we did also have prior to that the atari 2600, but that was a "family" console! Loved the 128 but also got the 800xl when it was reduced before the xe came out. Tapes only though, as the price of disc drives in the uk was ridiculous! The c64 was basically double the price of the computer if i remember correctly. loved the 80's computer and scene in general though and was never a "my computer is better than yours" type of person. I appreciated them all really and enjoyed playing on different systems and seeing what they could do.

something i found very interesting was that the MSX range of computers, europe and Asia mainly i think, not sure if they were released in the Us, but it was Microsofts first try at home computers and was Bill Gates attempt to bring a universal operating system to the mass market. I n other words the Msx machines were made by many different companies, Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo , panasonic etc. But all had the same operating system and were all universally compatible, much like our modern day Pc's. it finally explained why i could always remember seeing all these different brand names selling the same computer, which was totally different to the c64, atari, spectrum , bbc etc that we had over in the uk.

Thankyou very much, that is really helpful

Just been on amazon and ordered it, looks very interesting and may be really helpful on my journey to programming greatness!

Nice one Groovy!

Activision games on the 2600 were of a far higher quality than most other software companies, pitfall 1 and 2, keystone kapers, crackpots and frostbite etc. does anyone know why this was and why did most other games have inferior graphics compared to the activision titles? Was it just laziness or a genuine lack of knowledge regarding the machines capability? It's been eating away at me today for some unknown reason! :?

I have seen somewhere that you can copy tap files to cd and load from your pc onto the speccy, but not sure if this true or if it works!

Yes, the SD card is just standard FAT32 (or whatever, I can't recall offhand) format. I just have a card reader attached to my Mac and drag n drop the files on there. I organize them nice and neatly (there are threads in the Harmony forum about all this), drag them over, plug in the Harmony and go. All menu-driven from there. Couldn't be any easier. Actually, the Harmony is by far the easiest multi-cart I've ever used, and I've used quite a few of them. It's an incredibly well engineered and designed product. Thanks , seems a good way to go with my carts getting old and some being unobtainable without a bank loan!

Oh and Mat Smith was inspired by Bill hogue and miner 2049er to make the game, he did not copy it! Most people have an inspiration behind any game , it's just the way it is , a privellige to play and an honour to the person or game that inspired you to do the work.

yes partly true , but you can use emulation outside of the uk, and joysticks were essentail to the spectrum as well so not sure where that comes from. It is well worth looking into and seeing the games being made today.Some of the classic games in history are best played on the speccy-Manic miner, jet set willy and hundreds of classic platform and shoot em ups, as for 99% of games being rubbish-play them first and then comment on them We were 3 in the house, my neighbour had a C64/fdd, I had a C128/fdd and an XE/fdd, our poor friend downstairs had a Spectrum, didn't even have joystick ports, as for sounds, don't even wanna go there. We went downstairs trying to play those Spectrum games (and he had loads, copied), but after 1/2 hour even our poor friend said lets go upstairs and play some awesome games in colour with decent sound and joysticks. True story. So why play poorly designed copies of C64 or Atari classics, when you can have the real thing? BTW, the 'classic' Manic Miner was a copy of Miner 2049er, as Matthew Smith himself stated. ia ssume he had the zx81 (16k) or the basic 48k rubber keyboard version-not the 128k version-manic miner a copy of miner have you played manic miner???????? i have both manic on the speccy and c64 and miner 2049er on the 800xl-can't see the connection! the only way you had no joystick ports was if you had no interface on the 48k

yes partly true , but you can use emulation outside of the uk, and joysticks were essentail to the spectrum as well so not sure where that comes from. It is well worth looking into and seeing the games being made today.Some of the classic games in history are best played on the speccy-Manic miner, jet set willy and hundreds of classic platform and shoot em ups, as for 99% of games being rubbish-play them first and then comment on them We were 3 in the house, my neighbour had a C64/fdd, I had a C128/fdd and an XE/fdd, our poor friend downstairs had a Spectrum, didn't even have joystick ports, as for sounds, don't even wanna go there. We went downstairs trying to play those Spectrum games (and he had loads, copied), but after 1/2 hour even our poor friend said lets go upstairs and play some awesome games in colour with decent sound and joysticks. True story. So why play poorly designed copies of C64 or Atari classics, when you can have the real thing? BTW, the 'classic' Manic Miner was a copy of Miner 2049er, as Matthew Smith himself stated. ia ssume he had the zx81 (16k) or the basic 48k rubber keyboard version-not the 128k version-manic miner a copy of miner have you played manic miner???????? i have both manic on the speccy and c64 and miner 2049er on the 800xl-can't see the connection!

I am totally new to it, so do you suggest i start with Python on the pc? i am good with maths and logic so it might me a start!

t thanks for the info! will look into batari and see what happens

Hi just wondering if someone can point me in the right direction, i have finally decided i want to try my hand at programming some games, i love most platforms so there is no particular preference, but which would be considered the best one to teach yourself on? if anyone has any input it would be great!

i think a hack would be fine, it's mainly tweaks that need making to enable it to play better. I would think it's not as hard as making a whole new game?

Are they easy to use? i am a game player only and don't really have much tech knowledge as such, so can you just send files to this cart and then play off your 2600?

sounds really good, it is good to be able to meet up like this and share my love of retro with like minded folk! Sometimes these forums are just a bit too intense, with a bit too much sarcasm and bashing!

main love is atari, only trying to get the word about some great games being made in the speccy scene, as indeed the c64! I have no bias toward any format, i can enjoy all platforms and have owned and played nearly all of them so feel confident in my ability to make comments on them. i don't generalize by saying things like 99% of 2600 were crap or unplayable because they were not. I am merely a lover of vintage games and think if more people sang form the same hymn sheet and simply recognized the possibilities of this hobby then it could be allot better and far more user friendly. just my own observations.

No Couldn't make it, but will try to get to the next meeting at the lass, short train ride away from sunny Frodsham!

yes partly true , but you can use emulation outside of the uk, and joysticks were essentail to the spectrum as well so not sure where that comes from. It is well worth looking into and seeing the games being made today.Some of the classic games in history are best played on the speccy-Manic miner, jet set willy and hundreds of classic platform and shoot em ups, as for 99% of games being rubbish-play them first and then comment on them