Mongeddavid
pfm Member
Still have a ZX spectrum in a cupboard fully working takes ages to load a game from the few that I have and most are available emulated on a PC anyway
Vintage computer fun
- Thread starter Tony L
- Start date
Tony L
Administrator
To be honest I’ve no idea, I don’t know Manchester that well (I’m not from here) and I know next to nothing about Manchester Uni!
Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
I have a copy of Elite on diskette and if you want I may attempt to fire up my old BBC B and make a copy if a) it works and b) I have any 5.25" floppies.
As ever there is a story behind this. I was friendly with our local family run electronics and repair business who then started to sell the BBC micro. They have always been very helpful for example when the voltage tripler in my old Ferguson colour TV went up in smoke (this happened around every 4 years) they photocopied that part of the service manual for me so that I could repair/replace.
Anywho one day I popped in for a bit of a computer chat and I mentioned that I had written a disk bit copier that would copy the so called 'protected' game diskettes. He mentioned that a customer had returned a copy of Elite as it didn't work and asked me if I would take a look. As it happened the diskette was virgin and had never even been formatted so there were no tracks. I borrowed a known working copy from the shop and used my bit copier to put Elite onto that blank disk. Of course I made a copy for myself! The guy was really thankful as those games were expensive in the day and asked if I took a copy for myself. I told him the truth and he didn't bat an eyelid. Happy days.
Cheers,
DV
As ever there is a story behind this. I was friendly with our local family run electronics and repair business who then started to sell the BBC micro. They have always been very helpful for example when the voltage tripler in my old Ferguson colour TV went up in smoke (this happened around every 4 years) they photocopied that part of the service manual for me so that I could repair/replace.
Anywho one day I popped in for a bit of a computer chat and I mentioned that I had written a disk bit copier that would copy the so called 'protected' game diskettes. He mentioned that a customer had returned a copy of Elite as it didn't work and asked me if I would take a look. As it happened the diskette was virgin and had never even been formatted so there were no tracks. I borrowed a known working copy from the shop and used my bit copier to put Elite onto that blank disk. Of course I made a copy for myself! The guy was really thankful as those games were expensive in the day and asked if I took a copy for myself. I told him the truth and he didn't bat an eyelid. Happy days.
Cheers,
DV
gavreid
Pretty Words...
2005-6 and there was quite an uproar about it. This little history site is quite interesting
http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/gone/mathstower.html
Moberley Tower and the Refectory went soon after. They've not got to Owens Park yet - not quite!
JensenHealey
pfm Member
Dunno - but I was there recently with my daughters on an open day. I had been telling them that the Uni may not be so nice since a busy road bisected it - as I remembered from 78 - 83 when I lived in W Didsbury and worked at ICL West Gorton.
I was amazed to see the change now with the road being largely blocked off for buses and everything looking different since the BBC moved to Salford. The girls rather liked it - so you never know they may end up there.
martin clark
pinko bodger
suzywong
Wot, no electrons?
I remember going into the Maths Tower for some reason, but we were in the Comp Sci building just to the north (apparently noted for being the most “bomb proof” building on campus). In ‘73 I’d chained my bicycle to the MT one evening...some b****** nicked it. Left me the broken chain though!
As for OP, I’m surprised it’s still standing.............
Tony L
Administrator
Thanks, but I haven’t got a floppy drive, plus I suspect the BBC B and Electron versions are different anyway. I suspect the only way to do this would be to find a wav file recording of the original cassette and then record it back onto a cassette to load into the Electron at this end.
suzywong
Wot, no electrons?
A few names there that I remember including the Repton series! All my stuff is on 5”(ish) floppies. There’s a single Akhter 80 track drive in the loft, and a dual 40/80 Cumana, which for some reason has languished in my cupboard at work for a couple of decades! No idea why I took it into work, unless I suppose, it was faulty and I had wanted to put a scope on it........I must bring it home, although I’ll probably need a sack truck, it must weigh nearly as much as a NAP250
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
You missed the semi colon!
Fatmarley
"It appears my intelligence circuits have melted"
Can't remember having to use a semicolon but it was a hell of a long time ago and my memory isn't the best.
Wish id kept the old games id made on my spectrum. I kept adding more and more stuff to one game I wrote and in the end it was as slow as hell. Someone gave me some software that apparently turned it into machine code (to speed up the game) but I never got round to it.
Wish id kept the old games id made on my spectrum. I kept adding more and more stuff to one game I wrote and in the end it was as slow as hell. Someone gave me some software that apparently turned it into machine code (to speed up the game) but I never got round to it.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
50 years life for a quality building is not good use of public money - and all in the name of vanity. As for OP, that was a dump in the 80s but then they were skint. Carillion had the contract for the redev...
richardg
Admonishtrator
Yep...that was all I ever learnt in coding and thought wtf, this is well boring. The RCA Bowie albums were much more exciting.
suzywong
Wot, no electrons?
Similar.....1st year of Uni on the department’s PDP11’s line printer. My only mitigation was that we were using assembler, and I’d put in the CR but forgotten the LF command, and had the loop in the wrong place. After a few seconds the full-width printer ribbon had a side-to-side slash!
So I wound the ribbon on a bit, corrected the code and it ran OK.......decided then that perhaps programming was not my thing so went down the electronics engineering route............and the rest as they say, is history. And in a year or so it really will be history as I retire!
Tony L
Administrator
I never saw a computer at school, so I had to do it at Comet, Currys or wherever.
richardg
Admonishtrator
Haha! That is more fun, proper obscenities on public display.