The Spectrum | FULL REVIEW of Features, Gameplay, & User Experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1wHzdV4z1U

@john2001plus
2 minutes ago (edited)
I wrote a game called Diamond Mike for the Timex Sinclair 2068.  I was a huge fan of the system.

I'm interested.  I want 2068 compatibility, which maybe it doesn't have.

3D Games on the Super Nintendo Without the Super FX Chip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szcxVM80JQQ&t=419s

"I've seen PowerPoint Presentations with a better frame rate."

The arcade game was one of my favorites.

Two Year Old Facebook Post

The word "sprite" is interesting. It means elf, fairy, or ghost, although it can also refer to flashes of different color lights in clouds caused by lightning. The word originated in the Middle Ages from the word "spirit". When I hear the word, I think of the Disney character Tinkerbell.

In computers and video games, a sprite is an image that can move on top of a background. Usually, these are 2D objects moving on top of a 2D background, although a game like the original Doom had 2D objects moving on top of a 3D background. The mouse pointer on a computer screen is technically a sprite.

Back in the days when computers and video games were 8-bit and 16-bit, it was helpful to have hardware support for sprites, which allowed graphical objects to move around independently of the background. The reason this was helpful was that it was more taxing for the old slow computers without hardware sprites to manipulate the graphics on the screen. When I was writing games for the Timex Sinclair 2068 and Atari ST computers, I had to write software to make all the graphics move because there was no hardware support for sprites, which made the task more technically challenging.

The early arcade video games used hardware sprites and so did all early home video game consoles. The sprites on the Atari 2600 are extremely primitive and very difficult to program, but the programmers knew how to make them work.

Many people have touted the Commodore 64 as the best 8-bit computer because it had hardware support for eight 8x8 sprites, although this is not very many compared to the Nintendo Entertainment System that came out later. I think that the Atari 8-bit computer had better graphical capabilities overall.

Once we had 32-bit processors, there was no longer a need for hardware sprites. These systems were powerful enough that it was not a huge challenge to manipulate graphics on a screen. Also, with 32-bit systems, there was a greater emphasis on 3D graphics instead of 2D graphics.

Top 10 Games EVERYONE should PLAY at least once!

Ms. Pac-Man

@john2001plus

1 month ago (edited)
I have played hundreds of games of Ms. Pac-Man.  Once and only once the first maze came up as the Pac-Man maze.  This was an odd glitch.  Reportedly, the maze still exists in the ROM because Ms. Pac-Man started as a hack of Pac-Man.

Occasionally the first Ms. Pac-Man maze will appear a different color.  Many people have seen this.  This is a glitch.  

Evolution of Game of the Year Winner 1980-2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlGd-h4g6E

International Soccer (Atari 2600) - Chronologically Gaming

Hard Hat, Spectrum, Berserk, Spectrum, and Pac-Man graphics

@john2001plus
Hard Hat looks interesting. I was also going to suggest that it could be a Spectrum game. It would be faster pace without the solid walls. Gobbler looks like it was written in BASIC. I think that I could do better.

@simonebernacchia5724
i suggest either basic or FP compiled (was not too performing) - HardHat i wanted a speccy port so bad! (had a speccy at that time)

@john2001plus

Back in the 1980s I noticed that Berserk had a graphics limitation similar to computers like the Spectrum.  When the character gets too close to other objects it changes their color to be the same as the main character.  This implies that every 8x8 group of pixels can only have one foreground color, like on the Spectrum.  It either has memory mapped video with this color limitation, like the Spectrum, or it has character based graphics like the VIC-20.  Berserk probably doesn't have sprites.  I don't think that Space Invaders does either.

Compare this Pac-Man also released in 1980.  It has 3 color sprites that can overlap each other.  It apparently has a large color pallette since we see a flesh color in a cut scene.  I assume that the Pac-Man video hardware was much more expensive. 

In 1980 memory was very expensive, with 64K costing around a thousand dollars.  Memory limitations were often the reason why graphics were more primitive  The Atari 2600 is the ultimate example of this with only 120 bytes of RAM.  It would have been much easier for programmers if Atari had designed the 2600 with 4, 6, or 8K of RAM.  I wish they had.

By 1980 I had already written primitive games in BASIC on home computers.  Later I became I video game programmer.  However, I didn't know what sprites were.  None of the home computers had them.  So when Pac-Man came out, I was puzzled trying to understand how the game displayed its graphics.  It was pretty easy to understand how Spaced Invaders worked.  I assumed that each pixel was memory mapped.  I made a similar assumption for Pac-Man, but I assumed that it had a 16 color screen and that it was drawing the characters to the screen.  Since the characters can overlap each other, I assumed that it was drawing all the characters on each frame.

Just a side note:  Due to the limited number of sprites on the Galaga game, it uses a single sprite to display the double bullets.  It didn't have any sprites to spare.

Front Line (Arcade) | Galaxian (Atari 800)

Vanguard on Atari 2600: SIX GAMES in ONE?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAKaJpEE5Rw

The BEST Portable Emulation System EVER! (RetroBat)

Nintendo's 2025 Plans Are CRAZY - But It Might Work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2dEvCgWVS8

Fantastic Voyage (Atari 800)

DEAR NINTENDO FANS: It's Time To GIVE UP!

There were many rumors that Nintendo was going to announce its next game system in October, which didn't happen.  Nintendo fans are extremely anxious for news about the next-generation system.

@john2001plus
2 minutes ago (edited)
The problem with the next-generation Switch is that Nintendo is stuck between needing to upgrade to compete with other consoles and the mobile hardware not being good enough to compete with consoles.   A two-teraflop system is going to be better than the first Switch but it is nothing compared to Sony's 16-teraflop system.  It is possible that AI upscaling will make it look amazing.

I am thinking of getting one.



@john2001plus
1 hour ago
I've been telling poeple for months that it would not make sense for Nintendo to announce the new Switch (Super Switch?) in 2024 when they will release it in March or April of next year.  They will still want to sell the existing Switch's for Christmas.




@Shany64
57 minutes ago
This is 100% the right take. As alluded to in the video the Wii U was doing horribly, Nintendo needed a jump into the next cycle. If you look at every Nintendo major console release all of them had an initial release in holiday season with the sole exception being the switch.

Nintendo is willing to coast into the holiday season, it probably ends up being one of their worst (probably a lot better than MS and PS) holiday seasons and then right before they meet with investors in March, they announce the Switch 2.



@DojoPwr
41 minutes ago
I agree. If I had to guess, I think Nintendo is going to milk the holiday season and announce the Switch 2 next year. Just makes more sense and aligns with how Nintendo usually thinks. They are using this time to announce all those other projects like the Alarmo Clock and whatever else they had in the closet.