Two Stop Bits | zxm's comments

zxm 566 days ago | parent | on: PumpkinOS
if someone made a small palm alike device on which this ran i'd buy one in a heart beat.
still rocking my psion organiser 3mx. 2mb of storage! :-)
zxm 579 days ago | parent | on: PINNACLE A modern tribute to the 1986 classic, Th...
played it on zx spectrum, a LOT great game. computer hide and seek. always on the move, trying to stay ahead of the sentinel or it's sentries.
what amused me at the time was that there are 10,000 levels loaded in from tape and within a few weeks of it being released magazines had accumulated codes for all of them from readers playing at home iirc. pre internet that was a lot of information gathering.
- ghostdancer 578 days ago
  I played it on the speccy too. It looked incredible when you read that it had 10000 levels. And also recalled that after a month or so all the codes were appearing on the magazines at the time. Beautiful absorbing game.
  - nickt 578 days ago
    The Wikipedia article states, “The Sentinel has no ending sequence; upon completion of the last level, the player is looped back to level 1. When questioned about this, Crammond said he never thought anyone would go so far as to finish the game”
    That’s a fun reward!
zxm 590 days ago | parent | on: VisiCalc: Information from its creators, Dan Brick...
2 podcasts covering visicalc; https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-126-bob-frankston-...
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/visicalc-the-killer-ap...
zxm 605 days ago | parent | on: Microsoft QuickBasic remembered
and of course you can find it at https://winworldpc.com/product/quickbasic/45
they also have the cut down qbasic that came with dos 5 and 6 as well on that site.
zxm 606 days ago | parent | on: Microsoft QuickBasic remembered
used quick basic professional the 'grown up' version for years in 90s onwards. great language.
just avoid touching the serial port with it. that way lies madness. :-)
zxm 608 days ago | parent | on: Slimming Down Windows 3.1/3.11
is there a policy for what do do with duplicate posts? just there are 2 on the front page right now.
- bmonkey325 607 days ago
  The site will detect if the URL is already on the site. However it doesn't detect differences by the scheme eg http vs https. Mine had the http and I have removed it as it's less safe than the http edition.
  Would be cool if the site software warned you about that, but that is incredibly low, low, low ask.
  - jgrahamc 607 days ago
    We can modify the code. I'll do that do that http:// and https:// are treated the same.
    - bmonkey325 606 days ago
      I really had no business posting the http version. I should be better, I get excited to share articles I read with my fellow stop bits.
      Would it be too much of an ask to style http articles differently so we know what’s safe(r) to click ?
      - jgrahamc 606 days ago
        I guess we could do that.
zxm 610 days ago | parent | on: A podcast about home computers of the late 70's th...
if you use mastodon you can follow the creator of this podcast at
@[email protected]
zxm 610 days ago | parent | on: The Authoritative Website for Timex/Sinclair Compu...
there is a retro podcast Floppy Days that covered the zx spectrum in 7 parts (there's lots of history)
some might find it worth a listen. they're sure to have covered your own personal fave computer at this stage.
https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-115-zx-spectrum-pa...
zxm 611 days ago | parent | on: A few issues DOS World Magazine from mid 90s
i shamelessly lifted this post from the post of the person who scanned them on mastodon.
https://mastodon.social/@indigoparadox/111817168132866208
zxm 611 days ago | parent | on: Q1
have to admit i'm fascinated by this. a micro computer years older than the altair which is widely considered the start of the micro computing industry.
so many questions:
* how many were made?
* what software was available?
* what languages did it support?
* what did it connect to?
* how did it fall out of the public eye to have been forgotten so completely?
* are there are any still in the hands of original owners who could help fill in all the gaps?
* do we have the names of the designers or programmers so that we can follow up their careers and see if there's more info there?
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