Fun with Mandelbrot sets. I never thought I’d say that, but here I am doing just that on the ZX81. I ran across some fun discussions on them. They are often used as benchmarks, but I just wanted to create some interesting pictures. This is my version using Sinclair BASIC that creates a few interesting ones.
Hey, it’s October. Well, it has been for a few weeks now. In any case, it is also time for a ZX81 program. I recently joined an 8-Bit Programming & Engineering Facebook group and its cover is a photo of a FizzBuzz program in Pascal. As a quick exercise, I thought I’d write my own in ZX81 BASIC.
I ran across a ZX81 forum post showing a fast way to print a circle in BASIC. It was based on an article for the Atari back in 1983. I was surprised how fast the routine was and wondered how it would in assembly. Long story short, I built a screen saver for the ZX81. Sure, the ZX81 really didn’t need one, but the circles are fun to watch.
Totally divergence from working on Gem Quest. I got around to cleaning up my scrolling demo from last month. In doing so, it made me wonder would it would be like to code it in assembly. The answer is both bland and interesting. Let’s discuss why that is.
Although I've been busy working with the ZX81 this month, it has been with my Gem Quest game. Not much to share yet there, but I am working on it. To get in something for the month, I thought I’d share an updated demo program.
This month’s program is a super simple graphic program I created in 1984 called The Monster. Probably developed as a title screen, the graphic looks like some swamp creature with seaweed hanging off it. I’m not positive what I was going for, but it does look rather imposing.
I had this idea on Sunday that led to today’s program—more about that in a minute. One of those sit down and do it programs, I banged this out pretty quick yesterday. Not wasting time, I decided today I’d share it. Road is a very simple program that I never intended to make. But here it is, so lets talk about it more.
Not a lot of time for programming this month, but I did get around to adding coins to my running game. Funny how little things take time to hack about. I’m not completely happy with it, but it works. Run 3 ML does give a whole new meaning to infinite runner.
Well, hard to believe we are turning the corner on March and heading into April. Spring is edging its way in and it is time to get outside and work in the yard. This made me want to kick my ZX81 program to the curb, but it didn’t feel right. So, I bundled up my current progress on Run.
For some time now, I’ve wanted to build a running type game. The kind where there is a single key to press and releasing it makes you take an action. There are lots of variations on this theme, and it seemed like something fun to try. Idea in hand, I began by building out a rough look for the game.