Articles by Steven


Steven has written 526 articles, Page 11.

How to Break Your Site In One Easy Step

Coding and Web Design

The Mistake We all make mistakes. My mistake was not understanding the code behind the categories sections that my site uses. What I wanted to do was create a new category called “Writing” that I could log my NaNoWriMo entries to. It seemed simple enough. I went into the category administration section and created a new one. My mistake was wanting to reuse the news picture. It was late at night and I was in a hurry to get to bed. In my hast I forgot that the program links the picture and category name together. Worse, I didn’t even realize I’d done something wrong.


July’s Program: Block £ Spear

July’s Program: Block £ Spear

Sorry, still no Joust. It’s not where I want it and I’ve spent July working on my novel instead. That isn't to say that I’m going to leave July without a program of the month. Instead I’ve pulled from my original site to bring you one of my favorite programs, Block £ Spear. In this game you'll find yourself at the wrong end of a knight’s spear. Fortunately, you have a shield and can easily deflect the spear by using the Z and . keys to raise or lower your shield. Sounds easy? You might be surprised.


How to Write a Book in Two Simple Steps

Writing

Well, just past a week and I’m over a quarter of the way into the second half of my novel. I’m not sure this is the best way to write a book, but so far Camp NaNoWriMo has been a perfect excuse to scratch a long time itch. I’m no longer just reading about writing or scratching out silly blog entries, but putting thousands of words into Scrivener that I hope one day to publish for all to ridicule. Okay, I’m hoping the ridicule part isn’t true, but I do want to get this book to a state that I can publish and hopefully entertain someone other than myself.


Prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo: Structure

Prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo: Structure

Let me be honest. I had no clue what I was doing when I started May’s Camp NaNoWriMo. Sure, I knew I wanted to write a novel and had a general idea of what the story would be about. I had a rough outline of the plot and some guiding themes I wanted to encompass. Since I was writing a sci-fi novel, I wanted the world to feel real yet fantastic so I created a list of what I thought was possible and what I wanted to stay away from. But I really didn’t understand how to structure a novel. In many ways, I still don’t.


June’s Program: Monster Maker

June’s Program: Monster Maker

Okay I haven’t finished my remake of Joust yet, nor did I want to wait until the last week of the month to get an article out. Instead, I offer you Monster Maker as June’s monthly program. It’s pretty straight forward and anti-climatic against the power of today’s programs. Once you load it, enter in five numbers and type your monster’s name. That’s it. The program will then display a nicely formatted monster description based on your input.


May’s Program: Joust

May’s Program: Joust

I actually started working on May’s program of the month, Joust, about three weeks ago. My goal was to update the program to a faster and more fluid MCODER version. Sadly, things haven’t gone so well. Pressed for time, I will leave you instead with my original take on this popular arcade from the 80s.


My Crazy April

My Crazy April

As I noted in my ZX81 update, April was a different month for me. For some time, dating back to my time in college, I've wanted to write a book. About the most I'd ever done was create an outline and write a couple of scenes.


April’s Program: Flywheel

April’s Program: Flywheel

April has been a crazy month. I decided to try something new, pushed along by an unexpected event. I’m writing a book. I joined NaNoWriMo just after last November's event so I didn't expect to do anything until later this year. The surprise was there CampNaNoWriMo event in April. Not to waste the opportunity, I’ve been busy crafting my Sci Fi novel and am now in the final stretch to my 50,000 words goal. Add on top of that a business trip and a family trip and you'll quickly see that my ZX81 hobby gets pushed by the wayside.


March’s Program: The Ball Redux

March’s Program: The Ball Redux

For March's program of the month, I drew inspiration from one of my older demo’s, The Ball. Like many young kids from the early eighties using BASIC, I took a stab at animating a bouncing ball. It is a a relatively easy program to write depending on how complex you want to make the math. In my case, it is very simple math, no physics involved here.


February’s Program: Time

February’s Program: Time

For February, I give you Time, a simple landing game with a twist. Using the Z and . keys, you maneuver your craft to each successive landing pad. If you miss the landing, keep trying but be careful. Run out of time and it’s game over! How high of a score can you amass? A fair warning, Time isn’t always fair.


January’s Program: Fireball

January’s Program: Fireball

January’s program of the month, Fireball, marks a first for me. Although I’ve used a few different methods to type in my programs, I’ve always gone back to a Windows so I could use EightyOne to generate the program files and images. However, for my birthday, my wife took me to the Apple store and I upgraded my old laptop to a shiny new MacBook Pro.



November’s Program: SNUNCH ML

November’s Program: SNUNCH ML

For November, I’m looking both forwards and backwards. Although I wrote SNUNCH in 1983, I added a corrected version to my first ZX81 web page in the ’90s. SNUNCH was my early attempt at writing a PAC-MAN like game. Note that I said like, not clone. My goal was to be inspired, not to copy. Sadly, it isn’t very good, even after I fixed some of its logic flaws. Despite its flaws, I still believed it had potential and I set about updating it using MCODER II. It is this improved SNUNCH ML version that I offer as November’s program of the month.



Doing Some Fall Cleaning

ZX81 Computer

I took a break from educating myself on z80 machine code, more on that later, to fix a few things that have bugged me about the site. They are minor and probably will go completely unnoticed by most, but I wanted to make a quick note for future reference. Hey that’s what blogs are for, right?


Subtle Updates and Other Historical Back Steps

Mind the Gap

I spent the last two days watching football and fixing up a few odds & ins around my sites. Probably the biggest change is the top menu. I’ve tried to match the style across each major site, including font and minor format changes. I also added my 360voice Dynamic Usersbars as a top-level site.




August’s Program: Parachute

August’s Program: Parachute

Whoa, it’s August already? Time for another program of the month. Coming your way is Parachute, a deceptively simple reflex game that uses recognizable graphics to give you an enjoyable causal gaming diversion. I’ve been staring at this program for months now as it was sitting on the top of the stack. The airplane and parachute graphics stand out prominently in the listing, making it hard not to notice. As much as I tried to ignore it, Parachute was calling me to type it in. I finally caved and obliged.



Updated Program Listing

ZX81 Computer

Awhile back I went searching for a decent ZX81 font and ran across ZX81 VDU. I played around adding it to my site’s footer, but I really wanted to do more with it. It’s pretty good and, unlike some other fonts I found, it has all the ZX81 graphic characters. You do have to carefully choose the font size, but that is minor issue. Overall a great font that is easy to use.


ZX81 Retro Gaming

ZX81 Computer

I often search around the web looking to see what kind of ZX81 community still thrives. I truly expected to find a community in decline, but a surprising number of nostalgia sites are still out there. I found some dedicated to hardware, some to emulating, and others to software. Some are reference sites offering up tips and how to do things. Others simply have reviews of software from a different era. All of them interesting in their own way.


July’s Program: Spiders & Flies

July’s Program: Spiders & Flies

July is almost half over, but we still have time for our program of the month: Spiders & Flies. You play a growing Venus flytrap that is searching for flies and special bugs. Use the ZX81 arrow keys to move around: 5, 6, 7, and 8. But be careful. Don’t eat the spiders lurking about or accidentally eat yourself. It’s a super easy game so you have no excuse for not trying it out.


June’s Program: Blast Off

June’s Program: Blast Off

Blast Off, June’s program of the month, is a simple game that tests your typing skills. You may find it a bit easier to play on an emulator than on a real ZX81. Fortunately, you can try now! It isn’t a very hard game if you are decent typist. It would also work well for those practicing their typing skills.


May’s Program: Up-Cake

May’s Program: Up-Cake

Well it is getting late in the month and I didn’t want to pull another last-minute update. To make things a bit interesting, I used Zed Ex on my Android tablet to enter in this month’s entry. More on that in a bit. Let me first introduce our deliciously short entry for May: Up-Cake. A fast and simple scrolling game that is easy to play and hard to lose at. My kind of game!