Sharpworks

Three new homebrew games available from the Sharpworks store at : sharpworks.onlineweb.shop (also on eBay if you prefer).

@_derOlliB @rhayadercompute This game is called Datastorm and it’s on the Amiga. I played it tonnes.

@rhayadercompute This Game was called „Dropzone“. Looks like 8-Bit graphic. Sure that was on Amiga, not C64?

Datastorm Amiga, A very good version of defender that im terrible at #commodore #amiga

@ainslec @codetapper @tandemar A little bit of research for you to get you up to speed on who ‘the other guy’ is: forums.atariage.com/topic/300891-t…

OK, that's badly researched, and I assume there are more examples of that based on the tweets. IMO constantly criticizing someone online in what appears to be a one-way-street isn't the way to solve issues. Attacking others in public drags everyone down. As I get older my memory gets worse and there will be plenty of opportunity for others to point out my flaws, but I would hope it wouldn't be a deluge that overwhelms me. I don't know the person being criticised here, and I did meet Simon once at a retro event 10 years ago, and I do like Simon's artwork, but that's really all I know. I prefer a world in which we are free to disagree and free to make a point, but the point doesn't need to be remade and remade and remade in a way that doesn't seem to be an argument anymore. Anyway, I've said enough. I probably should not have become involved.

But he has "reviewed" dozens of books on his channel. More lies from the clown-prince of make-believe. One can believe he's not "a big reader" of anything judging by his mangling of the english language when he does attempt to read on camera.

@tandemar “Culture surrounding.”

Only eight months late. The tension is palpable. When will this opus materialise?

@VideoGameHstry …

Without saying anything, how long have you been playing video games?

@Sosowski I just used AMOS and its compiler.

What did people use back in the days to make games on an Amiga? I mean, what could an average Joe with a stock A600 and no hard drive use at home on the TV? The poor-man's stack What is the Amiga equivalent of typing assembly code directly into a machine code monitor on a C64?

@exQUIZitely @MattBytesRetro Very few games used CGA properly, quite colourful like EGA if done right. Think you needed a specific monitor type though to experience it. One example was Maniac Mansion I believe.

I always found there is a certain something about EGA... Do you remember your very first graphics card?

@MarkFGrogan A camera is moving up and down

What's going on here then . .

@games_rozz It’s a hell of an echo chamber but I try and stick to retro game stuff as much as I can on there and have a -lot- of muted words setup.

@UridiumAuthor @laurent_caron Which is handy for magazine type-in listings :)

@SharpworksMZ @laurent_caron It was clever that the BASIC keywords were one key-press and stored as one code, which made the language part-compiled to start with, and therefore faster to run. Plus it means typos can't happen with the keywords.

Happy 45th birthday to the ZX81. My Dad bought one, with the 16K RAM pack, and that's where I learned BASIC. The keyboard was mercifully more sturdy than the ZX80 kit build before.

@SuperSisi Two men shoot guns.

I’d watch Contra the movie in a heartbeat

@laurent_caron @UridiumAuthor It wasn't that bad, you didn't really have to type out the instructions letter by letter

@UridiumAuthor Typing code on this computer needed patience 😀

@RetroCoast This is probably the 1,752,562,234th post asking if people can remember one of the most popular computers of the 1980s.

Remember the Commodore 64? #1980s

@markatodd @JudgeDrokk You remember this advert?

@JudgeDrokk I remember the advert. I originally ordered the ZX80, but after waiting a few months, I was informed that this had been superseded by the new ZX81, and I would receive this for the same price! Incredible value for money at the time.

The Sinclair ZX81 microcomputer turns 45 years old!

@HRGL89 @YouTube One of my favourite 2600 games. -clicks video- Oh. Is this written in BASIC or something?!

Cosmic Ark for the TI-99/4A youtu.be/0TrVwUE6WFs?si… via @YouTube #CosmicArk #TI994A #Action

@RetroBrothers And the manual really helped to teach you how to program, that was the source from where my formative programming skills came.

@SharpworksMZ It was such a brilliant learning machine. Affordable, accessible and plenty of literature and programs

So, the first machine I ever used, the #ZX81 turns 45 today. My friend had one, complete with 16K RAM Pack. Seeing it run Sabotage and then later, 3D Monster Maze opened up a whole new world to me... I've been hooked ever since. #retrogames

@exQUIZitely I played a version of it which was public domain or shareware on my Amiga A500+, used to love it - so many different ways to launch attacks

The self-proclaimed Mother of All Games! Did you play this back in the day with your friends? Scorched Earth, by Wendell Hicken, was released as shareware in 1991. It wasn't going to win awards for groundbreaking graphics, yet it's one of the best multiplayer games ever - highly addictive with endless replay value. It let you customize a huge range of settings, from gravity, wind, and meteor showers to many others. Building on earlier games like QBasic Gorillas, it took the concept to a much higher level, supporting up to 10 players with far greater complexity and variety. You set angle and power to aim, with a wide choice of weapons (unlike the banana in QBasic Gorillas). Computer-controlled enemies ranged from difficulty 1 (Moron) to 10 (Cyborg). No other game has named its lowest difficulty level so perfectly! Wendell Hicken, the Quentin Tarantino of game developers!

@KevinToms My first computer as a 7 year old, taught myself BASIC via the excellent manual.

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the ZX81, one of the most successful home computers of the early 1980's in the UK! #KevinToms #FootballManager #ZX81 #Sinclair #RetroComputers #HomeComputers #Microcomputers #80sComputers #PersonalComputer #RetroPC #UKComputers #UKRetro

@nicholasbs Eventually companies would sue over the ‘look and feel’ of software

This computer is the reason you can't download all software for free. The Franklin Computer Corp was a computer manufacturer founded in the early 1980s. Their flagship product was a clone of the Apple II, one of the most popular personal computers of the day. But Franklin didn't just make a machine similar to Apple's: they openly and directly copied the Apple II's ROM, which meant it ran all the same software perfectly. They could do this because it wasn't yet clear if you could copyright compiled binaries. After all, a binary is just a bunch of 1s and 0s, basically math, and you can't copyright math! (Source code was already established as being copyrightable.) Unsurprisingly, Apple sued, and the Third Circuit ruled in their favor. This case (Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp) is still the foundation of US copyright for compiled software. Without it, you could legally download binaries of any software or email them to your friends (and the entire industry would likely look very different). That's why the Franklin has more than earned its place in our vintage computing lab at the @recursecenter.

@Sosowski 3D games have been around longer than 1998, by quite some way. And I know that's not the main point of this.

My game is 100% software rendered, released just few years ago on everything from MS-DOS to PS5. Wrote the renderer and the entire engine from scratch in portable C. Managed to compile and run it on x86, ARM, MIPS and RISC-V. Ask me anything about software rendering.