Somewhat Less Limited Capabilities (ZX81 demo)

[shoepower1337]

Now I HAVE to get my hands on a ZX81 as well! :) Nice work as always shadow!

[georgeman2468]

How on earth did he do the final demo bit! I never knew it was capable of such small pixel work.

[cartman1492]

Amazing. I had the U.S. version of the ZX-81 (the TS 1000) back in the day and I never saw anything that cool on the screen. I know the hardware intimately and you've done an incredible job of squeezing performance out of that platform. Excellent work.

[elephantrange]

Absolutely amazed & impressed. Good job, Mang!

[BearorBust]

That was impressive.

[Gary190tube]

how is this possible?

HOW?  HOW? HOW?????

[DLiberator78]

This is a pretty amazing demo. I had no idea that the humble ZX81 could pull off such effects even if expanded to 16k. Thanks for the upload.

[ericinwisconsin]

I haven't programmed in years, but you really had to write some tight code when you only had 16K to work with. No higher languages back then! Machine code, maybe BASIC if you were lucky. But even in BASIC you had to use assembly strings to do anything fast.

[Helderhugo]

This is a LOT for this computer. Amazing Demo considering the capabilities of this machine.

[blokenearexeter]

amazing programming for a machine of such limited capabilities

[Svettjodd]

Vill man vara lite semantiskt petig så är ju Z80 ansvarig för all GRAFIK även i ZX-spectrum.

Skillnaden är ju den att den i ZX81 (och ZX80) dessutom genererar själva videosignalen :)

mvh

//Gammal Z80-programmerare, hårdvarukonstruktör m.m.

[namayake]

If the ZX81 is hooked up to a composite monitor, you can actually get it to "display color" by using screen drawing algorithms that force the monitor to display artifact colors of your choice at chosen locations on the screen. Other demo coders, like those for the Coco3, have been able to get computers with limited color displays to display hundreds if not thousands of colors on screen using this technique.

[ForViewingOnly]

Absolutely amazing! Great work!

[hewey999]

@shadow WOW thats amazing !

[hewey999]

is this 4 real? If so its amazing!

[ShadowOfNoice]

@hewey999

Yes, it's for real. The video is actually captured from my ZX81 running the demo.

[bukster1]

That's really something. Has it ever been published as a P or other emulator file? There are some sites that allow you to download all the old games for emulators. It would be interesting to have a copy of this one.

[ShadowOfNoice]

@bukster1

I updated the info with a link to my website, look there and you'll find the binary that can be run in an emulator.

[kumbah2006]

Great stuff! :)

[jcyprys]

how the last effect is possible?? zx81 has only char-mode, no real graphics! stunning!

[trophy242]

This is one of the greatest achievements I've seen on demoscene. It's mad :-) Respect!

[pat78370]

I had build one (in kit version) on May 82', oldies.....

[ordinary1passerby]

math. a lot of math!

[trophy242]

Well, not so much in fact, more about coding skills and being smart to get a lot from so less resources :-)

[mariodivine]

Z80! power! impressive!

[zaphodb777]

VERY IMPRESSIVE!

Especially for a machine that spends most of it's time using the CPU as an ANTIC.

5*!

[r5cpt]

How awesome is this? I never dreamed a ZX81 was capable of such stuff - that's how awesome!!! Seriously, how TF did you get that ZX81 to display... THAT?!

[Countdown35]

Erstklassig!!! Sinclair ZX81 for ever!!!

[antdude]

No audio?

[ShadowOfNoice]

Nope, the ZX81 has no audio output capabilites.

[antdude]

Wow, not even simple beeps? Wow.

[MOBiL4u]

@antdude One could make sounds through the cassette-out-port (called mic since you should connect it to mic on a cassette-recorder) but that was connected to video-out so then you could not display a useful image. There was e.g. an electronic organ program. One could also connect a sound-card. I had a sound-card with AY-3-8910.

[Yesideez]

One word... INSANE!

[rc55]

FANTASTIC

[DrashigsAndDragons]

Blimey, that's clever! Well done indeed. :)

[CodexPermutatio]

Great stuff! Yes!

[VampierMSX]

this is madness!

[RamzesXIIIFPPMZ]

Incredible