Forty niner ZX81

They said it couldn't be done, Yes a game with hi-res graphics for the ZX81, here's the proof, Thanks to software farm for a great release, way back in the '80's

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• zx81forty
• niner
• zx81
• software
• farm
• cosmic
• cockerel
• games

[starsky2112]

There was nothing worse than typing all that stuff out then getting a 'Syntax error' Grrrrr..

[starsky2112]

Yes it is a shocker, You mean you had a ZX81 and never heard of these games, You missed out ;-)

It's not a fake, It is a Bog standard ZX81 with 16K ram pack, There were 4 hi-res games by software

farm, Forty niner, Rocket man, Booster, Z-Xtricator

[starsky2112]

Yup, With that lovely flat keyboard, Then there was the curse of the 'Ram pack wobble.' Arghhhhh

[starsky2112]

LMFAO, Funny, Gosub 10

[starsky2112]

lol, Any requests ?

[starsky2112]

Yes, There's meant to be no bloody sound on it, lol

[238FRN]

What memories!! The days of pushing very limited tech to the limit....too bad today with so many Gbs and Ghz...one can get lazy!

[NotATube]

If it used the same technique as other hi-res packages for the unmodified ZX81, then it would have given you 256 x 192 pixels, albeit with some limitations.

That's the same resolution as the ZX Spectrum and high-res by the standards of the time.

[Kanizatime]

It reminds me of game O'Riley's mine for C64.

[bukster1]

It was interesting how you could get a higher res graphics just by programming your own picture generation routine. You can't do that with modern computers.

[shalroth]

I remember an advert in Sinclair User from 1982, for ZX81 memory expansions - the title was "How to grow up to a megabyte micro." Looked like you bought a base unit for the edge connector, and just stacked up your memory on top as you bought it (each module had a through connector).

Don't fancy trying to bank switch a megabyte of RAM into a 64K address space, myself.

[ueberRegenbogen]

The ZX-81's video output is software driven; a program (normally in ROM) constructs the video stream. (In slow mode, other processing can only occur during vertical blanking. Fast mode foregoes video output in favour of more CPU for other things).

Hi-res is achieved by a programme in RAM taking over building video. It's actually a slightly simpler process; but, of course, you need more memory (up to 6k for 256×192) for the frame buffer.

[weegerri1sm]

I had this game.

ZX Spectrum resolution graphics (albiet without the colour) on a ZX81. :)

The picture on this game used to wobble a heck of a lot on my ZX81 though!?!!

[thesman32]

i did not know you got a ram pack that big for the zx81 i had the 16k one and this game ahh the memories

[NotATube]

As far as I'm aware, this did run on a standard 16K ZX81 though. I even came across adverts for games like this in old computer mags- see my comment elsewhere for how at least one software-based hi-res package managed it. (I assume this game used the same technique).

[vntr2006]

Is it just me or did we have a better time creating our own little games rather than the graphic heavy ones today? Even getting a few blobs to move around the screen was amazing in those days. BBC Basic was the best for speed.