[HN Gopher] My 3D maze game for the ZX Spectrum
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My 3D maze game for the ZX Spectrum
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 72 points
Date : 2021-01-29 10:26 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (jamesmead.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (jamesmead.org)
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I recently stumbled over a 3D maze game from 1982 on 8-bit Ataris
| which pretty much blew my mind because of how advanced it looked
| for the year 1982 running on an 8-bit home computer designed in
| the late 70's:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmfNMo6kHpA
|
| It might not be the first "3D" maze game, but I think it's the
| first one with free movement and camera rotation?
| tartoran wrote:
| Not bad at all for 1982. I almost have a hard time believing it
| bartread wrote:
| Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Very Wolfenstein-esque. I don't
| think I could deal with the sound effects for very long, but
| you can always turn the volume down and put on some music
| instead to enjoy the 3D graphics.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Probably helped a lot by the Atari 400/800/XL/XE hardware
| architecture [1], which was basically the Amiga's little
| 8-bit brother (same design team). For instance there was a
| display list coprocessor which worked much like the Amiga's
| copper and could modify display attributes independent from
| the CPU. Of course I don't know how much of this was actually
| used in this Wayout game.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family
| ionwake wrote:
| So weirdly I have this book, its the one thing I kept from my
| spectrum days. Does anyone want it?
| pthreads wrote:
| Yes, please and thank you (email in profile)! I have fond
| memories of using my ZX Spectrum 48K. I still have it in
| working condition, just need to find a PAL to NTSC converter.
| incanus77 wrote:
| I would absolutely put this to good use if it's not taken
| already -- website in my profile.
| mattl wrote:
| Maybe send it to Jason Scott at the Internet Archive so it can
| be seen by everyone?
| djaychela wrote:
| The zx81 game 3D monster maze was my first experience of actually
| being frightened of the outcome of a computer game - despite the
| graphics being almost non-existent, the way the text came up
| about it just terrified my 10 year old self!
|
| How times have changed - I wouldn't mention to my kids that this
| used to scare me,they'd laugh themselves to death!
| pjmlp wrote:
| Funny the mention of the surviving copies being the Portuguese
| translation.
|
| I started computing around 1986, the books from Tempos Livres
| were available in most libraries.
|
| I only got a couple of them, occasional bought by my parents as
| gifts, and nowadays when I happen to see one in a some book fair
| where they are trying to get rid of them, I rescue them from
| certain death.
| bonkabonka wrote:
| Interesting! I was exposed to a "3D" dungeon crawler
| (Wizardry[0]) on the Apple II in September of the same year.
|
| I do wonder if 3D Monster Maze truly qualifies as "the world's
| first ever 3D game on a home computer" given that the lead
| programmer didn't own one of the machines until April of '81 and
| that the commercial release occurred the following year (at least
| according to the article on Wikipedia - the sidebar says
| published 1981 so it's contradictory).
|
| The birthday anecdote seems plausible but if Wizardry was in
| development for more than six months then it predates 3D Monster
| Maze.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry
| leoc wrote:
| In any case the 8-bit-micro maze games are all handily predated
| by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_War , which unlike all of
| them (AFAIK) is also a head-to-head multiplayer shooter with
| netplay, a much more direct precedent for the ID and post-ID
| FPSes.
|
| The thing that's underpraised about _3D Monster Maze_ is the
| quality of the writing and art. It 's an (AFAICT) pretty
| unusual early highpoint of comic storytelling in computer
| games, which in some ways makes it as much the forerunner of
| _Portal_ as anything else.
| jansan wrote:
| Sorry to misuse this for asking a slightly unrelated question.
| There may be people with knowledge of the ZX81 reading now, so
| here we go: I remember vaguely that on the ZX81 if you pressed a
| key too hard, the computer would perform a hard reset. I am
| pretty sure that this was how my friend's ZX81 behaved, but I
| would like to know if this was only on his computer or if this
| was a general problem with the ZX81. Does anybody know?
| mpclark wrote:
| If you had a ram expansion pack fitted an overly enthusiastic
| key press could cause it to wobble - it was only held in place
| by a connector which fitted onto the zx81's circuit board iirc,
| and that could cause a power cycle
| nickt wrote:
| Can confirm, definitely RAM pack wobble. Still makes me
| shudder!
|
| Memotech solved this problem by having a lower-profile RAM
| pack that included a piece of Velcro so the connector stayed
| secure.
|
| https://www.nightfallcrew.com/27/09/2013/memotech-
| memopack-1...
| darrenf wrote:
| Can concur with all the other responders to this post. You
| could buy official "wobble stoppers", but my dad made one
| from corrugated cardboard and a LOT of gaffer tape.
|
| I used to type programme listings+ in, blind, while my family
| watched something on TV. When I thought I was done, I'd ask
| them to switch the aerial cable over so we could play
| whatever game I believed I'd transcribed. Having suffered
| from unknown RAM pack wobble during the process was gutting,
| but on the flipside it was amazing when I'd got it right, or
| almost right - and whatever mistakes I'd made forced me to
| learn how to debug software. A skill that pays the bills
| almost 40 years on :)
|
| + from ZX Computing, or some multi-platform books from the
| library
| jansan wrote:
| Awesome story, especially that blind typing.
|
| In Germany later (for the C64) we had a computer magazine
| that listed programs in hex code. There was a special hex
| editor to input these programs and each line had a check
| sum, so we could easily see if there was a typo in our
| program. But at one time there was a typo in the printed
| hex code, oh dear...
| djaychela wrote:
| Yes, I remember my friend who had the ZX81 originally took
| great pains to make sure the table was stable and you
| shouldn't knock it - we didn't realise how serious it was
| until it died when we were typing code in and it died.
|
| I think his dad ended up taping it in place so that it was
| less likely.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| IIRC there were ribbon cables for sale you could use to
| attach the ram pack to the zx81, eliminating the wobble. I
| seem to remember seeing ads for those in the back of some
| magazines. I know it was all about cost, but had Sinclair
| just bundled a ribbon cable connector, the entire
| "wobblegate" would never have been a thing.
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