On 9/7/2020 9:46 AM, Gary wrote:
> Sqwertz wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 07 Sep 2020 07:25:37 -0400, Gary wrote:
>>
>>> My first 2 computers were in the early 1980's.
>>> Commodore Vic-20, then the C64 a couple years later.
>>> I loved those kids. I still have them and all the
>>> accessories including software purchased and software
>>> that I wrote (stored on cassette tape)
>>
>> Here's my TRS-80 Space Invaders-type game written entirely in Z-80
>> Assembly Language. It was actually a state of the art game back
>> then. It has moving explosive shields and 160 x 96(?) graphics (The
>> max of the TRS-80)
>>
>> https://postimg.cc/gallery/0S4QNQX
>>
>> I mean. you can tell what it does just by reading it, right? I was
>> 14 years old at the time. The last page is probably the most
>> "interesting". It has all the text from the game, but it succumbed
>> to a paper cutter at some point.
>>
>> -sw
>
> I'm impressed. I was just delving into assembly language
> when I got divorced and full time care of daughter.
> Let it go then as not much personal time left.
>
> I did do several subroutines in Assembly in Basic programs.
> Much faster and efficent. Just a simple JSR.
>
> I had just started trying recreate a program I liked in
> all assembly language when I had to stop. By time I got
> back to it, Commodores were history and new stuff was
> completely different.
>
> This might be interesting. One Friday afternoon in
> the early 1980's I decided to recreate the board game
> "Scrabble" on the cheap Vic-20.
>
> I copied the game exactly too. Same board, same tiles
> with the values, etc. The only thing I couldn't do for
> computer playing was to save tiles that you didn't use.
> So I changed it to use whatever tiles then they all got
> tossed back in the pile. Each turn you got all new unused
> tiles.
>
> Anyway, I did the graphics then all the coding for the
> game. Spent about 10 hours making this all. Stupidly,
> I was on a roll so I never saved copies on the slow
> cassette tape machine.
>
> Finally about 2am, and almost finished, my electricity
> went off for a moment and the computer froze with no
> hope of recovery. I sat there in disbelief. Oh SHIT!
>
> After a few minutes, I just turned off and on the computer
> and started over. As I had just written this, I was able
> to do it again in about 4 hours that time.
>
> Very nice exact version. Thought I might be able to sell it
> so I contacted the Scrabble people (Selchow and Righter) or
> something close.
>
> They wrote me back thanking me but they had already sold
> the computer rights to some other software company and
> they gave me their address.
>
> So I wrote to the software company and they wrote back
> thanking me for the offer but...
> "We already have a team of programmers working on this."
>
> Really? A team of programmers working on it and I did it
> myself in one night?
>
> In hindsight, I should have changed a few things to avoid
> copyright and tried to market it myself as "Scramble" instead
> of Scrabble.
>
> OH well.
>


That sounds good, but it would not pass muster these days. It needs to
take up at least 50MB disc space to be considered suitable these days.