Today, I did a thing. I bought a 3D printer for the purpose of printing the badge for the Commodore 1541 disk drive. Yes, it is overkill, but I’ll use it later. I feel justified.
Drawing the Mono Lisa on the ZX81
Sometimes a small ZX81 program can still feel like a magic trick. My latest program, MONO LISA, builds a simple picture of the Mona Lisa from a single encoded string using a compact run-length encoding (RLE) style routine. It is definitely slow, but that is part of the charm as you watch the image draw itself across the screen.
Can You Keep Up with Lift, My ZX81 Elevator Game
This week I received a new ZX81 book I purchased on eBay called "Timex Sinclair 1000 Programs, Games, and Graphics." A little graphic program in the back of the book inspired me to create a game called Lift. Can you catch the items before they fall? Let’s dig in.
Building a ZX81 Intro Screen for Wolf, Goat, Cabbage
When I first converted Wolf, Goat, Cabbage to the ZX81, I wanted to include an intro screen. Sadly, I didn’t get around to it at the time. This month, I finally circled back and it turned into quite the journey.
Trap or Gold Is a Simple ZX81 Game of Chance With a Twist
I was pursuing ideas for a simple role-playing or fighting game. The one I landed on was the concept of a single treasure chest. It fit the retro-computing theme perfectly. Trap or Gold is a simple game that doesn't need fancy graphics, speed, or memory — yet it’s still fun.
Bringing My Atari 2600 Joysticks and Paddles Back to Life
I recently got back into retro hardware. My starting point was gaming, as I ordered one of the new Atari 7800s that plays the old cartridges. In my haste to grab a few games, I inadvertently purchased a complete 2600 with controllers. I’ll blame travel and lack of sleep for missing that detail. But it gave me the opportunity to attempt something I’ve never done before: restore the controllers.
Are You Fast Enough to Beat My ZX81 Duck, Duck, Goose Game?
Every once in a while, a small, silly idea turns into a surprisingly fun little project. That’s exactly what happened with my latest ZX81 experiment, a reaction-based game inspired by the old nursery rhyme: Duck, Duck, Goose.
My Retro Computing Binge, Falling Back in Love With Hardware
Lately I’ve been on a binge — a retro computing hardware binge. It started last year when I went searching for a working Timex Sinclair 1000. The idea was simple. Set it up and run my own programs on real hardware again. What began as a hunt for one machine quickly turned into something bigger.
Building a Flip-Style Digital Clock on the ZX81
I’d been thinking about writing a better clock program for the ZX81 for some time but never acted on it. That is, until yesterday when I saw a flip-style digital clock program on the C64. The result is a sort of digital flip clock program for the ZX81 that ended up being quite a fun journey.
Experimenting with Binary Space Partitioning on the ZX81
I thought I’d try something a bit different this month. I’d been looking at different ways to build maps for years but never really did much with them. After watching a video on binary partitioning, I decided to see if I could build a simple map builder on the ZX81.
This is the result.