Come and see us at BYTE BACK on 7-8th March 2009 in Stoke-On-Trent, UK

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Loads of STH forum members will be descending on Stoke-On-Trent next March for the BYTE BACK Classic Gaming Convention. We have reserved a number of tables for Acorn-use and the Retro Software crew will also be present. It has the potential to be the biggest 8-bit Acorn gathering since the days of the Acorn User/Micro Shows, so ... why don't you come along too? :o)

Tickets are priced £12 each and can be purchased from the homepage @ www.byte-back.info with all proceeds going to charity. There is also a thread about the event on our forum, here.

If you would like to attend, please consider buying your ticket(s) as soon as possible, as advance ticket sales will help the organiser pay "up-front" costs such as venue hire, equipment, cabling etc.

Added a UEF Tape Image for another Beeb educational game: Roadcraft 1 by Highlight Software.

Added a UEF Tape Image for BBC educational title Electric from Database Software (no, not that Database Software!).

On today's menu: Tape Images and Cover Scans for a couple of uber-rare strategy games:

• English Civil War (RedShift) added to the Electron UEF Archive
  
  
• Startrek (Logic Systems) added to the BBC UEF Archive.
  

Completing our run of obscure Tynesoft updates are the text adventures Savage Island Part One and Savage Island Part Two.

Though unlike the versions [re]issued by Tynesoft on other platforms, these have not been beefed up with graphics and consequently, they are virtually identical to the original Adventuresoft releases.

Except the Electron version of Part One doesn't actually work! It is approximately 24 'blocks' shorter than it should be and though it will actually load in, it is not possible to play it properly.

Separate UEF Files have been added to the BBC and Electron archives and there are Cover Scans too.

Added Tape Images for two more [rare!] Tynesoft titles: Parts 1 and 2 of Junior Maths.

Identical UEF Files have been added to both the BBC and Electron archives, and Cover Scans are available too.

Thanks to Ian Irwin for the loan of the cassettes.

Added a Tape Image for Superfile (Tynesoft) to the Electron UEF Archive.

If I keep on waiting until I've sorted through all the content I've been sent I'll never get round to doing an update, so I'll try and commit to making small additions here and there and hopefully this will get me back into the habit of updating the site on a regular basis.

So, just two additions for now, plus two snippets of news ...

• added Jonathan Parkin's FAQ for Repton Infinity to the Game Help pages
  
  
• added a UEF File for Basic Adventures In Space Part 1 - The Alien Planet (Glentop/Honeyfold) to the BBC Tape Image Archive
  
  
• Pitfall Jones has written a Windows version of Chuckie Apple, based on a plan that was devised by Nigel Alderton in the 1980s (Nigel wrote the original version of Chuckie Egg on the Spectrum).
  
  Click the image below to visit the homepage!

• Last month's edition of Retro Gamer (issue 57) featured an excellent 'Retro Inspection' on the Acorn Electron that was written by STH Forum Member Stuart Goodwin aka ivor_the_injun.

Mike Wyatt released v3.82 of BeebEm which features fixes to periodic noise emulation, video emulation and AVI capture.

Four months without an update (sorry!) but today we have some great additions to the site ... and some big news too ... so hopefully this will go some way towards compensating for the lack of updates (and remember, even if things are quiet on the STH news front, you are always welcome to join and participate in our [fairly] active Forum).

Anyway ... nowadays, the highlight of running this site (for me at least) is when we are able to present an unpublished game from the 1980/90s that for one reason or another, never made it into the shops back in the day.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what we have in store today! :D

So, do read on ...

 
Updates:

• Kevin Edwards (author of Galaforce & Crazee Rider) submitted an unreleased arcade game called Eyes that was written by Paul Proctor - the man responsible for all bar two of the Ultimate - Play The Game titles on the BBC Micro.
  
  For more background on the game - and of course the actual download - please pay a visit to our Lost and Found section (oh, and if you're wondering how Kevin came to acquire this; well, he went to school with Paul and Martin!).

• Towards the end of last year, Stuart Goodwin (STH forum id: ivor_the_injun) conducted a number of interviews with the following key members of the BBC Micro world:
  
  

  Sophie Wilson Richard Hanson Peter Scott

  Peter Johnson Jason Sobell David Braben

  Ian Bell Gary Partis.

  
  Only portions of each interview appeared in BBC Micro article he wrote for Retro Gamer but Stuart has kindly provided us with the full transcripts, which you can find on our Authors page (with the exception of the Wilson & Hanson interviews, which are linked from the Articles page).
  
  
  
• Michael S. Repton - author of the Life of Repton Walkthrough/FAQ - has written similar Walkthroughs for both Repton: Around The World and Repton Thru Time  [ Game Help ]
  
  His Walkthrough for Life Of Repton has had a minor update.  [ Game Help ]
  
  
  
• Bert Molemangler provided his own Solution and Screenshot Map for Citadel 2  [ Game Help ]
  

News:

• From STH Forum member Samwise:
  

Some time less than a year ago, we started to notice that a number of talented 8-bit Acorn developer bods were gathering over in the STH forums. Never one to miss a bandwagon, a few pints later and it was decided the best thing to do was to exploit them all. Therefore, we're proud to invite you to the unveiling of www.retrosoftware.co.uk.

It's a community which is designed to help people develop for old machines, particularly the 8-bit Acorn machines. As well as a forum to discuss with like-minded individuals, the site can provide you with hosting for your project and an army of volunteers to help with gameplay and platform testing, as well as artwork and distribution if you make it to a final cassette and/or disk release. There are already a number of 8-bit Retro Software projects covered on the site. However, we also have some very useful PC development tools, including: SWIFT - an IDE by Steve O'Leary, with built-in code editor, designed to aid development of software for 8-bit Acorn microcomputers. Projects can make use of multiple third party cross assemblers such as the free Python assembler, P65, as well as multiple emulators. SWIFT provides Error Throwback highlighting in offending source code, One-Click Testing and One-Click Source Assembly with the option of writing the assembled code direct to a DFS disk image. BeebAsm - a portable 6502 assembler by Rich Talbot-Watkins, designed specially for developing assembler programs for the BBC Micro. It uses syntax reminiscent of BBC BASIC's built-in assembler, and is able to output its object code directly into emulator-ready DFS disc images. This site is for anyone who'd like a crack at 8-bit coding for old-times sake, or those PC developers who'd like to contribute to the effort with useful development tools or, finally, anyone who'd just like to get an early look-see at what's going on. There's plenty of scope for beta-testers or anyone of the artist temperament, who'd like to help with poster/cover artwork or loading screens. Simply join-in, list your skills and see which projects come running to you first. http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk Hope to see some of you there ...

• Lots of BBC Micro-related articles appeared on the main BBC website throughout last week, all of which were triggered by a reunion of former-Acorn and BBC staff members at the Science Museum in London:
  
  
  • 'Beeb' creators reunite at museum
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7303288.stm
    
    
  • BBC Micro ignites memories of revolution
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7307636.stm
    
    
  • Looking back at a computing icon
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7305699.stm
    
    
  • BBC Micro: Your memories
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/7307723.stm
    (notice the pictures and comments from STH's most prolific forum member, Colin McDougall)
    
    
• Back in January, Jon Welch released v3.3 of BeebEm Mac:
  
  Changes:
  
  
  • Added remote client/server ethernet option for serial port emulation (so you could write software to telnet to a remote network, write a simple web browser or ftp client etc, running on the Beeb)
  • Added print screen function
  • Added copy screen to clipboard function
  • Added three new higher resolution screen modes
  • Added freeze when minimised option
  • Added load/save user keyboard layouts
  • Added protect on load disc option
  • Bug fix - Missing scan line at top of screen
  • Bug fix - Non-default window size not set on startup
  • Bug fix - Random crash when changing from mode 7 to any other screen mode
  • Bug fix - Cursor position wrong when in column 1 in editing mode
  • Slight tweak to source code to get it to compile using Xcode 3 on Leopard
  • Slight change to sound routine to remove some artefacts.
    

Click here to see what was new in 2007.