I always wonderd why they didnt use things like half wave loaders back in the day - I suspect it might have to do with tape fidelity vs frequency content (half waves give a signal closer to white noise with less specific tones). Some of those examples do seem to be pushing frequency limits though.
I'll be honest, when these custom loads started coming out I thought the software was faulty. I remember taking Uridium back to WHSmiths telling them there was something wrong with it. Eventually I learned to leave the tape running!
I tried making a custom loader back when I had my +3 in the early 90s, it would load a single screen line from a file at a time in a single top to bottom sequence, that was until the silly limitation of the +3s drive prevented it from working :(
Who remembers the loader of the game Underwurlde, very high sound while loading that give many users a headache because it sometimes didn't load well..
I used to make loading screens that build up like this on the 48K - To generate the data - you record the starting point offset of the squares location (2 bytes) - followed by 8 bytes for the squares data. Then save this byte sequence all to tape - so the image actually takes longer to load than a regular screen$ - But you can omit any squares with no image. I used a basic language program that let you move a cursor around the screen and mark off positions. A custom machine code version of the normal loading code from rom, reads 2 byte address from tape, and places the next 8 bytes at that squares location as they come in from tape... While loading of course its not loading the real game data - but having the screen is worth it as it makes it seem quicker. I tried doing fast loaders - but my tapes and tape recorders were not very high quality and it caused me to loose a days work on a game I was making so ditched fast saving from then. The trick where you remove Program: is done easily - you use a special character in the loading name which allows the next 2 characters to be the x and y position to print the next characters - you set the y and x to print the next characters over the "Program:" that the rom routine displays. This means the name has to be short as there is a small limit on the characters allowed in total. made a speedloader for the +3 disk when I eventually for one of them- the Amstrad had so much error checking and memory swopping in it, the built in load from disk was nearly 3 times slower than it needed to be...
I have a question: In this video, is the monitor you're using supposed to have rounded corners, or is this specifically a known (programmed in) effect of the software?? I'd like to know because I'm interested in seeing what can be done with regards to the BORDER area of the screen.
" Nobody wants to watch an hour long video :-)." Yes we DO WANT to watch for an hour long video!. That's what it was all about back in the days! The loading part was better than the game part itself for most of them
This is great, and this sort of thing always interested me. Are all of these original as the tapes were sold at the time, or are these adaptations using utilities? I know this some of this sort of thing did start to happen from around 1986, with Alcatraz loading, Top Gun, Mailstrom, Bobby Bearing, etc, and the countdowns started to become a thing. Some of what's in this video look to be from a couple of earlier games(?) I drifted off the Spectrum by 1987. With some of the loading screens, it beats me how a largely full screen gets produced from quite short blocks of code, compared to the old 6,912 bytes of a normal screen.
@@vojtechpalus6085 už jsem našel proč to nevidím. Musel bych mít monetizovaný kanál a u něj to pak jde zapínat/vypínat. Ten ale nemůžu mít, protože mám málo odběratelů. Takže to prostě musí takto zůstat :-(. Tím pádem odpověď na Váš původní příspěvek je, že já na ničem neparazituji, protože z těch reklam nemám ani korunu.
I thought I'd never say this, but how I miss that annoying noise and intros whatever they wanted to be. I can see it was Alien technology in those times. Thank you nerds for making our childhood a bit better. 😢
Academy Tau Ceti 2 had awesome loader too - a flashing triangle indicator. With modern loading times (even with SSD), they might as well bring this art back.
Brilliant - at 14:04 (Flying Shark), that's Bleepload, which I like the sound of, for some reason. Lovely to hear it again. Also on my favourite game of all time, Bubble Bobble. I still play it now, 38 years later. With my children.
@@ChannelReuploads9451That's fascinating, and yes it does, if a "block" (256 bytes I think), loaded badly, you could just rewind the tape and try that "part" of the tape again. 👍
