@@alanalan-de6to Fuse and Spectaculator are the best ones available nowadays. I use Spectaculator myself but it's not a free program, while Fuse is. There's also versions of Fuse for just about every desktop/mobile operating system going.
It’s so amazing that this program exists. It’s a testament to hope in the face of unspeakable and unthinkable horror. With the conflict going on in so many places in the world today, this story means so much. We have to try and protect peace and lives across the world. This story happened only by a miracle, how many miracles are we missing today due to conflict and death?
Thank you very much for this video. In the meantime, Željko and I have become full professors at the university, we are 55 years old and have families. Although, of course, I teach about modern operating systems, CPUs and concepts of programming languages and compilers (while Željko teaches C++ and discrete mathematics), I am still a retro computing fan. Sometimes I tell students about programming in wartime when they complain about computer resources, and that's how I found this video today by searching. I am overjoyed that there is still interest in our work today after thirty years.
The ZX Spectrum 48K is the first piece of computer or videogame hardware that I ever emulated despite being a Yank and having no idea what a ZX Spectrum was. This was probably late 1990s early 2000s. I frequented a Neverending Story fan page and they had a list of videogames that were based on the movie, one of them being a ZX Spectrum text adventure. I downloaded an emulator (no idea which one), the rom, and possibly a bios and got it working. This sent me down the rabbit hole of downloading a bunch of games for the spectrum and trying them out. The whole color clash thing was really weird and I had no idea what the actual computer itself even looked like, but it sure had a shit ton of games. Eventually I figured out there was a 128k version of the spectrum with better graphics. I did find some games that were quite enjoyable (I don't recall which), but with my new found appreciation for emulation I soon moved onto emulating NES games. Good times.
Sorry, but the 128K ZX Spectrum has exactly the same graphics as the 48K version: 256x192 pixels (6K) plus 32x24 bytes for the colour attributes (0,75K), totalling 6912 bytes (6.75K).
Oh my gosh this unlocked core childhood memories. Hearing the name Samir Ribic immediately took me back to early experiences with Warajevo as one of my first emulators
Kim , what an amazing story(so far,I'm 17 mins in), thank you for telling it, what an amazing pair of brave blokes, your channel is so good, Happy New Year
Hi, this sure brought back memories! I did play a bit with Warajevo back in the day, it was (and still is) a great piece of software. I did run into it a bit late into my time playing with ZX Spectrum emulators, my earliest recollection of a ZX Spectrum is spectrum.exe from Pedro Gimeno, which was able to load from real tape if you made the appropriate Tape-to-LPT cable yourself. That just blew away my 12 year old self, which was i believe before i had a Sound Blaster card. When Warajevo came along, the things that stuck to my mind were (in no particular order): 1) you could just connect it to the SB audio in (which was a change from using the LPT port to load real tapes from), 2) the story of the conditions in which the software was developed, and 3) it had this ability to invoke real x86 code using special z80 instructions, which opened some neat possibilities, and well, always seemed like wizardry to me back then :) Thanks for the story, it definitely took me back!
Feature #3 was cool, yes. But dangerous as hell. Hopefully, it did not catch up -- and now we do not have a swarm of DOS viruses disguised as ZX games...
Zeljko Juric made a map and solution to my one Spectrum game, a GAC adventure called Timewise. It made me very proud that he had played and although I don't know for sure I hope it kept the guys entertained and distracted at least a little bit while they were playing it. Warejevo was and still is a great emulator. Thanks for this video Kim.
Such a wonderful idea for a video. It's stuff like this that reminds you just what can be accomplished with enough drive and optimism for the future, but also that you should never take what you have for granted. Living in the USA, I never used any Sinclair products (let alone had bombs going off outside my windows), but I've always had a lot of respect for emulation developers. I help work on a few emulation projects these days, and it's a great community with a lot of really cool people. Cheers.
I grew up on ZXAM for my Amiga A1200 which finally became usable when I got an 030 accelerator in about 93. The magazines were full of adverts for “PD” CD ROMS full of Spectrum games. I think this what gave me the idea to start LAZARUS - the Amiga emulation site (of champions) in 1997 when I had to let my Amiga set-up go. Happy and sad times. Great video.
Kim, I highly recommend the documentary "Scream for me Sarajevo" which depicts the trip Bruce Dickinson (at the time formerly of Iron Maiden) and his band made into beseiged Sarajevo to do a concert. The emotional and morale effect the concert had on the young residents of the city is extremely moving, along with heartbreaking depictions of the brutality of the seige. It's one of those life changing films in my opinion.
I have no experience with the ZX Spectrum or war... save that I followed it on the news back then, and it was some of the first times I encountered anxiety for something I barely understood (considering I was about 5-9 when the war happened)- so knowing that there was someone in those conditions hammering away at an emulator just to keep themselves sane during hard times... it is inspirational. And I dearly hope they celebrate each year that passies with a pizza, and that they have many more pizzas left to go.
Very nice Video m8 the info,narration and overall montage are really great. Love the Legendary Speccy from my childhood years,thanks for this awesome story and for sharing your experiences of this wonderfull machine and the good old times of the Golden era of gaming.
Great video about a fascinating and inspiring story, Kim - I wonder if Sir Clive could ever have envisaged his humble machine being a source of escape and comfort during such horrible times.
This is an amazing story. Thank you for bringing it to us. I remember the shock of that war, that it was on TV so much, & Sarajevo's alleys where snipers operated.
This is an amazing story and the documentary itself is really good as well, hope this gains a bit of traction because more people should know about this.
Fascinating subject. And one that i knew absolutely nothing about! It makes me wonder if there are any whizzkids currently writing code in Ukraine and/or Gaza? Not to mention countless other places where lives are turned upside down because of religion, politics and/or sectarian hatred. We will never learn 😢
This is the sort of story that movies are made of. You should contact some move production companies and see if you get any interest. I'm sure the movie would mainly be focused on the war, but the retro coolness and 80's nostalgia associated with the spectrum are the secret ingredients movie directors look for.
I remember downloading and using this emulator back in the days. There was a readme file (as seen in the video) that detailed its sad and inspiring development journey, and I remember all the facts recapped in this video.
Didn't this emulator also have a feature that converted 48k snapshots into exe files so they could be run directly? I'm sure I remember being able to do that with some emulator back in the day and I have some vague memories of using this one.
Sort of. The Spectrum games weren't converted as such, Warejevo just had an option to save a copy of the entire emulator with a single snapshot file hard-coded into the exe file. It essentially made a dedicated Spectrum emulator that was only capable of playing one game.
Sounds like there was a first draft and you found out you had horribly mispronounced Samir's name throughout - but you want back through and fixed every occurrence. Respect!
Never over estimate them either. There's a reason slavjank exists as a term. Their ability to cut every corner and still have it sort of work is admirable.
Still amazes me that some games for the speccy the makers won't release as freeware. At this stage I don't think there's any point to this as where else you going to play these or buy them to play.
Its timing seems grimly appropriate given that the Speccy itself was launched during a time of war. (The Falklands War, 2/4/82 - 14/6/82. Speccy launched on 23/4/82, according to Wikipedia)
Well that makes me feel crappy about the emulator I started coding many moons ago and never finished - comparatively speaking I have bugger all excuses...
Echoes of this with the current Ukraine conflict with the soliders playing World of Tanks in their breaks to let off steam. Also a bunch of gamers are involved in fighting and relief efforts from abroad. Some of their friends they play with went missing and they wanted to help
