I didn't have a tape deck with a counter  And then I got a 128K +2, and I'm pretty sure that didn't have a counter either. Or did it? I can't remember haha /checks Internet for pictures No it didn't. Phew. And I think every last person who had a tape-loading computer had their own little method or ritual to make it work! I used to believe holding down the lid of the cassette player further made more tempremental games load. It didn't. |
Who here can't imagine running games from tape? • Page 3
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There's probably people on here who don't remember cartridges, let alone tape. -
I remember it well,
My dad got a spectrum back in 1982-83, it got me addicted to gaming and I've owned pretty much most consoles since then. Worse thing is I have yet to chuck any of them out so still have the rubber-keyed bastard in the garage somewhere along with a big black bag of tapes which probably won't even load anymore.
The sad thing is I can still remember the loading noise in my head, while each game was different from what I recall the first few seconds of loading would be identical for each game.
durrrrrrrrr....dur......durrrrrrrrrr......dur-a-dur-dur-dur-dur-a-dur-dur-dur... *pause* -
tuff 640 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 17 years agoLuckily my 48K + Speccy tape player came with a counter, which made things a little easier.
Had loads of C90 tapes filled to the brim with games but when they didn't load - arrrghh!!!
Oddly though, Football Manager for the Speccy had a very strange save mechanism - you just had to stick a tape in and it would record your save on the tape, which just so happened to be the entire game!?!
Mass piracy FTW! -
/Mutters about whippersnappers not knowing they're born
/Realises that's probably because half of them weren't born at that point
;_; -
nickthegun 87,711 posts
Seen 7 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoKhanivor wrote:
DDevil wrote:
Ah The One Amiga. They kept getting their mucking wrods fuddled up.gif)
ZERO FTW!
Kevs Kool Code. I LOVED that magazine. A great balance between 'informative' and 'piss funny'.
And, yeah, I can imagine loading stuff from tape. I cant imagine ever wanting to again.
/buys 10 game compilation pack
//4 games work and they are all the shit ones -
Grunk 4,718 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoLoad"" ?
Run"" ?
Experts would use the the Chain"" command -
nickthegun 87,711 posts
Seen 7 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoYeah, well mine was so good, it played games from the future. -
thedaveeyres 13,925 posts
Seen 4 days ago
Registered 15 years agoI bought a copy of Jet Set Willy without the copy protection card (which was a sheet full of 4 colour combinations)... so keen was I to actually play it that night, I loaded and re-loaded and re-loaded the tape trying to guess the 4 colour combination, which I achieved after about 40 go's.
Now THAT is 80's computer game pain!
Next day dawns and the computer game guy assumes I've nicked the card and copied the game so won't exchange my copy...
3 weeks pocket money effectively spent on a near-permanent state of self-flagellation. -
DocX 1,963 posts
Seen 5 months ago
Registered 20 years ago/Breaks after loader, enters pokes. -
SeesThroughAll 1,689 posts
Seen 4 weeks ago
Registered 16 years agoDocX wrote:
/Breaks after loader, enters pokes.
.gif)
And remember, they go after the LOAD "whatever" CODE statement and before the RANDOMIZE USR xxxxxx. -
I still do load games from tape, on occasion. It's just as painful as you remember it. No wonder my nerves are shot. -
DangerM0use 742 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoI went from a Vic 20 to an Atari 65XE; unfortunately at the time I didn't realise you couldn't get bugger all games for it - and when you did find some they were for the 130XL (or something like that?)
Though I do remember our local papershop having a display on the back of the staff door with some on for £2.99.
Did anyone else have a multicomputer tape... can't remember the title (River Rescue?) but the tape worked on both the C64 and Atari!! -
lance.carter 74 posts
Seen 11 hours ago
Registered 15 years agohttp://history-of-racing-games.com/8/
might be of interest...see the C2N page.
..why does the url sometimes create a link all on it's own..and sometimes not? Grrrr.
Edited by lance.carter at 09:34:42 20-06-2007
Edited by lance.carter at 09:35:52 20-06-2007 -
barnettbeans 156 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 15 years agothree words JET SET WILLY
/throws discussion into room and legs it -
Venkman90 4,430 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 17 years agoI still have my Spectrum knocking about somewhere, and am never tempted to dust it off 
It does seem so primative now, but the days of one man bedroom programing are sorley missed, I think it peaked with the Amiga tbh, I remeber an interview with the creator of Worms about how he had put it together in his bedroom...and how Bullfrog and Peter Molynuex got their break..
../sniff -
DocX 1,963 posts
Seen 5 months ago
Registered 20 years agoVenkman90 wrote:
I remeber an interview with the creator of Worms about how he had put it together in his bedroom...and how Bullfrog and Peter Molynuex got their break..
../sniff
I wonder if that guy is still earning anything from the Worms franchise? Probably not. Ocean shafted Team17 over the publishing deal so they probably screwed him as well. He did get a ferrari or something out of it though. -
Aurifex. 1,030 posts
Seen 9 years ago
Registered 19 years agoMapster wrote:
You think that's bad. I used to operate a CNC drilling machine to drill circuit boards and we loaded the programs via paper tape over a little light sensor.
I kid you not, I am that old.
Heh, i remember seeing my Aunty loading punched out card programs into the computers at IBM. Not saying i am old mind you, maybe getting there.......eventually. -
Aurifex. 1,030 posts
Seen 9 years ago
Registered 19 years agoI had a Spectrum 128 with the tape deck bilt in. It took me an the wifey 20 minutes to type in the line code to display a crude Union Jack. Boy that was fun, na ok it was boring as hell. -
pauleyc 4,548 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 20 years agoThis thread brings back a lot of (noisy) memories. I still remember the day I got a 5.25" disc drive for my 65XE...pure bliss it was, even after using a "turbo" mod on an Atari tape player.
/remembers waiting over 30 minutes for Spy vs Spy 2 to load (about 270 units on the counter)
That's the definitive sign that 8-bits finally caught up - an Atari SIO-attached interface for using SD cards as a storage medium. More high tech than recording tapes as mp3s! -
Birchy 119 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoMulti loads FTMFW.
'You died Rewind tape' - Sod that, press play load up next level - Worked on all the Ocean movie titles, Robocop, Total Recall, Batman, New Zealand Story and all the Hit Squad! games.
Activision multi loads took the absolute piss tho - Ghostbusters 2 must have taken 20+ minutes to load each bit... -
Scimarad 9,965 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoI had an Amstrad 464 so I remember loading games from tape but I never had to sod around with the volumer or anything.
I remember there was one command you could type in that would make the screen go absolutely mental - Of course we would take great delight in typing it in to shop display machines... -
My older brother convinced me that he knew the 'code' to a game with awesome graphics on our C16, and he played it only when I was out.
The 'code' was him screaming the tape frequencies into the side of the C16.
I believed the cunt. Come to that, I believed him when he said I wouldn't get a shock if I put my tongue on the Scalextric track. -
figgis 7,721 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years agoDodgyPast wrote:
Both Gunship and after that Stealth fighter were well worth it... actually especially Stealth fighter where the game would last longer than the loading time.... and you could use the loading times to plan your mission.
I had both, the manuals and maps in stealth were amazing, you had plenty of time to study them whilst the game loaded. -
mad_caddy 3,751 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoI remember when High speed dubbing came into the world it meant I was able to copy Draconus for the Atari 800XL in no time at all, I giggled a great deal at listening to the tape playing at high speed as well.
Ahhhh the good old days.
Winding the tapes onto the brown lead at the start of the tape so that it wouldn't fail* loading
* I say wouldn't fail, I mean would fail every now an again. hit play, creep out of the room, come back 15 minutes later to find it all went wrong
Edited by mad_caddy at 11:39:19 20-06-2007 -
souljah 4,705 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 17 years agoI remember going down to my mates house to play his C64, before I got one.
The keyboard, massive power supply that you could fry eggs on, tape deck and tv had to be arranged in a certain manner (you couldn't have the power supply or tv near the tape deck, in our minds.)
Once the game, or next level had loaded, we had to sneak out of the room and listen by the door. If a load failed, it was in variably due to either the positioning was wrong, we didn't sneak out quietly enough, or his mum had put the kettle on in the kitchen (which left a very bemused woman wondering what her 10 year old son was jabbering about with tears in his eyes when all she wanted was a cup of tea and a fag).
Ahhhh, the days! -
darrenb 1,179 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 19 years agomad_caddy wrote:
I remember when High speed dubbing came into the world it meant I was able to copy Draconus for the Atari 800XL in no time at all, I giggled a great deal at listening to the tape playing at high speed as well.
Ahhhh the good old days.
High speed dubbing??? I remember sitting quietly in my bedroom, pressing play on one tape deck and record on another seperate recorder and trying to make sure nobody came in making a noise..
Thinking back, quite a few games worked that way and games today fail to load because of a little scratch on the disk, so much for progress!!! -
Anyone remember the CD attachment that the codemasters brought out for the Speccy? Spectrum games on CD as audio tracks.
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