Type-Ins

[Zehphez]

Hello!

Just a question: Is - apart from the Wiki-Projects - anyone out there who is still typing in old CPC-Listings?   

Greets

[Gryzor]

You mean for public viewing? I don't think so...

[Bryce]

Hi Gryzor,
        I downloaded a scanned  Amstrad Action type-in a few weeks ago and typed it into my trusty 464, just to remind myself of how much hard work I used to endure to see some fancy graphics. 100 lines of Data xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx sure can get frustrating and my patience was much better back then it seems. I then saved it to a tape, just for nostalgic accuracy  Won't be doing that again in a hurry.

Bryce.

[ukmarkh]

You got lucky... the last one I typed in from a CPC mag, had problems and didn't work. I managed to get it working in the end, but something wasn't quite right.

[Bryce]

Yes, but it is still quite difficult to enjoy the "high-resolution 3D graphical effects" that the type-in promised, on a 12" green screen, with blood-shot eyes and bleeding fingers. Back then I believed the AA authors every word, this time around my sceptical attitude (also known as "being realistic") dimmed my expectations and depleted my motivation much quicker than it did back then. Maybe playing COD4 on a Corei7 with a GTX295 played a small part in lowering my expectations

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Well, a couple of years ago, when I was re-reading all the CPC mags out there, I did type lots and lots of small Type-Ins. Lots of fun - and, imagine that, I discovered that my fingers remembered where all the special characters were!!! Fantastic!

I'd have liked to type in something bigger, but it's quite time consuming...

[redbox]

I remember a type-in from the Computing With The Amstrad magazine (if I remember correctly) which was a Santa game. It was one screen and looked a bit like Llamatron - does anyone remember it or know where I can get a copy of it?!

[redbox]

I remember a type-in from the Computing With The Amstrad magazine (if I remember correctly) which was a Santa game. It was one screen and looked a bit like Llamatron - does anyone remember it or know where I can get a copy of it?!

I found it - it's called Save Santa.

[khisanth]

best memories of a type I had was for some kind of platform game, similar to manic miner i believe. It was hundreds of lines long, with two pages at least of data statements. My Dad reading it out to me as I typed for ages. then another age checking everything was correct etc.

the game promised to be really cool but we never could get it working. Good fun doing it but frustrating at the end. Think it was from Amstrad Computer User, no idea what it was called, but it was a monster type in!

[ervin]

Do you mean Space Mania?
Now THAT was a monster!

I never got it working either.
If I remember correctly, it was listed over 3 issues of the magazine, and in each case it was quite a few pages long! Biggest type-in ever I think.

If it is indeed Space Mania you are thinking about, take a look here:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_June_1986_-_Type-ins

I'll upload the disk image later today or tonight.

[khisanth]

yes i think its either that or similar. i have that issue lying about to hand will check!

[ervin]

Alrighty, the Space Mania listing appeared across the June, July and August 1986 issues of ACU.

I've put the dsk files up on the following pages:
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_June_1986_-_Type-ins
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_July_1986_-_Type-ins
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_August_1986_-_Type-ins

The executable is actually on the august 1986 dsk, called "MANIA.BAS".
It's an absolutely outstanding game compared to pretty much all the other type-ins.
(Splatch was pretty good too, but not quite the same standard as Space Mania).

Amazingly difficult though.

[khisanth]

cheers old bean.

i might try typing it

[ervin]

Really? 
Good luck!

[Gryzor]

Oh wow. Looking at those screenshots...  really nice!

Spekaing of typing while someone else dictates... I remember wanting to type a reeeally long type-in with a mate of mine back in summer '86 or '87, I think. It was very hot (I'm in Athens, Greece) and the monitor/PSU was developing quite critical temperatures... so we took turns, one typing the thing in and the other fanning the PSU through the monitor's grilles in order to avoid the meltdown. This went on for hours, and I think in the end it did not work. But I still remember that scene

[Ygdrazil]

Type-ins...

Done lots of those back in the day...

Last one was GIGA-cad from a German Mag.. Absolutely huge Type-in, typed for days.. Split the task between friends. Even tried to OCR parts of it with a handscanner attached on a PC-XT, eventually it took more time to teach the OCR program (or correct the input) the typeset, than to type it in by myself.

In the end no succes ..

I fancy Type-ins though there was many nice ones back then :-)

/Ygdrazil

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CPC_Giga-CAD

[ukmarkh]

So much easier these days, just cuttin 'n' pasting those type ins' into Winape32. Back in the day I typed one in from CWTA and it took me ages, you were a builder and ran around fixing things... bloody awfull game, but back then I played it for hours.

[AMSDOS]

I've been looking up Type-ins on CPC-Power and have contributed a few Disk Images from programs which weren't even Typed in. In quite a few instances there is stuff on CPC-Power which has been scanned, though not typed in and this is from stuff going back to 1984!    In some cases though I've modified the original program or have just polished it up a bit so it looks better, though I try and not to alter the program so much that it's quite different from it's original source.


Some of the programs are quite simple from Articles I'd found and in some of those cases I've put the original program in there as well as some modified stuff to help enhance the program a bit. Though I've also found some very nice programs which hadn't been typed in until I got onto them, one example is "Alpine Road-Race" which has some M/C elements in there along with some BASIC components for the main game which works together nicely:
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=6177


The only game I could kind of compare it to is the early 1984 Grand Prix Driver which has that simple Speed and Passing other Cars ahead along the Road Scenario. Considering "Alpine Road-Race" was done a couple of years after and was a Type-in, it was nice to see this game once the typing was completed as the screenshots will show.

[Dizrythmia]

I've been tempted to do the odd type in every now & again, but lack of time these days really puts pay to that.

My fondest memory of doing a type is in the December 86 issues of ACU with the pinball type in. I could never get that to work, I even left it with my computer teacher at school & he sort of got it to work with a few alterations, but it always crashed.

I remember spending hours typing in Space Mania... that was a head ache. If I remember it was one of those type ins where I forgot to save the data before typing RUN. It crashed & I couldn't save it after that. That was a whole day wasted. I never went back to try it again. That was my punishment for being too eager!!

[AMSDOS]

My fondest memory of doing a type is in the December 86 issues of ACU with the pinball type in. I could never get that to work, I even left it with my computer teacher at school & he sort of got it to work with a few alterations, but it always crashed.

Hmmm, just had a look at it. The tricky part is getting the spacing for the table just right.    I don't know why people did it like this because it makes it very difficult, was it faster than using something like:

Code Select Expand

print "!";space$(7);"!";space$(9)


having that in the magazine instead would of made type-ins more readable and if it was faster to insert spaces in the quotations, then people would know how many spaces to put in from the space$ which specifies it. 

[Border_7]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one suffering back then.... Can't believe Space Mania caused so many headaches! (or actually I can)

[Gryzor]

At some point they did replace spaces with dots though...

[AMSDOS]

At some point they did replace spaces with dots though...

Yes Amstrad Action used this strategy at one time which was a great idea, though ceased using it when people were pressing the "." key when entering the programs.
For Type-ins which didn't have this (like the Pinball in ACU), there maybe another way of working out the spacing though, which is working out how many lines the magazine uses for each line. As long as the magazine keeps it consistent, it should be possible to get the correct spacing with everything correct, otherwise it's trial and error.
I'm just unsure why "space$(<integer expression>)" as the manual puts it was simply overlooked cause using it in Locomotive BASIC avoids the hassle of working out the spacing. I used it in one of the routines and it seemed to work fine, I guess if speed is a setback compared to using print"         ", then it maybe a good reason, or perhaps early programming traits was to simply use print statements with spaces in the captions and from that people felt fine using that instead of using the space$() option. It's funny though that AA never brought it up and resorted to dots as spaces in their type-ins for a short while. It was probably when they realised that people didn't need to do this and could simply use space$() option that counting the dots was silly. 

[Gryzor]

I'm just unsure why "space$(<integer expression>)" as the manual puts it was simply overlooked cause using it in Locomotive BASIC avoids the hassle of working out the spacing.  

Because from the programmer's point of view it was probably easier: with a fixed-width typeface you coud literally draw the screen/menu/whatever while programming it. And they just didn't bother counting the spaces afterward and replacing them with the integer before sending their listing in.

[AMSDOS]

Regarding the Pinball which was in December 1986 Issue of ACU, I did some looking around on CPC-Power and found this:


http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=6187


This was in March 1987 issue of Your Computer, but not under the original Author "D. Cromwell". The instructions have been translated, though I'm pretty sure it's the same Pinball given the layout of the Instructions, you might want to check it out. It's just unfortunate that it's the rip-off copy which went on there and not the original.


EDIT: Don't recall getting Headaches when I used to type-in long Type-ins, though because I had nowhere to put the magazine except on my lap, I used to get sore back and neck if I was there for too long.