Finally it's my moment to shine

@samcoupe.com I think you will like this!

Big news! @apzonerunner.com and I have launched a new video games website. @respec.net is our attempt to create a highly curated multi-format site that has that club feel you used to get from the best magazines (and frankly, my beloved VideoGamer back in the day) www.respec.net/feature/87-w...

I’m constantly amazed at how funny and insightful the Low Poly Mess newsletter is. It might be largely about this random man’s kids, but it’s a real highlight of my week.

Disgustingly good video by someone who appears to be like half my age

I’ve hooked up Tynemouth Software’s 68B50 serial card to SAM. It has its own clock so it’s nicely self contained. I’ve got the basics working, I’ll do more later. (LCD’s not related but I’ve been playing with that too!) #RC2014 #SamCoupé

Sony stopping Playstation discs in 2028? Yikes! I'm still all for physical media, I even include real floppy disks in with SAM Revival magazine for the SAM Coupe computer! www.samcoupe.com for everything I do for the #samcoupe #retrogaming #gaming #indiegames

Oooh lots and lots of finished Next boards waiting to be cut

Don't quite know where the time went, but we've been at it for two decades today. 26 years including our fansite days. A look back from me here - and a bit about what's next, including for folk who maybe liked the style of stuff I did on Eurogamer and VG247.

For added realism, try playing it in the bath.

New video! E3 2026 youtu.be/9Db14mWF-2M Please enjoy! 🩸

Hello BlueSky Hive Mind - I'm looking for a cross-platform and lightweight UI API for simple stuff like dialogs, file pickers, etc, for C++, Linux, MacOS, Windows. Can anyone recommend one from personal experience?

🚨 Events! (Short notice!) I'll be at @retrocomputermuseum.co.uk Legendary Gathering (Leicester) TOMORROW 20th June! then at @computinghistory.org.uk "Synthesized" (Cambridge) on Saturday 27th June! #samcoupe #retrocomputing #retrogaming

I’m good with what I got

It’s incredibly flexible. You can think of a channel as a “driver” and write your own. Fundamentally it’s just pointers to an input routine and an output routine. One byte at a time, but you can do what you want with it. It’s how many proportional font routines work, for example.

“Hi there hackers!!” I don’t think I actually have any commercially-sold BASIC games on tape, but you sometimes find surprising things in the BASIC loader. 🪓🤓

Listen up, you FERRO-HEADS! Bring out those REELS of RUST. That’s right, by popular request… I have added the tape loading routines back in. 😅

Made a Demolition Man flash sheet.

I’ve updated this a bit! It should now support larger programs, with many variables. It will now more safely roll-over into SAM’s additional memory if needed, but also “reclaim” the memory used for Spectrum variables once they’ve been processed. Thanks for the feedback!

Listen up, Pilots! It’s B I R D C A G E day.

Here's an easter egg in the new Lego Batman that I think all of you will REALLY appreciate. It's so good, I had to make a video.

I have put together a SAM Coupé program for importing Spectrum BASIC from disk, including variables, auto-run etc. The translation is based on BTRANS from the MGT Utility Tapes to which I (after hacking it to bits) added variable importing and disk support.

I have a lot of good ideas.

You know what sucks? Our newsletter used to go out to over 100k people and then Yahoo Groups closed their damn site and we lost all our subs. We've currently on 25k but if you help us and tell your friends to sub we could possibly creep back to where we were. Sub here --> b3ta.com/subscribe

THIS IS W I D E B O Y

A great bit from Rich on a first-hand experience of seeing exactly how those vultures at Roblox go after younger gamers, both taking them for a ride and (arguably as bad) poisoning their general relationship with games as a medium. www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

Bring back webrings!

The ZX Spectrum had attribute clash because it stored colour in 8x8 blocks, not per pixel. Programmers spent decades working around this. Some of them are still working around it. They will not stop. It is personal now.

For some reason the phrase Information Super Pieway popped into my head and I’m still chuckling.

Shorteeeeeeeeee. The best #ZXspectrum Sinclair never made.

personal lifelong side quest to fix these every time I see it. the red cord needs to hang all the way to the ground so people can reach it if they fall.

The joys! I think any developer of a certain age who developed on the target machine will recognise this kind of effort.

So Badgers has been added to the BFI archives. Honestly this feels like quiite an honor. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNqb...

Instantly thought of this www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBs...

A date for your calendars

Monday

Toys are great.

Leon helping Grace in Resident Evil: Requiem:

Good news! I've improved this program a bit… - No longer crashes when you have empty strings! - Array dimensions are listed out! - FOR loop control variables show current value, limit and STEP! - Vanilla machine code .TAP version available! - Renamed to VARS (“LV” was taken). - Same link as before!

ZX Spectrum 128K 'Toastrack' style PCB pin badge now add to my range of printed circuit board badges and keyrings - all helps add a few pennies to my #retrocomputing development fund! www.samcoupe.com/quickshop.htm www.ebay.co.uk/itm/11718152... #zxspectrum #retrocomputing #retrogaming #gaming

Give this a go if you like videos that feature me talking enthusiastically about an old game nobody gives a shit about

My enthusiasm for "retro" systems, and the reason I make kits is to have those opportunities for "Mel moments" where you make something work by *completely* understanding what the machine is doing. There's a joy in finding the way to make each component fit perfectly together.

I thought this utility was quite useful so I converted it to esxDOS and MGT PlusD so that it can be invoked easily and without disturbing system RAM. For esxDOS use: .lv For PlusD use: LOAD "LVX",X (or the short syntax LOAD Pn) robertmorrison.me/spectrum/esx... robertmorrison.me/spectrum/plu...