Can I fix a 40 year old Sinclair ZX80 bug?

I wrote a game back in 1982 that really needs improvement. Can I fix it, and make something even better now?

Link to my other channel - Big Car:

#littlecar

[benc]

LET SHOT=RND(5) is a remarkably accurate physical simulation of my actual golf game.

[glonch]

Awesome video - well done!... My mother was really into Search-A-Word puzzles... she would always do the one in the Sunday papers. When I was about 14 or so, I saw her doing the puzzle and I thought "I could make a program that could solve those", off to my Apple //c and started writing. I got wrapped around the axle about halfway through it and shelved the project. Fast forward a few years to when I was working the night shift with not much to do, I dusted off the program and after a few hours had it working. It would read in a text file with the grid and words and would print out on screen or paper the beginning/ending coordinates of each work (I didn't bother with any graphical 'circling' of the words, etc). Fast forward another 30 years and the only thing I had left was a printout of the program. After OCR, text editing, it came back to life. It was a stupid program, but it taught me a ton about logically figuring out a problem and having the computer solve it.

[rodoherty]

Please start up the LittleCoding channel and post more videos like this.

[Grid]

Oh the memories....ZX81, BBC Micro, BBC Master, Amiga 500+. ...Typing in BASIC programs from the magazines around at the time, then spending the rest of the time fixing them when they didn't work. The best way to learn. Stood me in good stead for a career on mainframes. The 81 could be annoying as just as you got loaded, the ram would fall off the back and crash....Cue the velcro!

[MarcKloos]

My first micro was a ZX Spectrum 16k (after a 2 week drama with a half broken ZX81) and it got me into my computer career.
Some 10 years ago I started collecting Spectrums, clones and assorted Sinclair stuff and now I have a huge connection, a little museum in the mencave even. I wish I would have the skills to have an interesting talk about each of them to make a YouTube channel out of it, but more than "hey look, this is a Spanish Spectrum, the keyboard looks slightly different" I wouldn't know what to tell an audience! Some people just have the skills to talk very engaging about mundane subjects. Tech Moan is also such an example!

[NeroVingian]

The thing I like the most about you was how you are both a car and a tech nerd lol

[garrylawless]

Thanks Andy, back in the day I had the ZX81, a special pack Boots were selling including a 16k ram Pak and VU3D Database. I used to like trying the programs that were in the magazines, but I wasn't as good as you to type my own. Even in its basic form, I would have really enjoyed your golf game, back then if you owned a ZX80/81, part of the experience was using your imagination with games, as quite often they were just text based. Thank you for uploading this. 👍🏻

[MartinIbert]

Thanks for this, it was fascinating to watch! I started my coding journey at around that age too, but with my father's PET 2001. My father was very forward-thinking in letting his sons play with a seriously expensive machine that he used to feed our family. That was the foundation for my carreer in IT. Which so far (I am 57 now) has been reasonably successful.

[JJonCars]

YT algorithm just served this up to me, funny that we're both software engineers and car YouTubers 😄 Enjoyed the video. Going through ones own code from years ago is always going to be an interesting experience, but the code wasn't bad at all for an 11 year old 😁

[lucafwn]

Back in my day I had a Commodore magazine with a golf game similar to your enhanced version. I had translated it to Turbo Pascal, added some bells and whistle, and spent hours playing it. This video brought up so many memories...

[kevinsmith]

Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane. I still have a print-out of a dungeon crawl I wrote in BASIC at around the same time that you were working on your golf game. I wasn't quite as constrained, as my Sol-20 computer had a bit more memory available, and I used a more powerful version of BASIC (NorthStar). It was a lot of fun to code back then, even if we weren't very skilled at it.

[awhite]

Brings back memories of coding on my ZX spectrum. I remember making a hangman game, probably equally flawed 😅

[frazzleface]

Congrats for getting your program into a magazine - that must have been exciting as an 11 year old - especially back then. :)

[fredsmith]

Yay - Sinclair basic from the 80's... brings back the memories 🙂

[JenniferinIllinois]

Ah that takes me back. BASIC programing on the Commodore 64 was my thing back in the day. Definitely a whole lot more available than on your ZX80. 😉

[Lensman]

The World's Greatest Adventure Game!

10 PRINT "Welcome to the world's greatest adventure game: you are a great warrior!"
20 PRINT
30 PRINT "You are in a dark place. What is your command mighty warrior?"
40 INPUT A$
50 CLS
60 PRINT "I'm sorry. I didn't understand that."
70 GOTO 30

[chrispenn]

Ah! Brings back memories of my hacking away with a zx81. Helped me in my career a few years later! I got a management job in an office that was being computerized. Every other manager was much older and terrified of computers. I just piled in😂

[Bicyclehub]

This was surprisingly good fun! I did a lot of programming with Basic in 2007. I needed to do some extensive calculations and remembered all the Basic functions from a college course in 1980. It’s a very intuitive language and can do some quite powerful things.

[IanHodgetts]

Very nostalgic. I too started programming early (age 10) but on a ZX81. That at least had the capabilities for some better screen refreshing and I managed to write a few games for myself even in 1K. I soon progressed to the infamously wobbly 16K RAM pack ;-)

[majormojo]

Love it! As a fellow recovering programmer with an interest in vintage computing, this is a fun diversion from the car content. 10/10 recommended. Cheers!