One of the Sharp MZ-80K's more unusual features was that it didn't come with BASIC pre-installed in read-only memory like similar computers of the time. Instead, one of the first things you had to do after switching on was load the language you wanted to use from tape. The BASIC…
I've now re-written my prime number generator so that it can scan all integers up to 2.7million-ish while staying within the MZ-80K constraint of a maximum array size of 255. It takes just over 10 minutes to scan the first 7,500 integers - approximately four times slower than the same…
The front cover of my copy of Computing Today from September 1980 is, by 2021 standards ... odd. Just as odd for a magzine dedicated to the 80s microcomputer scene (think Microsoft 8K BASIC and assembly code) is the lead story on Pascal. If you'd bought the magazine expecting a…
Published in Computing Today, October 1980. I'd missed this game written for the Sharp MZ-80K in the 1980s, so I spent a couple of covid-19 lockdown hours yesterday typing it in. I guess it was possible I missed it because I didn't have a machine for more than a year…
Published in Computer and Video Games, August 1983, Epidemic is a race against time to cure a patient of a nasty infection. It's usually more fun to lose rather than win, as that's when the penicillin takes over ... You are the antibody. It's not looking good! Winners see this…
A game from a 1982 edition of Personal Computer World. One other feature of this game is the score displayed in the top left corner of the screen. It represents the number of targets hit, but only updates when you press the Z or M key. Presumably the game play…
A game where you are rewarded for shooting simulated wildlife and (bizzarely) the sun. Even though the code asks if you want instructions these haven't been typed in from whatever magazine it appeared in - my guess is Computer and Video Games in 1982 or 1983. Fortunately it's simple enough…
A program to calculate which combinations of resistors from the E24 range can be placed in parallel to deliver a non-standard resistance, within a user-specified tolerance. This was originally published (without the graphics) in the November 1979 edition of Practical Electronics. The graphics were originally written by me for display…