In January 1986, my brother received a microcomputer called the TK90X. At that time my brother was 11 years old and I was 7 years old. The TK90X is a Brazilian clone of the ZX Spectrum, which was released in the United Kingdom.
ZX Spectrum was responsible for popularizing microcomputers in the UK due to its affordable price. These computers used the television and needed a cassette tape recorder, as this was the media used to store the programs.
ZX Spectrum had a lot of games. The games were better than Atari 2600 games because they had more memory available. The only drawback was the cassette tape loading time, which was very long.
We had a collection of games called the Disprosoft Collection:
The collection came with 12 games on cassette tape:
I will comment on my favorite games from this collection.
Excellent game for the time. Simple and fun. It's a cross between a platformer and a fighting game. You must collect all the lanterns in an area to open passages to new areas.
There are two types of enemies that appear during the game: a strong one and one with a spear. It's interesting that when they meet they start fighting each other.
Our ZX Spectrum clone had input for the joystick of the Atari 2600 thus allowing two players. There are two ways to play with two players in this game. The first way is to alternate the time you control Bruce Lee. The second way is much more fun as the 2nd player can control the strong enemy to fight against Bruce Lee.
This is a stealth action game. The player needs to infiltrate a security building to steal a floppy disk that contains important information. You have to face guards and dogs, and use terminals to unlock doors.
This is a long and difficult game. The player controls an adventurer through a dangerous forest looking for the 4 pieces of a lost amulet.
The player has a sword to face the creatures of the forest, but some cannot be eliminated, leaving only the option of fleeing. There are flowers that grant the player special abilities.
This game was developed by the Stamper brothers who later founded the company Rare.
The game Ghostbusters was developed in 1984 by David Crane of Activision, the famous creator of the Atari 2600 game Pitfall. This game has several elements of strategy. With the money acquired from capturing ghosts, it is possible to improve the Ghostbusters car with new equipment.
This program called Games Designer, published in 1983, must have been the 1st Game Editor available. The program contains 8 different games that can be modified.
The image below shows the game's sprite editor:
It is possible to define the form and amount of enemies that will appear. The following screenshot shows the enemy movement pattern editor:
In 1986, the computer encyclopedia Input was published in Brazil. It was the Brazilian adaptation of the Input encyclopedia released in the United Kingdom. The encyclopedia taught programming for 8-bit personal computers like the ZX Spectrum. It covered BASIC programming, game programming and assembly language.
Issues were weekly and the encyclopedia was organized into five volumes. I have the complete encyclopedia at home:
Input had many interesting programs and was very well illustrated. It was fun flipping through the encyclopedia.
At age 7, the contents of Input made no sense to me. But I found this encyclopedia again in my teens and it was a great inspiration to awaken my interest in game programming.
The Input encyclopedia is available online at Archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/inputmagazine
Table of Contents Memories
