User:Pwr-uk/Paul Reynolds (programmer)

Paul Reynolds, born 1967. First real experience of a computer was the Sinclair ZX80. Quote, "I'll never use that thing, it's stupid!", aged 13. But before long you couldn't get him off that stupid thing.

In those days it was a choice of either Sinclair BASIC or Z80 machine code written in raw HEX (or decimal if you were really hard done by). Assemblers (and escpecially compilers) were in their infancy and totally unthinkable within the 1K RAM limitation of the ZX80.

Special acknowledgement goes to his brother Ian who, just before leaving to go to Poly, divulged the life-changing woders of the LDIR instruction (Load Increment Repeat: EDB0). Essential to all furture game writing.

Home Computers Owned and Used

 * Build-it-yourself Sinclair ZX80, later with 4k RAM Pack (which was only +3k in reality)
 * Modified ZX80 with SLOW Mode circuit
 * Sincalir ZX81
 * Customised ZX81 with real keyboard, user-defined graphics card
 * Sinclair ZX Spectrum (ZX82), later with Interface 1 and Microdrives, plus a few home-brewed hardware and ROM extensions
 * Amstrad CPC 64
 * Sinclair QL (ZX83)
 * Self-customised QL, with modified OS ROM (QDOS), internal 512k RAM expansion, RTC battery backup, Centronics Port, and one of the microdrives replaced with a cooling fan to stop the machine crashing (so often)
 * Jupiter Ace (FORTH based)
 * Cambridge Z88 (ZX88)
 * And inevitably a succession of PCs (XT, AT, 386, 486, DX2, DX4) and laptops (Pentium, Celeron, Dual Core)

Published ZX Spectrum Utilities and Games

 * 64 Characters [Abbex]
 * Krakatoa (aka Escape from Krakatoa) [1983 - Abbex]
 * All Or Nothing [1984 - Abbex]
 * War Game (based on that arcade classic Missile Command) [1984 - Abbex]
 * Octipede (a take on another arcade classic Centipede) [1985 - 16/48 Tape Magazine #16]
 * Tower of Hanoy [1985 - 16/48 Tape Magazine #21]
 * 3D Draughts [Unknown]

Krakatoa and All Or Nothing were later re-released (royalty free!) by Prism Leisure Corp, after Abbex when into recievership.

Unreleased/UnFinished ZX Spectrum Games

 * Crystal Caves [1985]
 * Lunar ?????/ [3D]

Projects Almost Worked On

 * Timex Computer 2048
 * The original Amstrad e-mail Phone