Hello from Happy Hacking BB

Eric Anderson · 04-06-2022, 01:37 PM

Hi Everyone,

I am the creator of the Star Fighter and Race games for the Microbee that are listed in the software catalog over at the "https://www.microbee-mspp.org.au/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Microbee&structure=MSPP+Home" website.
I came here because a search for the disk my games are listed on turned up on this site. That being a disk called "games_4_ds80.dsk. Though I am having trouble finding that disk on either website.

The games were created between 1983 and 1986 during the middle years of high-school when I wrote a number of games for the Microbee. My games were all made available via my Bulletin Board called Happy Hacking BB from 1988 to 93. I noticed the Star Fighter game has a release date coinciding with my bulletin board going online rather than when it was written, which gave me a clue as to how it ended up getting archived.

I still have a bunch of disks and tapes with my old games including a pac-man based on an Inspector Gadget theme, and a Fogger based on a Doctor Who theme. If anyone is able to help me get them off the old disks and into the archives that would be awesome!

I am delighted to see that something I created as a child is still floating around almost 40 years later. Even more so because I wasn't the one to submit them to the archive.

Eric Anderson.

***MbeeTech*** · 04-06-2022, 01:43 PM

Hello Eric & welcome to the Forum.
Great to have you here.

To gain access to the repository, please read this thread :

https://microbeetechnology.com.au/forum/...php?tid=15

In terms of getting your items archived from disk, we have members here that can assist (specifically ChickenMan)
It would be great to get those extra titles archived for you.

***ChickenMan*** · 04-06-2022, 01:59 PM

Hi Eric and welcome to the forum Smile

Its great to have the original authors of Microbee software join the forum and tell everyone what and how the games were written, adds to the overall history of Microbee. That software list (which I wrote when on that forum) should list 2 of your games RACE and STAR FIGHTER and both on our Games_04 disk, which is also a disk I made back in the late 80's.

All of our Microbee mater is in our Repository, so join up via https://microbeetechnology.com.au/MTFR_A...Access.htm While there also grab UBEE512 Emulator so you can run your games on your PC Smile

We would be most interested in the disks and tapes you have and I'm setup to image and record both. If you can post them to me (I'm in Victoria) I can then image them and post them back. If thats okay, I will PM you my addy. Thanks again.

CheshireNoir · 04-06-2022, 02:08 PM

Heh
Looks like I wasn't the only person watching ABC in that period. Inspector Gadget, Dr Who. You're only missing Monkey and possibly Kenny Everett :-D
(No, I don't want to think what a Kenny Everett video game would be like. I went back and watched some recently and it was a LOT more racy than I remember)
Can't wait to see the games, Eric, and thanks for sharing with us!

Cheers!

Chesh.

Eric Anderson · (This post was last modified: 04-06-2022, 06:58 PM by Eric Anderson.)

(04-06-2022, 01:59 PM)ChickenMan Wrote: Hi Eric and welcome to the forum

Its great to have the original authors of Microbee software join the forum and tell everyone what and how the games were written, adds to the overall history of Microbee. That software list (which I wrote when on that forum) should list 2 of your games RACE and STAR FIGHTER and both on our Games_04 disk, which is also a disk I made back in the late 80's.

All of our Microbee mater is in our Repository, so join up via https://microbeetechnology.com.au/MTFR_A...Access.htm While there also grab UBEE512 Emulator so you can run your games on your PC

We would be most interested in the disks and tapes you have and I'm setup to image and record both. If you can post them to me (I'm in Victoria) I can then image them and post them back. If thats okay, I will PM you my addy. Thanks again.

Oh!! So your the one who archived my old games. You have no idea how much joy it gave me to see my old games saved for posterity. I would love to know how you got a copy. Were you part of the BBS community back then and downloaded it from my bbs (Happy Hacking BB) or did they come to you in some other way?
My dad refused to let me buy games, thus I started writing my own from scratch the moment I got the Microbee. Mind you I have to learn Basic on my 16k rom machine first and spent many hours cursing Mathew Star for the weirdness MW Basic.

I will sign up for the repository thing right after replying to the messages.

I am in Melbourne. Perhaps it might be better to just drop off the stuff? Safer than aussie post.

(04-06-2022, 02:08 PM)CheshireNoir Wrote: Heh
Looks like I wasn't the only person watching ABC in that period. Inspector Gadget, Dr Who. You're only missing Monkey and possibly Kenny Everett :-D
(No, I don't want to think what a Kenny Everett video game would be like. I went back and watched some recently and it was a LOT more racy than I remember)
Can't wait to see the games, Eric, and thanks for sharing with us!

Cheers!

Chesh.

Oh yes! Computers and Channel 2 afternoon kids TV. Monkey was more Primary school for me I think? Though I was considered a Danger Mouse game at once point. Kenny Everett! All I remember of that show is a skinny guy with a beard who kept introducing cartoons where everyone had huge chests. And that he sat there for a full minute and did nothing, after which he calculated how much of the BBC's money he just wasted.

I'm about to apply for archive access. Once I have that I will take a look at which versions of the games are there. I know I upgraded several of them to use color when I got the Premium Microbee so it will be interesting to see which ones are there.

I also have the original hand drawn graphics if there is room for that to be bundled with the games. They are on graph paper with numbers next to them which I calculated to be poked into PCG memory.
I also found some screen printouts of the games with hand written notes on them for the development process. I've love to find a way to bundle all that with the games so they have their whole history.

***ChickenMan*** · 04-06-2022, 07:17 PM

Back in the 80's I was a member of Melbourne Microbee User Group (MBUG) and I just did a lookup and your game of RACE.MWB is on MBUG Disk #136. No idea where STAR FIGHTER (STAR.COM) came from but a lot of files were un-officially "passed around" back in those days. PM your Melb suburb as I visit Melbourne often.

Eric Anderson · (This post was last modified: 04-06-2022, 08:13 PM by Eric Anderson.)

(04-06-2022, 07:17 PM)ChickenMan Wrote: Back in the 80's I was a member of Melbourne Microbee User Group (MBUG) and I just did a lookup and your game of RACE.MWB is on MBUG Disk #136. No idea where STAR FIGHTER (STAR.COM) came from but a lot of files were un-officially "passed around" back in those days. PM your Melb suburb as I visit Melbourne often.

I wonder what year MBUG Disk #136 was published? I am curious how far and fast they traveled.

Star Fighter (star.com) was a translation to assembled with my permission from someone who wanted it to run faster. I agreed so long as my name remained as the author. Last I saw the .com version it was missing the dive bombing fighters.

I was a teen at the time so I didn't know how to sell games. I just made them and shared them with friends. Finally putting them on my BBS with a request for donations. They were basically Donation-Ware as apposed to Shareware.

I remember when MBUG was closing down. (SAD) They were giving away all the back issues of the Catcher mag and people were starting to bring in IBMs to the SIG nights. Not long after that I stopped going. Microbee Systems had gone under, Online mag was finished, and I was at Uni using a PC.

Help with monitors???

I just unpacked my Microbee box and was surprised to find 3 microbee's inside. My Premium 128k and my 64k one, as well as another premium one with twin disk drives that I think my school gave me when they retired the old computers.

My Premium one was compatible with a CGA monitor, but the 64k one needs a composite monitor. Any info on how to make them work with a modern monitor or where to get an old CGA monitor?
It would be awesome to fire them up again. Or at least one of the Premium ones.

Eric Anderson · (This post was last modified: 04-06-2022, 09:48 PM by Eric Anderson.)

Premium PLUS - Anyone know if the upgrade to premium plus will replace my dodgy Microbee keyboard as part of the upgrade?
I wish I knew the premium plus kits were out, I would have gotten one. :'(

CheshireNoir · 05-06-2022, 12:09 PM

Hey Eric,
For composite, I just bought an old LCD TV with Composite In. I think you can still buy them new if needed and I am yet to find a TV that doesn't work with the Composite out from the 'bee.

As for CGA, (Deep Breath) There are many, many options.
Turnkey, you can just buy an adapter from Ewan: https://microbeetechnology.com.au/vga-vi...verter.htm
You could "roll your own" by getting a CGA to VGA adapter like this one (https://github.com/necroware/mce-adapter works really well) and then either plug it into a 15KHz compatible monitor (http://15khz.wikidot.com/ Which is what I have done) or plug that into an upscaler.
As for upscalers, there are a lot of options out there. Personally I have a commercial upscaler for most of my stuff that I trashpicked from a refurb, but I also have a GBSControl (https://github.com/ramapcsx2/gbs-control) which takes a cheap chinese scaler board, sticks a spike in it's brain and parasitically replaces it with a new brain. The results are astounding, but it's a bit fiddly to build :-D

I, er, have a lot of different systems to support, so I have a lot of different solutions.

Hope some of this helps!

John

Eric Anderson · (This post was last modified: 05-06-2022, 03:16 PM by Eric Anderson.)

(05-06-2022, 12:09 PM)CheshireNoir Wrote: Hey Eric,
For composite, I just bought an old LCD TV with Composite In. I think you can still buy them new if needed and I am yet to find a TV that doesn't work with the Composite out from the 'bee.

As for CGA, (Deep Breath) There are many, many options.
Turnkey, you can just buy an adapter from Ewan: https://microbeetechnology.com.au/vga-vi...verter.htm
You could "roll your own" by getting a CGA to VGA adapter like this one (https://github.com/necroware/mce-adapter works really well) and then either plug it into a 15KHz compatible monitor (http://15khz.wikidot.com/ Which is what I have done) or plug that into an upscaler.
As for upscalers, there are a lot of options out there. Personally I have a commercial upscaler for most of my stuff that I trashpicked from a refurb, but I also have a GBSControl (https://github.com/ramapcsx2/gbs-control) which takes a cheap chinese scaler board, sticks a spike in it's brain and parasitically replaces it with a new brain. The results are astounding, but it's a bit fiddly to build :-D

I, er, have a lot of different systems to support, so I have a lot of different solutions.

Hope some of this helps!

John

<<<BANG>>>

I just plugged in my chook-in-a-book to the Premium Microbee to see if it would boot (listening for the pecking sounds from the disk drive). It sounded like it booted ok, even though I couldn't see anything without a monitor. Then about 2 minutes into testing disks the chook-in-a-book exploded with white smoke and an all might BANG. I think the power supply in the chook-in-a-book just blew a capacitor!

If I am lucky it wont have nuked the drive and the Microbee with it.

Guess I will be needing more than a CGA to HDMI converter now. Anyone still repair the old chook-in-a-book drives?

BTW, thank you for the CGA info.

So that is a keyboard upgrade for the dead keys, a CGA-to-HDMI converter, a Premium Plus upgrade, and a disk drive repair Sad

Did anyone mention software to read microbee disks on a PC? Maybe the emulator is the way to see my old software again.

EDIT: Just tested the duel drive and it booked the Bee ok and even make it beep as it booted into my basic menu one of of my games disks. So it's a monitor or a URB 3.5 drive for my laptop to run an emulator?