Community - ZX Spectrum: As it was in Ryazan (1991-1993).

1991-1993
 Learning to program
Alone Coder

   In1990-1991 I was fond of writing─
eat poems and short stories. But I forgot all this─
grew up (literally - threw away the notebook
with all this creativity) because of the computer─
ra. Here I need to clarify what they gave me
only an hour a day on the computer, so I
I didn’t play too much, although every program
mu tried. I remember that in November1991
year wrote congratulations to my mother on her birthday─
divisions consisting of only operatorsPRINT.
I also learned the operator with some difficulty
FOR :)
 The neighbor decided to build a new computer.
It was Sinclair in the form of a Pentagon 48K. He
once invited me to see him. In by─
in the dark a small TV "Sapphire" (ryaz─
English, yes) showed BASIC, where they drew
gramophone records made of concentric circles─
sta. Radio-8bRK couldn’t do that. Then the neighbor
brought the computer to us to play. And the father
I started soldering the same one.
   As far as I can restore, father
I soldered my Pentagon 48K at the end of1991.
In May 1992, when I got tohospital with
a broken leg, he was definitely already with a bunch of
games. And I remember well the copyright1991
after reset. How did this ROM firmware get in?
to us? They say it was made in Lugansk
Sergei Degtyarev based on either pol─ 
Russian, or Czech firmware1987.
 The computer was assembled again in half
from the chessboard, again with keys from
“Partner” (I still have a lot of them left, 
only there are not enough springs), with a homemade
power supply. Over time, the father became
Lal at the factory a neat body made of glued
plastic parts where it fits
the entire computer including the keyboard and
power supply. There was a mountain on it─
daya sticker"TOSHIBA", cut from the finger─
chik battery.
   Our first games were Locomotion,
Elevator Action, Stop the Express and some- 
then with a flying robot. We loaded them with sleep─
started with reels, then bought a cassette
tape recorder. My father once brought tapes with
games from a business trip to Gorky (Nizhny
Novgorod). From these tapes I remember, in particular,
Bruce Lee, Ikari Warriors, Phanton Club, 
Street Hassle and such exotics as Eddie 
Kidd Jump Challenge, Luna Crabs and Vyre─ 
recorded from a proprietary PSION cassette
Thro' the Wall onBASIC. No games 
were protected. We rewrote some of the games from
double speed with Turbo copier
Comp, firmware1991, easy to read─ 
la. Father also put a small scarf
tape signal filter. I don't know
how helpful she was.
   From literature there was only samizdat, on─
printed in capital letters on tracing paper,
and instead of square and curly brackets
There were German letters with umlauts. One
the book was called"GREAT OPPORTUNITIES OF VA─
THE SPECTRUM", and the other was a description
built-in BASIC from Vickers.

               At this time:

   In the 3rd dormitoryRGTU on the 2nd floor with 
1991, an unofficial company operated
on the assembly of "Sinclairs". Pasha worked there
Yulin, now an installer atGlobus. Total 
there were three people. They collected and sold
a couple hundred "Pentagon 48K". Boards, cases
and keyboards were purchased at the market in Moscow,
immediately in the form of sets in cellophane. It was
unknown origin black rough
the body, which they specially finished
under the keyboard. Not a Profi case. Com─
pewters,corresponding to this description,
I didn't see it. But I saw Nikolai Medvedev
funny resemblance to the branded black box─
ki, but with a rectangular arrangement of the cylinders─
vish.
   Then in Ryazan many people collected “Sinkle─
ry". In particular, the aforementioned Roma Bo─ 
Risov and my cousin Andrey made 
own computers then.
   Moreover, Andrey got it on the first try─
This is a sample of a poorly etched board, where
The width of the tracks along their length varied according to
twice and they fell off when touched─
Venia. Not only boards were sold, but also
captured in Moscow or printed at that time
the best equipment in Ryazan"SAMA", but also
outright handicraft. But artisanal - not
always means bad: Ldir's father is from─
prepared the Leningrad board, which worked
with modifications up to2003 - if it was
the same computer that I got from him─
Tal.
   Around1991 I first saw
game room (with computers, not machines─
Tami) - from River Raid on Atari and Freddy
Hardest on ZX Spectrum. Freddy Hardest 
By that time I already had a home, on the lane─
howl to the cassette, and without the intro
cartoon. And this gaming room (in the store
on the street Chernovitskaya) also remembers Slash.
   John Silver remembers the store"Elect─
Rosha" in Dashki, where they sold cassettes with
games. He saw his first games live on
Spectrum from cousin Roma, this 
there was Tai Combat and Saboteur.

Cyberdaemon: 
In1991-92y. in Pesochnya, in"House Garden Wow─
genus"were homemade Spectrums. Like this one─
I remember an hour ago, the most hit games are Bomb Jack
and Exolon.They were kicked out when they were replaced 
sellers of VCRs and TV came─
visors - the most popular technology of that time
menu.

Dmitry Devyatkin: 
   At the moment when the vouchers were issued,
my cousin came to visit me from 
Izhevsk Ivan Popov, who is active there
collected and sold Spectrums. They have it there 
almost an industrial workshop was 
collecting them. So, my brother bought from us at 
radio market case from some phone withwith the words “I solder 48K in it”))). He's my friend─ 
pewter made in a case from some owl─ 
This large calculator is programmable─ 
my. It was very convenient) When I go to 
to my parents, I’ll try some photos from that period─ 
Yes, look - suddenly there is a date on them. 

   I continued to study BASIC. Feeling the weight─
the possibilities of a raster screen, I became a painter─
create fonts through PLOT (invented the font
3x3), then through DATA.  When I mastered
DATA, I felt so pumped up
that he tried to write his font to ROM. And
I was very surprised that there was nothing from─
has changed :)
   I had my own cassette, which I
one after another I recorded the games “Point”, “Pi─
tone", "Jump over the stone" (by mochi─ 
to you Bruce Lee), minidem "Riding Car"
and the one-line game "Dot the i". Also
there were a couple of pictures in Art Studio, one
of which I remember - it was a pink cat.

   In addition, I drew cartoons on the block─
notes, notebooks and tear-off calendars.
This was inspired by Kotenochkin’s article in
"Funny pictures" and TV show "Myself 
director himself." I had yes in my notebooks─
the whole series "Climbing onpin." To
Unfortunately, some of the notebooks are lost, the rest─
there were only one or two cartoons.
   Also together with my neighbor Seryozha Suitcase─
you (he had a "Delta", and before that, ka─ 
married, "Partner") and classmate Andrey
Ionkin (he had something similar to 
"Didactic") we played "Hippod racing─ 
rom" which I wrote on the computer Ion─ 
kina. I transferred the idea of the game from Radio-8bRK, to 
in the future I planned to move the game from there
"President" in the form of a "Governor" with a leash─ 
some way to Ryazan realities, but things didn’t work out.
We cut "money" from pieces of paper (in our
in the yard there were also gaming "money" from
tea packages from a nearby tea-packing station
factories) and made bets. And save─
it didn’t work on Ionkin’s computer, but
this is why I typed the program out of order every time─
in. (I did the same at home with the program,
imitating a piano - sometimes I introduced it
even with the monitor turned off to give birth─
The bodies did not suspect. I only had
hour of allowed computer time per
day!)
   "Delta" by Sergei Chemodanov was connected─
to a color TV. For him I'm on─
I took a simple graphic editor in BASIC─
torus "Drawing point". As far as I understand,
many editors have done this. For example,
another neighbor Sergei Galishnikov. Or not─
a prominent citizen who was erased by blacks
lines of the screensaver of the first part of Dizzy, which─
I then restored and painted it
manually.But that was already in disk times─
on, about which below.
   One day the three of us tried to film on ki─
but Ionkin's camera his version of the cartoon
about the adventures of captainVrungel. I was
production designer. Some drawing─
ki have been preserved. We cut the shapes into cha─
sti and tried to use the switch method─
dki. This is a terrible method because the figures
bend and fly apart at the slightest breath─
niya, but the result is far from rice─
bathroom animation. But we tried. True,
already during development it became clear that on the film
nothing is visible - due to lack of light
filming
   Another time I made Io on the computer─
Nkina animation with a dogPluto pseudo-graphics 
in BASIC. Then Ionkin filmed it
from the screen - and this time it worked.

   All this led me to the idea of writing─
Institute of animation editor in BASIC. I'm here─
lal such an editor, with magnification4 times
and storing frames in the form of8x4 pieces of symbols─
font capture. A real increase in BASIC would
didn't work, so the user started
work with an empty frame, edited od─
at the same time an enlarged copy and a working one, and
I made a new frame from an old one. Back wind
it was impossible. At first I wanted to call this one
masterpiece"Notebook" (notepad, from cartoons to
notebooks), but then changed his mind and called
"Animator" (see ACNews #53). 

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   In December1993 I sent my
animation editor in writing on some language─
family competition. The text of the program was written by
there by hand. And he sent the version with op─
dew of keys not throughINKEY$ (as it was from─
initial), and throughIN.
I learned the addresses of the keyboard ports from
another student of our school Kolya Medvedev
(Nick), to whom he gave the note through Che─ 
Modanova. Personally, I didn’t know him then, Chemo─ 
Danov called him "Nikolai Trofimovich." 
What I knew about him - he skipped─
I got through the class (5th, I think), having passed the exam─
replacement with an external one. It was close to me, but
how long have I been after six months of studying at
first grade moved to second.
   What I didn’t take into account is that the most significant bits of the ports
keyboards on different computers may
be in different states. And I’m not their masks─
dug. Therefore (or maybe for some other reason)
for some reason) the organizers of the competition were unable to
gli run my program, although praise─
Lily - Nick told me about this later, co─
where we met in person in the fall1994─
yes. In general, there were programs at the competition
for different platforms, at least one per
level of drawing a snowman with circles, o
what I heard on the radio.

   I was already wondering what other
There are programming languages, and I tried
get into the bootloaders via theBREAK button.
On the preserved sheet with the same pink
cat (see above) there are bytes of machine code
some kind of bootloader. I read the content
memory with one-line loops in BASIC,
which again I typed every time for─
new. The only manual available to me─
according to machine codes yours was in the form of a small one─
What kind of yellow book with the AK emblem on the cover?
and a bunch of typos inside. It told
about the ZX Spectrum 16K and how to do it on it
machine code editor (not assembler code).
As far as I remember, the typed example is not ra─
nerd. My father and I bought this book for ra─
di market. There was also a blue book from the publisher─
flattery "Solon" with descriptions of prog languages─
framing and book with multi-colored cover─
zhoy publishing house"VA Print" about the computer─
ary graphics. And another Soviet book about
computer graphics with computers1980
year and someunprinted pages─
tsami.
   So I only masteredLDIR.

   In the same 1993, my father assembled a new
Pentagon-48 - already with a disk drive. It was 
a circuit board that had half of it
similar to the old one, and the second half is new─
small Beta 128 disk interface and parallel
interface on BBSS (which we never
used).The halves were separated from each other
from a friend with an earthen bus, so connect everything─
disagreements between them, wires were made─
mi.
   This computer was again located in the polo─
wink of the chessboard. For his keyboard
I had to disassemble the Radio-8bRK keyboard.
The drive5305 was dragged from somewhere unknown─
yes, it was clearly used: every time it
had to read the disk, had to manually
push its rotating part. Then I
I tried to remove this part and broke it completely.
And my father brought another drive of the same type, but
no problem anymore. Although, however, there was a trial─
Lema. In the computer itself: the power itself─
there was not enough efficient power supply for anyone─
Computer and disk drive. At any time of access
everything could hang to the disk to death. Nem─
It helped a lot if you held your hand on the body─
ce drive.

   But my father and I still managed to
1993 to make a disk version of iS-CHESS
48 with a picture. 



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          (original by K. Moshkin 
   with cubes instead of chess, see the book
   L. A. Rastrigina"By chance").

   This began a series of disk versions─
this, which then only I did - from to─
with the power of manual resaving, Tape utility
copy, and then Rodionov's PCOPIER. For─ 
I didn’t know how to break shields, but they are on our vehicles─
there were no sets.
   I remember trying to make a monoloader
via PEEK in the TR-DOS BASIC interface. Not
The first sector was loaded. Father said that I
far from"Serge Moscow" (we had a dis─
a new version of something with a monoloader and above─
writing"Disked by Serge Moscow" ).
 Then we went to the radio market again
and bought books from the publishing house"Peter":"ZX
Spectrum for users and programmers─
tov" (1st edition) and"Basic dialects". 
This was already a really useful read.
We got all the necessary programs, and I started
learn assembler (my experiments with
fonts nowalready in Art Studio, father
for some reason I thought it was a pointless waste of time─
me).  But my first attempt to write
shifting the screen to the left didn't work either
as well as an attempt to write an analogue of a pocket
games "Well, wait a minute!"  (I had one like this since
Mickey Mouse - and not only for me, see in─
Sergio's interview in this issue) viaRST 16.
Something was missing in the books - how wrong─
live.

Cyberdaemon: 
 The first time I was on the radio market was zi─
mine1992year, when I already had "Sink─ 
ler".Then, I guess, it was the heyday of the tor─ 
govli. Entrance there was always paid. (Ed.:
in Moscow at the Mitinsky market at least in 
1994 there was a paid entrance:http://tushinec.ru/
index.php?link=forum&f=43&t=3313&page=1
They also paid for entrance in St. Petersburg on 
"Juno".)Ticket price for sellers was
significantly higher.
 For some reason, right awayI remembered the colorful
a character who was given a nickname on the market
"Little Red Riding Hood" (in the cold season 
he wore a red knitted sports hat─
pke). This was a participant in one of the Ryazan
Official criminal group that collected tribute from sellers on
radio market. Often came with several
"friends". Later, when the market had already arrived
in decline, more often appeared alone.
Somewhere in98-99I accidentally met him in Yes─ 
shocked and was very surprised. Because by this time─
all members of the organized crime group were either 'cut out' or
planted.
And in Radika,immediately after the central
input, left, inlobby, there was a shop co─
computer literature in the second half
90s.

Crutch: 
   All specific literature is only there and
was, much later appeared in"Barca".In 
other stores were pop slag. Everything 
interesting fromRadik,that does not concern academics─ 
I mean, these are dorms. And the place for parties making 
something not only for yourself - the radio market. 
Those who graduated from Radik (and not onlyRa─
Dick), in the early 90s they opened shops.
I remember Kuker, he seems to be the only one 
there was someone who took Spect made by him─ 
rooms when buying a new one. Then I switched to 
PC, but he accepted his Sinclairs even then. 
He is from Ukraine and, they say, studied atRadik
years8(probably mowed down, already from Ukrainian 
Sun). 
   Kuker lived in the first radik dorm, in ug─
lava room (at the crossroads) at the last 
floor. At the radio market I stood on the left at the entrance 
to the stage. Left (graduated)in1997y. He 
I started actively studying from the 128th Pentago─ 
new, he also collected 48s and then took them away 
for an upgrade. It was cheaper to upgrade─ 
idk, why take a new one, but he only took 
of your assembly. Made in Corvette buildings─ 
sah with a keyboard on a wire. Then I hooked it 
PC keyboards. Boards from Moscow, I think 
and several people in the dorm soldered. 

Cyberdaemon: 
   I have seen Kuker many times. I bought from not─
go (besides computers, he also sold literature─ 
swarm on Spectrum). He had a partner, no 
I know his name. He mainly traded 
related products on the market. One day 
I was with Misha (Crutch) at Kuker's 
dorm, in the holy of holies - his room. Not 
I remember exactly, but Misha bought something from him 
that day.