Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

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Symoon
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Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Symoon »

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone reading this forum lives in Cambridge, UK?

Here's why: I've been looking for Zorgons Revenge demo tape for a while now, and it appears a museum in Cambridge has the tape. I got in touch with them: they can't lend it and don't have the time to make a WAV file of it, but I've been offered to do it myself if I could visit them, or anyone from the Oric world.
As I live in France, I wondered if anyone nearby would have some spare time and would accept the mission to go there and make a WAV file of the tape, so we could make a TAP file of it and share it with Oricians?

If not I could try and go there some day, but I don't really enjoy travelling anymore - rather a painful moment for me now.

Cheers!
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by ibisum »

I have friends I Cambridge who might do it .. which museum is it, and what are the contact details?
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Steve M »

Jon Haworth was there. Not heard from him for a few years.
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Symoon »

ibisum wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2019 3:05 pm I have friends I Cambridge who might do it .. which museum is it, and what are the contact details?
Thanks a lot for your help ;)
Here's the museum location details:
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/page ... o-Find-Us/
From memory they are open Wednesday to Sunday

It seems they sold one copy on Ebay recently (tried to contact the buyer, to no avail), but they assure me they still have one if it's listed in their collection.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ORIC-48K-Software-Bu ... 3277387218

I'll PM you more details if one of your friends seems OK to volunteer ;)
Baz, on Atari Sector Forum, also agreed to try, but doesn't know when he can go there right now.
http://atari.boards.net/thread/3421/near-cambridge-uk
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Chema »

It would be great. I had never heard about a demo of Zorgons...
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Symoon »

Amazing... Here it is :D :D :D
https://www.oric.org/software/zorgons_r ... -2486.html
zorgdemo_screenshot.png
zorgdemo_screenshot.png (2.67 KiB) Viewed 19647 times
With mega thanks to the following for this transfer in July 2019:
- Tape spotted at The Centre for Computing History, Cambridge UK, where Harriet O'Rourke was very kind offering us to visit them to record the tape.
- Ibisum asked his friend Marc if he could go there, after I asked on Defence-Force forum if anyone was living in Cambridge
- Recording made by Marc, who kindly went to the Centre to make a WAV file of the tape for us :-)
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by ibisum »

Awesome! Glad it worked out - and good to know we've got a man in Cambridge for future reference. I think we might also have converted him to retro- computing along the way while we're at it ..
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Chema »

Incredible finding! Congratulations and big thanks to everyone involved!
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Dbug »

Very nice :)

Shows again that IJK had quite a good business sense :)
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Symoon »

Dbug wrote: Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:54 pmShows again that IJK had quite a good business sense :)
Indeed - at least for sending demos for the shops!
This teaser screen is actually there because... The auto-run mode took some RAM and the last screen didn't fit in the Oric memory anymore ;)
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by iss »

Congrats for the great teamwork!
Looking inside the TAP file there is an interesting part of assembler source:

Code: Select all

LDA#1:TAY:JSR REG:SOUNOUT RTS
DIESET LDA DEAD:BNE DOUT:LDA#&E8:STA4:STA DIES:LDA#1:STA5:STA DIES+1:LDA#2:STA3: \
JSR OSOUND:LDX#7:LDY#253:JSR REG:LDA MPOS+1:STA1:LDA MPOS+2:STA2:LDA#64:STA3:LDA#4:STA5:LDA#92:STA6: \
JSR Rub:
DOUT RTS
...
DIE LDA#2:STA3:LDA DIES:CLC:ADC#50:STA DIES:STA4
Q: Which tool was used :?:

And one more thing: demo tape doesn't work in Oricutron (tried both Oric-1/Atmos) - the title and menu screens "understand" key presses but not the game. Does anyone else has the same problem?
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Dbug »

https://www.oric.org/magazine/ceomag-168.html

"For your info, both Xenon and Zorgon were cross-assembled and downloaded to the Oric using a BBC micro with a torch disk drive unit."
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by iss »

Dbug wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:53 pm...
Thanks! Ceomag-168/April 2004 = Great memory, Dbug. :)
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by Symoon »

iss wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:46 pm Congrats for the great teamwork!
Looking inside the TAP file there is an interesting part of assembler source:
Q: Which tool was used :?:
If all goes well, you should have the answer and many other in the CEO-Mag in September :D
Ok, no stupid teasing; from what John Sinclair himself could remember: "We used the parallel port on both machines and a little boot loader."
And one more thing: demo tape doesn't work in Oricutron (tried both Oric-1/Atmos) - the title and menu screens "understand" key presses but not the game. Does anyone else has the same problem?
Hey, that's a demo, intended to auto-run in shops - so no interactivity beside the initial settings ;)
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Re: Zorgons Revenge demo: anyone near Cambridge, UK?

Post by iss »

Symoon wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:08 pm Hey, that's a demo, intended to auto-run in shops - so no interactivity beside the initial settings ;)
Oops, my mind is still on the sea beach :oops:
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