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What Those ZX Spectrum Loading Noises Actually Meant

The film's page has its chapters, every source, the code and the full transcript: What Those ZX Spectrum Loading Noises Actually Meant.

Sources and credits for the film. Every fact in the narration is tied to a quotation from a captured source; every image, clip and piece of music is listed with its licence and where it came from. Archive images and footage are openly licensed or used for commentary, criticism and historical analysis. Maps, charts and diagrams were made for this film from the cited sources.

Images and footage (28)

  • CRASH issue 44 (September 1987), page 46 of Richard Eddy's 'The One David': David Aubrey-Jones photographed, with the paragraphs on Speedlock: 'I'd been getting more and more frustrated because of the time the standard one took', Speedlock first used on Daley Thompson's Decathlon, and the countdown's 'time to brew a cuppa'
    CRASH 44 (Newsfield, September 1987). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): CRASH 44 (Newsfield, September 1987); recorded by Retro Computer TV. Source
  • Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984), Day 1 tape, loading at real speed on a 48K Spectrum: two BASIC blocks at normal speed, the Speedlock clicking leader, a black, then white border through the silence the loader measures, cyan for a second as the next leader starts, thin blue and yellow stripes for the fast data, the loading screen appearing when its colours arrive, then the game's menu
    Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean Software, 1984) by Paul Owens and Christian Urquhart. Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean Software, 1984) by Paul Owens and Christian Urquhart; recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983) loading from its tape at real speed on a 48K Spectrum, from the copyright screen: red and cyan stripes for each pilot tone, blue and yellow for the data, the flashing MANIC / MINER loading screen in colour only, then the title screen with its piano
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983) by Matthew Smith. Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983) by Matthew Smith; recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner (Bug-Byte) just after loading: the title screen with its piano keyboard and the Blue Danube, ENTER pressed, then the Central Cavern with Miner Willy and In the Hall of the Mountain King playing
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983) by Matthew Smith. Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983) by Matthew Smith; recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • The Ocean cassette inlay of Daley Thompson's Decathlon (1984)
    Ocean Software, 1984. unknown. Source
  • Close-up of a compact cassette: the tape guides, the leader tape and the pressure pad
    theilr / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0. CC BY-SA 2.0. Source
  • A portable mono cassette recorder of the kind used with home computers (Tensai CRE-113)
    Kecko / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0. CC BY 4.0. Source
  • Matthew Smith, the author of Manic Miner
    Jontintinjordan / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0. CC BY-SA 3.0. Source
  • A ZX Spectrum 48K, rubber keys, seen from above at an angle
    Bill Bertram / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.5. CC BY-SA 2.5. Source
  • A Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, close view of its keyboard
    Nico Kaiser from München, Germany / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. CC BY 2.0. Source
  • Manic Miner at the end of its load, 3:11.61 into the tape: the MANIC screen and the loading border, from the stored run (the closing montage last frame)
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • The Spectrum restarted after Decathlon Day 1 loaded with one bit of its main block inverted: the copyright screen (Speedlock 1 restarts instead of reporting an error; own-7-12)
    ZX Spectrum 48K ROM (Sinclair Research, 1982); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): ZX Spectrum 48K ROM (Sinclair Research, 1982); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner's tape as three files of two blocks; one header's parts and its 19 bytes; the first header loading at real speed until 'Program: ManicMiner' appears
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner loading: the screen at real speed, then one frame's right border magnified beside the EAR signal for the same moments: edge, pulse = stripe, cycle, bit
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • A zero cycle and a one cycle; a header's pilot with the ROM's wait, its 256-cycle count and the rest from the stored run; the tape's six pilots; the sync pulses and first data bits
    Retro Computer TV. Own work.
  • Place values to 255 and ; one byte every 3.9 and 7.8 ms; , and repeated at the ROM's timings (made for the film); Manic Miner's 10,285 zero bytes
    Retro Computer TV. Own work.
  • Manic Miner's BASIC listing; the MANIC/MINER screen with one colour cell magnified; the paper and ink phases drawn from the tape's 256 colour bytes; the colours' block loading at real speed
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner's main block filling memory from 32768, regions named as they arrive; Matthew Smith's source text arriving at real speed; the run; the caverns; random bytes against Manic Miner's
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • The EAR input path; the ROM's edge loop measuring the first bit of the byte for 34188 pass by pass; every count of the main block; bits collecting into bytes with the running check
    ZX Spectrum 48K ROM (Sinclair Research, 1982); Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): ZX Spectrum 48K ROM (Sinclair Research, 1982); Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • The byte for 34188: its sixteen pulses, slowed with clicks at its edges, the ROM's eight counts, the store filling from the right, and Manic Miner's own sound loop using the number
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Damaged copies of Manic Miner's signal, each its own run: a flipped bit and its loading error, the check as eight columns, shortened pulses, a spike in the wait, a lost edge and its 19,298 wrong bytes
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Manic Miner started from the copy with two matched changes: 'central Cavern', with the original tape's 'Central Cavern' beside it
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Decathlon's tape record (Speedlock 1); its clicking pilot at real speed; the ROM's count in a run of its own and Speedlock's count on the same pilot; the DALEY BASIC; the hidden loader unscrambled; the two sampling loops; the pulse lengths
    Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Speedlock's 7-bit code; the first block and its silent gap with the border from the run; 255 counting windows; the one-second gap's rejection and restart; four gaps compared; the picture loading hidden then revealed; the wipe and the jump
    Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Decathlon's big block timed with Speedlock and with the ROM's timings (the same 725 bytes heard both ways); whole tapes side by side with their counters
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • The closing montage at original speed: Decathlon's clicking pilot and its silent gap, then Manic Miner's pilot, a header's name, MANIC/MINER, the tunes, the source text and the Final Barrier, each from its stored run; then the tune byte's sixteen pulses counted
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • Cold open: Manic Miner's main block arriving at real speed with the MANIC/MINER screen and the signal beneath, held on one zero cycle and one one cycle; a burst of Decathlon's clicking pilot
    Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984). Fair dealing (criticism, review, quotation): Manic Miner (Bug-Byte, 1983); Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Ocean, 1984); recorded by Retro Computer TV.
  • 256 bytes of zeros and 256 bytes of ones saved with the ROM's timings and loaded by the ROM: memory cells lit as each byte is stored, on a common 2-second ruler; the payload's own signal
    Retro Computer TV. Own work.

Music (12)

Sources (23)