Project number: 322 (number in database). Original project name: Breakout Game. Development type or programming language: Assembly. Platform designed for/with: ZX81. Year of most recent major modification: 1983.
The ZX81 was an early home computer, released in 1981, and intended as a very cheap way to get started with computers. It had a Z80 processor and 1K (you read that right) of RAM, a membrane keyboard, a cassette tape for storage, and output video to a TV. I had the luxury of the 16K expansion pack, which gave it a million times less memory than my current Mac (which itself doesn't have a huge amount by modern standards).
Most people programmed this machine in BASIC, but that was too slow for games so I wrote the classic "Breakout" game in machine code, by poking hexadecimal values into memory. Now that's real programming!
The game was so fast it was unplayable, so I made the bat the whole width of the screen and let it clear all the bricks in about a second! To be able to play it, I introduced a massive loop to waste enough time between moves that the played could have some hope of winning.
If you need any further information about this project please contact me.
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