This week, a ZX Spectrum game (again) in an album by the Yugoslav group ITD BBB, Skidam Te Pogledom.
Instead of repeating all the previous articles each time, I’ll refer you to the dedicated page, which explains what I do with vinyl records and lists all the pages containing programs, explanations, etc.
I could tell you I found a signed copy, but no: it’s the original print
To start, I bought the cassette of the album Skidam Te Pogledom by the Yugoslav group ITD BBB. And I had quite a few problems, quite oddly. While cassettes generally work quite well, with this one… impossible (or almost). There is indeed a game at the end of the second side, but I couldn’t manage to convert the audio file into a usable file in an emulator with my usual tools. In any case, after the usual manipulations (filters, amplification, etc.), I couldn’t obtain usable data.
The cassette
In desperation, I tried something that sometimes works: loading the WAV directly into the emulator (Fuse for Mac)… and it worked. I was even able to save everything as TZX, but in a somewhat unusual format. To put it simply, a TZX file usually contains standard data, but in this case, it contains raw data (ID15), and the file is therefore much larger (well, 681 KB instead of 13 KB…). And I couldn’t manage to convert this file (usable otherwise) into a more compact format.
The vinyl
The game is present
So, I bought the vinyl. It contains the same data, but I had a bit of trouble (once again) getting all the data. So I cheated a bit: I retrieved part of the audio from the cassette – which was recognized by my tools – and part of the data from the disc. And after a small cutting operation (I explained how it works in this article), I obtained a clean digital file. This trick works because data on the ZX Spectrum is usually divided into several blocks, preceded by a header that indicates the duration and name of the program.
The Game
The game is in Serbian, first off, and that doesn’t help. But basically: 6 and 7 allow you to turn (left and right), 1 and 2 to brake and accelerate. The first panel allows you to set your driving level (the difficulty, I suppose), between 1 and 4. Then you have to choose the number of laps, and then the presence (1) or absence (2) of obstacles. The game itself is not so easy: you have to turn at the right moment, by 45-degree angles, and take into account the relative position of the vehicle. Let me tell you right away, I’m really bad at it and the controls are quite unresponsive.
Title screen
Difficulty
Number of laps
Obstacles… or not
Without
With
