

ZX Spectrum and loaders, part 1 - mmaly
http://www.uelectronics.info/2015/03/21/zx-spectrum-and-loaders-part-one/

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userbinator
_' The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly' by Dr. Ian Logan and Dr. Frank
O'Hara, as published by Melbourne House in 1983_

The fact that they could publish a book like that is a nice reminder of how
much the environment surrounding copyright/IP has changed since then... try to
do that with the BIOS/firmware of a modern system today and, the issue of it
being many times bigger aside, you'd probably just get DMCA'd.

I suppose companies back then were just far more open about and approving of
users knowing how their systems worked; there's a similar book for the C64
([http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Commodore-Disassembly-
Peter-G...](http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Commodore-Disassembly-Peter-
Gerrard/dp/0715618350/) ), and IBM even published the BIOS source code for its
PC.

~~~
delhanty
Yes, it was a very different environment. Here's one for the BBC Micro:

[http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6637/BASIC%20ROM%20Us...](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6637/BASIC%20ROM%20User%20Guide/)

From other details on the page, it looks like the publisher, Adder Publishing,
had the tacit approval of the manufacturer Acorn.

Disclaimer: the author is a personal friend.

~~~
beagle3
Said manufacturer Acorn later designed their own CPUs, and spun off a
subsidiary called "Acorn Risc Machines" to market those chips, later renamed
ARM. You people may have heard of them....

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jacquesm
The contrast between the code on the page and the fact that the page contains
multiple megabytes of content (including the embedded video) is a nice
reminder that you can do a lot with a little if you try hard enough.

Makes you wonder what you could squeeze out of present day machines if you
used them as efficiently as you pretty much had to in the 80's.

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vizzah
nice..

that loading sound is forever in my heart :) i couldn't load anything on my zx
due to untuned cassette player (which months later when I grew older was fixed
with a simple screw turning ;).. so had no other choice but to learn how to
program something of my own.

and bill gilbert is apparently still cracking speccy games =)
[http://zxbg.blogspot.com/](http://zxbg.blogspot.com/)

------
mmaly
Here is the part two: [http://www.uelectronics.info/2015/03/24/zx-spectrum-
and-load...](http://www.uelectronics.info/2015/03/24/zx-spectrum-and-loaders-
part-two/)

