Wizball Shrine/Paul Hughes/Hidden messages

[Mark Jones Junior]

According to the Wizball Shrine:
marticus.midnightrealm.org/wiz/misc.html

there was a message in the code of the C64 version for would be hackers from Paul Hughes, does he remember??

"HELLO THERE HACKER ! ... WHAT ARE YOU DOING ? TRYING TO BREAK IN ... THIS PROGRAM ISN'T GULLABLE TO YOUR LIMITED 6502 CAPABILITIES !!! LOTSALUV PAUL H, MASTER OF THE CIA ! "

"Master of the CIA !"?? Come on Paul, you worked at OCEAN!!

Anyone else put any hidden messages in any of their work?

I did. If I did a loading screen on the Spectrum and I had some spare space, I'd draw something daft then cover it over with black ink and black paper. Try looking at my loading screens with no ink on them. There's all sorts of rubbish in there.(Try 'Magmax', 'Wizball', 'Gryzor', 'TaiPan', 'Vindicator', 'Mutants', 'Arkanoid II' and'Dragoninja', they all don't have stuff on but most do)

Also, In the Speccy version of 'Dragonninja' I wrote BTF on the side of the trains. It stood for 'Bugged To Fuck'.

Oh and when I was working on the ill fated 1st version of 'Total Recall' with the ming mongs who were 'Active Minds' (HA! The 2 wallies who run it had anything BUT active minds) on my first day I was asked to do some mock up screens for a magazine. I did it but included, in the objects Arnie had supposedly picked up, a used Tampon, complete with dripping blood. I also wrote the word 'Cumcumber' on one of the walls. Both just to see if they would get printed.

And they did! Except the screen with the Tampon on had mysteriously changed colour so that the blood was now green.

What a wag I was

[fgasking]

Pretty much any game with Paul's freeloader has a hidden message of somekind. Just as the loader kicks in, if you break the program and go into Monitor, there's usually a nice message

Btw Mark, Did you work on the C64 version of Total Recall V1?.... I've already spoken to Simon Butler about the piece of trash, but i've been trying to find remains of it .. being the sadist I am

[Mark Jones Junior]

No I was only involved in the Spectrum version. The only thing that survived though that I made was the Total Recall screen that dissolves down into the bottom of the screen on the title page.

[Swainy]

Mark, some of the graphics seen in the previews of the Speccy version of Dragon Ninja appear to be different to the final version, were they just mock ups?

[Paulie]

Yo Marky,

Firstly, oh my god how embarrsing - in my defence I was only 18 at the time!!! Ahem!

The CIA wasn't to do with "criminal investigation" it was the MOS 6525 Complex Interface Adapter chip on the 64 that dealt with timer interrupts (amongst other stuff) - I did all sorts of crazy stuff with it to lock up Freeze Free and Expert Cartridge.

IIRC Dave Collier mentioned something about a *really* sweary message that was found in Gilligans Gold on the 64 - there was some cock up with the loader and it used to display the message thinking you'd hacked it... Apparently they had to be recalled and a big car breaker's electro magnet dropped on 'em.

Finally... Oh my god, how embarassing....

- Paulie.

[Mark Jones Junior]

Swainy said:

Mark, some of the graphics seen in the previews of the Speccy version of Dragon Ninja appear to be different to the final version, were they just mock ups?

I can't really remember. Cos Bill Harbison did some of the graphics too. I think I just did some backgrounds. But what I do remember was that the programmer couldn't get it scrolling fast enough so he replaced what I made for the skyline with a plain black block. It looked rubbish but stopped the graphics from flickering.

[Mark Jones Junior]

Mark said:

Oh and when I was working on the ill fated 1st version of 'Total Recall' with the ming mongs who were 'Active Minds' (HA! The 2 wallies who run it had anything BUT active minds) on my first day I was asked to do some mock up screens for a magazine. I did it but included, in the objects Arnie had supposedly picked up, a used Tampon, complete with dripping blood. I also wrote the word 'Cumcumber' on one of the walls. Both just to see if they would get printed.

And they did! Except the screen with the Tampon on had mysteriously changed colour so that the blood was now green.

Oh I was wrong about the blood dripping! Here they are, *guffaw guffaw* what a wag I WAS!:

www.MyPhotosHub.com/is.php?i=7705&img=TotalRecallSCRA.jpg

www.MyPhotosHub.com/is.php?i=7706&img=2397TotalRecallSCRA.jpg

[Bill Harbison]

What a find that was.

[Mark Jones Junior]

Is Bill being sarky?

[Bill Harbison]

No!!!

[Mark Jones Junior]

I've been trying to play 'Wizball' on an emulator ('zx32' on the PC and 'Fuse' or 'zxsp' on the Mac) and on each of them, after a while, the middle of the play area disapears. It didn't used to do it on real Spectrums. Any idea how to stop this? If someone finished it on an emulator there must be a way to stop it. You can see the sprites and backgrounds sometimes but very flickery.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Playing it now after all these years it's really not a bad little game. I think I let my memories of working with the programmer cloud my judgement.

I found myself screaming at the screen each time I died and had amassed a wealth of power ups! Surely if it was as sh*t as I thought I wouldn't do that, I'd just give up!

[Enigma]

You could always try and use a decent emulator LOL

Have a look at either Klive, EmuZWin 2, ZX Spin or Spectaculator.

you can get Klive from Zophar's Domain

www.zophar.net/index.phtml

EmuZWin 2 from

bonanzas.rinet.ru/apps/EmuZWin_Eng.htm

ZX Spin from

www.zxspin.co.uk/

and Spectaculator from

www.spectaculator.com

I think that spectaculator is the best one out of these but it's shareware. It doesn't cost that much though and once you have bought it, you get lifetime updates for nothing.

Thanks

[Mark Jones Junior]

Tried ZXSpin and the flickering is even WORSE! Cheers though.

[Paulie]

Thumbs up for Spectaculator - I had an old version that just supported 48K games, but bought the latest version with 128 support and its spot on - right down to colour splits on Uridium and the border scroll in The Sentinel.

Dunno if anyone remembers - but Jobbee was writing a spectrum emulator for the ST just after he finished Chase HQ - that would've been about 1989!

Damn smart lad...