Missing in Action titles recovered for VIC-20 + ZX Spectrum

[fgasking]

Taking a break from unreleased games, i've instead preserve a series of titles that were 'Missing In Action'. Includes a long lost #ZXSpectrum utility and a few #VIC20 games not yet archived (including some that are). Enjoy!

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2024/12 ... ervations/

It is with a huge thank you to Andy Spencer and the team at Retro Computer Museum in Leicester for the very kind loan of the tapes to preserve. A fantastic place to visit and I highly recommend if you are based in the UK: https://retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkStpTmifE[/youtube]

[srowe]

Thanks for sharing these.

I see that some of the .tap files might have errors. I've a bunch of Python scripts I can analyse them with, I might be able to fix them.

[fgasking]

No problem, and thank you for taking a look! A few of the tapes had issues, even after multiple attempts and using different tape decks - so I just included the best versions I could for now. I think a few of the tapes had just degraded too much.

[srowe]

I've gone through these and recovered what I can. There are some taps that seem incomplete, and various other problems:

• Boggle - side 1 two copies, first ?UNDEFINED STATEMENT IN 350, second different VIC address, missing UDGs?; side 2 ok
• Breaker - two copies of loader (start $02BC), another header but no data.
• BugByte (Another Vic In The Wall) - Loader OK, main copies differ (1 byte @ $0A6E), second copy looks correct.
• Compile - both copies OK
• Desert - OK
• Hyperstriker - both sides OK
• Indy500 - OK
• Inkosi - OK
• Logbook - OK
• Nibbler - side 1 OK; side 2 RHINO OK, BOUNCY corrupt start address & end of program, recovered
• Pascal - side 1 OK but trailing junk; side 2 corrupt, manually recovered
• Pegasus - side 1 OK; side 2 SPACE RESCUE from "Computer Space" with typos (inc. syntax errors), recovered LANDER
• Punchy - side 1 corrupt; side 2 OK
• SkyHop - side 1 loader OK, main program missing; side 2 program truncated, missing subroutines at end
• Thunderflash - side 1 OK, side 2 a copy
• Tornado - Tape fastloader, no instructions

[fgasking]

That is fantastic! Thank you so much for checking through and making fixes where you could.
I'll add a quick update to the page with credit to yourself!

I think some of the tapes had just sadly decayed too much, but I have all the multiple DMP files that I made if they would be of interest/use (the ones I uploaded were just the best quality ones I had managed to create). They haven't been re-labelled in some cases though.