Resources

From ZX Magazine

Game archives

Most Czechoslovak games that are discussed in the book can be found in one or more of the following fan archives, depending on the platform and/or genre. Some of the archives might also contain Western copyrighted material, but all of them are safe fan-run websites, not illegal “warez” pages. Pre-1990 Czechoslovak games were released as freeware. You will able to get most of these games as either snapshots (contents of RAM) or tape/disk images, both of which you will able to run with a respective emulator.

Emulators

Emulators are programs that recreate old machines in a software environment. Most of the popular 8-bit platforms of the 1980s can be easily emulated today. Most emulators are open source, and their user-friendliness varies. To use some of them, you need to have basic user knowledge of the original computer. FUSE, however, is quite straightforward.

  • FUSE – A very solid ZX Spectrum emulator for most modern platforms
  • ZXDS – If you have a Nintendo DS with a flash cart, you can turn it into a ZX Spectrum with this fantastic emulator written by one of my informants, Patrik Rak. It might take some time to set up, but it is one of the best ways of playing ZX Spectrum games today
  • Altirra – Possibly the best emulator of 8-bit Atari computers
  • MZ-800 Emulator – A reliable Czech emulator of the Sharp machine. However, you must pay the registration fee of 150 CZK to be able to seriously use it.
  • Sharp MZ-800 Emulator – A fresh new emulator, which is less user-friendly, but free
  • VICE – A great emulator of the Commodore 64
  • PMD 85 Emulator – An ambitious emulator of the Tesla PMD 85

Remakes

  • Jet-Story 2018 – a remake/sequel of Cybexlab’s 1988 Jet-Story, made by the original author, is now available on Steam

Publication archives

If you read Czech or Slovak (Polish might also help), here are some fan archives of newsletters and other publications from Czechoslovak computer clubs of the 1980s.

  • CALP (Czech Atari Literature Preservation) – An immense archive of materials from various Atari clubs
  • Softhouse – The website houses scans of some seminal 1980s brochures and books.
  • The Sam Coupé page – Alongside a lot of material about the SAM Coupé computer, it hosts a massive number of Czechoslovak documents related to 8-bit machines.
  • ZX Magazine – The official pages of the now defunct (or paused) magazine host some of the 1989 issues of the fanzine/magazine.
  • Moj Mikro – Scans of the Yugoslavian home computing magazine

Miscellaneous collections

  • Facebook page dedicated to the fantastic work of Karel Bucháček, the amateur street photographer whose work is featured in the book
  • Gallery of ZX Spectrum loading screen art by M. Stawicki (whose work is discussed in the Chapter 5 of my book)
  • Ex-YU Racunalniska Scena – A rich archive documenting the Yugoslavian home computing scene

Other research projects

  • Play It Again – A fantastic online archive of Australasian digital heritage, headed by Melanie Swalwell
  • Got Papers – Archive of magazines, letters and postcards from the 1980s/1990s European cracker and demo scenes