pouët.net

diver, SNA and Z80 are emulator demos, so, "Enhanced". If you don't like "Enhanced Spectrum" label let's call it "Custom Spectrum".

Prentend you are in a game store, you go to a ZX Spectrum shelf and buy a game with "ZX Spectrum 128K" written on it. Then you go home, put this thing in your ZX Spectrum 128K and it doesn't work. What will you do? Disassemble it? I suppose you'll return to the store to get your money back!

Pouet is a sort of demo store.

yeah, that demo doesn't work on my machine, how can i upload it back to pouet (lol, internet) please?

You get your money back by trolling the author, the releaser, admins, and everybody on Pouet, and then you are happy again.

Get a price from your local demo dealer. We voluntary provide for our customers a 30 day return policy for our regular demos and 1 hour return policy for BITS demos.

bonefish

i understand a_coder very well but i agree with you.





except that part of "normal sinclairs".

Of course, each category has to be big enough.

There is an uncomplete list of enhanced demos: http://zx-pk.ru/showthread.php?t=16744
Demos that don't work on ZX Evolution + NeoGS + TurboSound FM (i.e. DiHalt party machine) are marked with an asterisk.

Plus several General Sound cracktros: http://trd.speccy.cz/gs.php

Seriously?! If I transfer a 48K demo to SNA format and then lose the original tape, it suddenly becomes a demo for an enhanced/custom Spectrum? How does that system help anyone? It helps the person with a Speccy 128, no disk drive, no emulators, just a utility for converting TAP files to real tape. For everyone else, it makes the "enhanced / custom" category a meaningless jumble of demos with compatibility bugs, badly-archived demos, demos which need those extra 1000 cycles per frame, and a handful of demos for actual enhanced hardware like ZXEvo.


Yes, and my proposed scheme (= including all demos for standard Pentagon in the 128k category) avoids that discussion too. I realise that my scheme is not 100% rigorous and logical (I *know* that TurboSound is a true enhancement in a way that Pentagon timing is not, even if I can't formally define *why*), but it doesn't introduce any controversial / borderline cases, and it has the big advantage that it's close to what a layman would consider to be an "enhanced" machine.

@gasman, seriously. This is a categorization for releases, not for "maybes". Layman is not cracker.

i second for pentagon=128k.

Well, as we are categorizing zx demos, (maybe without noticing) we are searching for pure form of Zx Art, aren't we?

As with gasman's propsal, if we put pentagon and 128k in the same category, we, as sinclair sceners, recognize and establish "pentagon" as a pure and accepted form of zx demo along with official models 48 and 128k.

Sadly, pentagon hardware is not widely available outside of russia. This is the dilemma and spark point of discussion.

My vote goes to
128k != pentagon

Pentagon needs it's own category. The platform has enough demos and a large following. Or I am arsed to put pentagon into "enhanced" category if we must, due to uncontended hardware.

Verdict: 48/128/pentagon/other(enhanced/custom/whatever) totalling 4 categories.

what ref said.

Are you serious guys? Pentagon is a 128k clone, it was never intended to be "special" or "enhanced".. It is a variety of 128k speccy with some minor differences which are really only important for a coder, and not even noticeable to an average user. I never had a Pentagon but some different speccy clones and there were maybe 20 demos or so not running fine on these computers, most related to the multicolor timing which is different for each model anyway.

The only way I could see "Pentagon" as a viable category is if it represented all the TR-DOS demos from the post-Soviet countries. Even then the name would be misleading as many coders may have had used different models.

I understand from what you're comming, but... if it's a (any of) pentagon demo, and it will work badly (or won't work at all) on zx spectrum 128k/+2/+3, than it's NOT a zx spectrum 128k demo.

"128k" category means "zx spectrum 128k", not "all the computers similar to speccy that have 128k or more". if you need to specify that it's a pentagon demo, that itself is a fact that it won't work on zx spectrum 128k/+2a/+2b/+3.

also, just because pentagon is more popular than others clones, that doesn't give him a right to end up in 128k category, while others will end up in "enhanced".
if anything, that calls for a separate category for a pentagon.

anyhow, I'm becoming slightly tired with this discussion, so please feel free do what you want. maybe it's a really best to leave it at is, that way it's a loose-loose combination, no one "wins", and everybody will be happy.

Keep it simple, stupid.

My vote goes for:
*48k
*128k + clones like Pentagon, Scorpion
*Enhanced

Separating Pentagon from 128k is just like separating PAL NES from NTSC NES.

firm 128 spectrum and +2a/+2b/+3 have differences in timings and speed on other ram-pages - why this is one platform, and pentagon not? beta-disk - but with new esxdos you can run tr-dos formats from DIVide. only 3-4 demos really works only on pentagon, and all other works (maybe with some glitches) on 128k spectrum.

So, here is my vote:

- ZX Spectrum 48k;
- ZX Spectrum 128k (Pentagon included);
- ZX Spectrum Enhanced.

I second bonefish's opinion, related to the seperation 128/enhanced as well being tired of this lose-lose situation we appear to be stuck in.
Current categories worked in the past and will work just as good in the future - if a demo requires a special incarnation of the Spectrum it's usually mentioned (with the clusterfuck of "enhanced" just slightly shifting the issue, since one still wouldn't know which machine to use from the category alone [i.e. ATM Turbo vs. Pentagon 1024SL 2.2 vs. ZXEvo vs. Sprinter vs. TRDOS vs. DivIDE]).

I'm still with ref and bonefish. One more reason is specific position of Pentagon in Russian demoscene:
1. Every Russian demo that features multicolor or border effects requres Pentagon.
2. Pentagon runs every Russian "128K" demo. (Scorpion doesn't. Profi doesn't. ATM Turbo doesn't.)
3. Party machine at Russian demoparties is always Pentagon or Pentagon compatible.
4. Even the default config in Russian emulators is Pentagon.

5. Even some diskzines require Pentagon for smooth scrolling!

actually I was hoping to kill pentegon by dividing it from official world, as emulators exist in both world, hopefully russian sceners will start to use official contended timings, thus bring balance to the force (and a standard to the 128k demos).

1. How much russian demos features multicolor and border fx?
2. And what? It's one category machines, why Pentagon shouldn't run 128k demos? (Nobody said that Scorpion 256k = 128k, etc.)
3. So what? The fact that default russian compo machine is Pentagon doesn't mean that every russian decocompo entry was done for Pentagon only.
4. Default config in the best english emulator (Spectaculator) is Pentagon too. Don't you think that is already a new 128k standart?
5. Oh yeah, every european ZX Spectrum user wants to run russian-language magazines at their Spectrum 128k machines from tape. Surely.

Ref, yeah, there is no russian sceners that made TAP versions of their demos. Noone and never. Thank you.

@diver,
1. Last DiHalt had 4 border intros. I suppose VNN made at least dozen of them for ZX-Time, for "Guess the tune" and for AAA. Remember also Sinclair Club 5 intro, Rage, PSG Wins, and hidden part of Insult. So, at least 20 Pentagon border prods not including those with only lines on border, that is twice as common. Multicolor is even more common.
2. Scorpion, Profi, ATM don't run some Russian demos properly even if you block their extra memory out. Pentagon does.
3. Who said the prod categorized as "Pentagon compatible" is PENTAGON ONLY prod?
4. If you run TRD/SCL in Spectaculator then you get Pentagon because Spectaculator does not support BETA 128 for original machines.
5. There are European ZX Spectrum users that read Russian. I know 4 of them.

128K has its demoscene, and it's TAP-based. You oppose this?
Pentagon has its demoscene, and it's TRD-based. You oppose this?

1. Ok, 20 pentagon border prods. How much prods for another clones with border fx?
2. Your reason #2 works not "contra" Pentagon but "pro". It says that Pentagon is very close to 128k and nothing more.
3. YOU ARE. You pretend to state that EVERY Pentagon compatible (=TRD) is Pentagon only prod.
4. Ok. Default Spectaculator platform is 48k.
5. Yes, pouet.net is only for that 4 people. Let's split 1000 Spectrum demos to let them know that they know already - some russian magazines can slow down during scroll. Yes. That is the main reason to split demos.