-- Amiga emulators -- PC emulators -- Glossary -- Main Help page -- Glossary

Here are a few terms you may stumble across in this WWW page. Hopefully this will go some way to clearing up their meaning. Or, at least not leave you TOTALLY confused. Incidentally, I make no pretence that this is meant to be in any way the definitive guide to all things Speccy related. You should refer to the tremendous CSS FAQ for that.


ADDRESS:
The longer (5 digit) part of the POKE. This is the area of the SPECTRUM's memory you are going to change. It will be changed to the VALUE. The ADDRESS of a POKE will ALWAYS be a VALUE between 16384 and 65535. You cannot write to the area of the memory outside these VALUEs.

AMIGA
The last home computer in the world, before the world went PC and/or see-thru plastic rubbish insane. This statement is probably more controversial due to the fact the Amiga was created by Commodore (before they went and lost the plot slightly and ended up selling the rights to other companies). It's the computer I use to do all of the hacking for, and the writing of, this very WWW page (ZXAM for hacking, ASp for 128K testing/saving as 48K for ZXAM, PPaint/ADPro for the graphics, and Cygnus Editor for the actual WWW pages)

COMMODORE
The enemy of the Speccy world. The people who gave the world the C64, which has been scientifically proven as being crap. Unfortunately, they lost the receipt, so the world was stuck with it. Their one saving grace was that they brought out the Amiga.

CRAP
Not good. Also generic term used to describe any computer system that isn't the Speccy (with the exception of the Amiga).

EMULATE/EMULATOR:
An EMULATOR is a program you load into your Amiga/PC/Mac/whatever, that lets you load and play all of the SPECTRUM games. There are billions[1] of them for you to download, for lots of different computer types. There are even ones for the Playstation and the Dreamcast - so you can finally play some good games on the latter [ducks]. Please note that the games and cheats here will ONLY work on the ZX Spectrum (either on an emulator, or the real computer). For help with non-Spectrum emulation, click here.

HACK:
Basically, another word for POKE. A hack was traditionally the name given to the long program you had to type in to alter the tape loader software so that it will eventually enter the POKE. Modern day equivelant would be "A Trainer", though Lordy knows why it gets called that. What next? A comfy size 11 loafer?

HACKERS ANONYMOUS:
That would be me, then. Gerard Sweeney, at your service. Hello! Fancy getting in touch?

HACK ATTACK:
A POKE tape written by Raymond Russell et moi. Was published on the YS Cover tape, which pleased me immensely. You can download it HERE.

HACK ATTACK II:
The sequel. Was meant to be published on YS, but they ceased publication that very month (SOB!). You can download it HERE.

HACK ATTACK III:
The name of the AmigaGuide of POKEs I wrote years ago, under the handle of Rastan. It originally loaded the games into ZXAM, and entered the POKEs for you - all at the click of a button. This WWW page came about because the PC/Mac bods on CSS had asked if there was any chance of me doing an equivelant for them. I now only focus on this WWW page, but still use my Amiga to write it and do all the HACKing...

MULTIFACE:
The name of an interface designed and sold by Romantic Robot which plugged into a SPECTRUM which allowed you to look at and alter the memory of the SPECTRUM. Usually for cheating purposes. Arf! This device became so famous that POKEs for cheating at games were generally referred to as MULTIFACE POKEs even though there were similar devices from companies such as Datel (who then brought out similar devices for every computer and console format in the cosmos[1].

MULTIFACE POKE:
See POKE. See MULTIFACE.

OTHER COMPUTERS BEING EMULATED
How do you use the POKEs here on anything other than a Speccy? You can't. Want help emulating something other than a Speccy? Erm.. Pass (sorry)

POKE:
The name of the SPECTRUM BASIC command which alters a VALUE of the SPECTRUM's memory. In most games, you never actually type the command POKE in, but it still gets called the same thing. The POKE is made up of 2 sections - The ADDRESS, and the VALUE. The 2 sections are traditionally displayed seperated by a comma (eg 45678,123)

RETRO GOLD:
A CD-ROM which was released yonks ago with lots of SPECCY games for your perusal. I catalogued it ages ago, and incorporated it into HACK ATTACK III for the Amiga. So now all of you people who mailed me wanting to know where the "Retro Gold FTP site mentioned on your site" is...

SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR (AKA Uncle Clive):
The bearded, bespectacled British boffin (try saying that after a couple of lemon flavoured sherbert dips. Ed) who gave the world the SPECCY. I don't think SIR CLIVE is a high enough position. How about "Lord and Master"? Bow down to his genius!

SPECCY/SPECTRUM:
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum. God bless SIR CLIVE for giving the world this beautiful machine. One of the most commonly EMULATEd machines nowadays. Take a peek at the FAQ if you don't believe me - there's billions[1] of them!

VALUE:
The 3 digit part of the POKE. This is the, erm, VALUE you will be altering the ADDRESS to. Can only be between 0 and 255.

YS:
The skillest, grooviest, single greatest magazine which has ever, and will ever exist. The fact it was written for the SPECCY is, for some people, irrelevant as it was just such a damn good read written in a genuinely funny fashion. The world was truely a poorer place when Future stopped publishing it.

ZXAM:
Old, but still good emulator for the Amiga. It's what I use to do all my POKEs, fact fans, thanks to its groovy Monitor utility.

If you find this information is wrong, or want to add an emulator with the ability to POKE, let me know.

[1] This may be a slightly inaccurate and/or exaggerated estimate.