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Snorkers dropping truth there! :)

Very kind of you! You're spot on, you can take up all the memory with the screen, or have a tiny screen and lots of space. Like always, I need to go DEEPER!

So glad you enjoyed it, and learned of the struggles that happen "behind the scenes" of every Burns Night!

It moves around.... Bonnie Prince Charlie didn't spend much time in Scotland, so that's my excuse...

I did, thank you! Friday night was the local Rotarian/Lions event, with Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and then Cranachan... and a Ceilidh. Last night was at the Rushcutters, where I wore my kilt, and had pheasant strips with hot honey, then Haggis, Neeps and Tatties with a whiskey cream sauce, then Venison Haunch Steak and finally Cranachan! The BBC is an interesting machine. I did a video on Comets on the BBC a while back, and I sometimes include it in my Christmas Specials... The extra function given is quite cool. MODE is a lot of fun, as is being able to relocate memory!

I rather like it, but I've not had it from a can. I think ours was a MacSween and we microwaved it, perfectly delicious. It's always something to look forward to at the end of January, the start of the Haggis Season!

Honestly, I thought Version 6 would be it. I spent ages trying to save memory and eventually managed to get past the arrays, but then other lines would run out of space. If I'd have stuck to 2 colours and MODE 4 I would have had an easier time of it, but I really liked the tartan effect. Thinking about it, maybe I could have drawn the tartan in 3 or 4 colours using graphics commands, maybe, and then printed over the top of them. But I don't know if that's possible. I also had fun where the music would load into memory, play fine... and then on the SECOND playthrough would be all corrupted and weird!

Yeah, that bit was weird once I noticed it. I first thought that it was my fault, but the variables are all documented and you can see what it's up to. Sometimes it's hard to know authorial intent but I don't think this was what he meant to happen!

Thank you! I spotted this game after looking for haggis games on the ZX Spectrum... and thought... it has POTENTIAL!

You don't get treacle sponge puddings or steak and kidney puddings menacing people in disused mineworkings, that's for sure!

Thanks Daph! I had to, in honour of the day. Just got back in from my Burns Night Supper where I wore a kilt!

Yeah! I looked up Happy Faces and they do seem to be made by McVities, but they're not the first thing you think of when you think of haggis!

@WhatHoSnorkers oh, I didn't even know they were something real!

Oh yes! They're a bit like Jammy Dodgers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Faces

I know indeed! Yes, that high-pitched beep was horrible, and constant. First thing I took out. And the black and white colour scheme made little sense as you could have four colours, defaulting to black, white, red and yellow. But I changed black to green for the background. Haribo would probably make the Haggis even MORE powerful... unless it was those Haribo Sugar-Free Gummy Bears...

On the most Scottish night of the year! Is Burns Night a thing in America too? Or do you celebrate George Burns instead?

@@WhatHoSnorkersNah 😅 closest to celebrating Scotland here is watching that reality show The Traitors that Alan Cumming hosts😂

Alan Cumming is great. GoldenEye! The High Life! Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion!

The BBC has a lot of really nice features with BASIC. I'm not THAT fussed with procedures, but delete and renumber are lovely. As is having options with regard to how detailed you want the graphics to be. But you also get less memory than you think you might.... but more control over that memory too, with actual commands like PAGE instead of messing about with POKEs.

If I hadn't run out of memory, I was going to have different tunes for different levels, and on my list was "The Campbells Are Coming"... And when you died it would play that bit from Loch Lomond. That's the problem with 8-bit stuff, you need more space!

Thank you Sir Duncan! I replied to you earlier but TH-cam has eaten my reply!

Yes! I need to work out if I can use it in 128K mode. It activates when you do LET S$="some allophones". So I need to try something like LET S$="For auld acquaintance be forgot" PLAY "For auld acquaintance be forgot notes" and see if I can get them to sync up. One for this time next year!

@@WhatHoSnorkers yes! While watching I wondered whether you could play the speech and notes at the same time. I was pretty sure I could overlay the speech on the tune, but that's not really in the spirit of the thing. I look forward to hearing the awesome combined sound this time next year!

Yes, I played the tune afterwards and did it with "video wizardry" rather than for real. I was very much doing it in a rush on 30th December!

It's a clever bit of kit, to be fair to it. And can produce reasonable speech too. I sampled some of my own speech once, and it took up a HUGE amount of memory.

I intend to... and you too!

Happy New Year, Shadow in the Void!

When I was typing them in, I originally did user defined characters for Norwegian A, Spanish N and the upside down exclamation mark. Then I accidentally deleted the line, and it was a LONG string so I did it again without it. I remember thinking "I hope not having an accent doesn't change the meaning into something rude....". There was a fun discussion on Twitter about differences between Spanish in Spain and Latin American Spanish which was enlightening! Happy New Asshole!

Thank you! The screenwipe is the standard way that the ZX Spectrum loads in pictures. The screen is divided into three sections of 8 characters each. Then each character consists of 8 lines. It loads the first line of the first 8 characters, then the 2nd line, 3rd, 4th until it has done all 8. Then it goes to the SECOND set of 8 characters, then the third. After all that it loads in the colour information which is held in a stream of 768 consecutive bytes. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Wazzock... don't go forgetting auld acquaintances. Or DO forget them, I forget...

Thank you!

Thank you! I need to work out a plan for what I'm doing this year...

@WhatHoSnorkers I'm sure it will be great, whatever you do. :)

The manual is pretty good, to be fair to Currah. And I've done it before, with Ode to a Haggis. But it takes a while to get it right...

And a Happy New Year to you too!

Happy New Year (and sorry for the late reply). The allophone dictionary is quite interesting with what sounds make what. I printed the text at the bottom of the screen so you can see what's what. Fruit being Froo It makes sense. I think for Currah it would be Fr(oo)t

Badum-TISH! I'm here all week, try the haggis.

Good old Burnsie, he never lets us down! Happy New Year!

And a Happy Hogmanay to you too!

I had friends over, so wore elf ears and a pig nose in honour of Hogmanay!

And to you! I was going to do all the accents and the little upside down exclamation mark but I ran out of time :)

@WhatHoSnorkers no need! Is a Masterpiece!!

And to you!

And may auld acquaintance be forgot!

Hooray! If only I planned it better I could have had PROPER auld lang syne, with the arms and all! New Year snuck up on me :)

Happy New Year to you too!

Happy New Year... just heading to bed!

Hooray for the Currah Micro Speech, and auld lang syne!

I try and do honour to the changing seasons!

Happy Hogmanay to you too sir!

It's been a busy time, and every watch counts. As children, we saw Santa Claus the Movie at the cinema. At Easter.

Awww! Lovely idea, but because the backing track is from the TH-cam Audio Library it's not possible. It was great fun putting it together though!