Writing a Demoscene Intro for the ZX Spectrum
Mark Round spent decades wanting to recreate the Amiga cracktros he admired in the late 80s. He finally did it: a hand-rolled demoscene intro for the 128K ZX Spectrum, complete with smooth scrolltext, AY soundtrack, bouncing VU meters, and parallax starfield. At 10287 bytes of code, it took nearly a year to write — averaging just 455 bytes per week. He shares the tools, tricks, and Z80 assembly lessons learned along the way.
It simultaneously rates as one of my favourite side-projects ever, and also the one that most often nearly triggered a foot put through my monitor in frustration.