OK this was less about gaming and more about satisfying my curiosity
as to whether the Acorn data recorder would be able to cope with a
bag full of games designed for the machine , given both the age of
the cassettes and the actual data recorder. Amazingly every one of
the tapes selected worked.
The Acorn loads in a kinda sequential way taking blocks of information
and then listing those blocks on the screen. The display of the data
blocks is kinda haphazard as it just appears in and amongst the
on-screen graphics as a sequence of numbers. Thing is , one or two
times I was unable to identify which side of the tape the game was
and it went through the whole process twice for both sides of the
tape until successfully loaded.
As to the games, well I will be honest, they were not the best. Some
were obvious clones of other games and maybe ports of a kind, dunno.
But the loading times were like so long and the wait wasn't really
worth it to be honest.
I guess I liked the platform games the best. The space invader type
games tended to be a let down, albeit, Thrust was just brilliant.
Takes a while to get a hang of the controls but after a while it's
a hoot and a half. Couldn't put the thing down.
I used the black and white TV which isn't the best, but it gives an
idea of the game appearance. The data recorder worked fine. It has
two settings which I found annoying as I had to flick the switch to
keep rewinding the tape.
For my own data it worked very much as any datasette of the day. BUT
it worked and worked without fault. The Electron really needs the
expansion port which I have on another unit. Sweet little thing, but
not a favourite. Fun though, and a good selection of games.
Acorn Electron Gaming
A word about boxes
Quick comment about Acorn boxes, and pretty well
any boxes of the period.
It is easy to forget that computers of this period
did not come in high colour purpose designed boxes
For the most part they came in simple boxes....
Folk selling the kit can be ignorant of the fact and
as in these cases simply parcel tape up the original
box and stick stuff all over the original labels
As ever, the box can prove to be as valuable as the
kit almost doubling its value if in mint condition
So please take a good look at that brown box and if
it is original it really should be packaged inside
another box. Once destroyed you are going to struggle
to find another, and when I say doubling the value, it's
cus you may just have to buy another whole unit just to
get the box if you're a true collector
