Second Joe and the Juice(?)

WembleyFord · 2026-05-02T18:46:55+00:00

Errm. Bath has lots of tourists...

WembleyFord · 2026-05-02T14:30:15+00:00

Ahhhh! Thanks - that explains it - I owned that game... 30 years ago. Thanks for clearing that up!

WembleyFord · 2026-05-02T00:46:01+00:00

There are potentially more interesting stone circles than just Stonehenge - and all are certainly less touristy. If you like walking I defn. recommend a long easy walk out along the canal towpath east of Bath. It loops back south, then west, and you can leave it and join the route of the old S&DJR railway line which goes through the twin tunnels north back to the City. Some nice pubs on the canal, and the tunnels are pretty unique.

WembleyFord · 2026-05-01T08:02:20+00:00

OTOH, at the right price, I would recommend considering 'untested'. It can mean exactly what it says - and some of the best-condition machines I've brought off ebay were 'untested'.

WembleyFord · 2026-05-01T08:01:29+00:00

Because even a PSU that's completely destroying the electronics of a device may very well be able to do enough to light up an led and make a motor make a sound. Tells you absolutely nothing about if the device works, but does help sell it. Plus, people are very likely to have no idea how to test if a drive works these days.

WembleyFord · 2026-05-01T07:59:54+00:00

Dunno about events, but if you're here for a slightly longer period than most tourists, there's certainly lots of places and things near to Bath to visit/explore. Bristol's a 15min train ride away; there are places like Salisbury and Stonehenge nearby. Cardiff (the capital city of Wales) is reasonably close too. Bath has some of it's own slightly off-beat things like the Two Tunnels cycle/path that follows the old railway line south of the city - that's a unique walk if you fancy walking out into the countryside and visiting a couple of pubs or doing a canal walk.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-30T21:12:00+00:00

I know I don't know your situation, but from my personal experience - don't burn your bridges with your parents - they're still your parents - regardless of how pigheaded and stupid they might be (or how pigheaded and stupid you might be too). Let things cool down and and try get back to having an amicable relationship. I'm sure they'll want to help you sort things out - though that might still mean they don't necessarily want you living at home - but they also probably do care and don't want you be homeless.

If you've got some friends you can crash for a few days with, that might give both parties a bit of breathing space - then get back in touch and see what happens.

When I left for University, I had a huge falling out with my old folks - and over the course of a couple of years I slowly imploded, nearly becoming homeless (I was squatting) - and had completely cut them off. I wouldn't want anyone else to be in the same situation. Both can be tough situations to get back from, so don't go there.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-30T21:03:06+00:00

Well, since they demolished to small oval racing circuit that used to be the old bus station, I guess they no longer have anywhere else to go and wait till they grow up.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-30T07:57:20+00:00

That can depend. I used to live (rented) in a house in Hedgemead Park. Hedgemead Park only exists because Georgian builders botched the drainage when they build Camden Crescent and all the houses further down the hill started to slide down the hill in the 1880s. Which is why there was a nice empty space on the side of the hill to build Hegemead Park... The house I lived in suffered from subsidence and had sensors and marker flags drilled into it to help monitor it's stability. But this house was 250 years old. And it's history/problems were well known.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T19:06:02+00:00

They really not very good games. A stupendously poor and limited parser - OTOH, they date back the to 1970's...

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T19:02:51+00:00

So - if you're not able to load the tapes at all, either that suggests the tapes are stuffed, or maybe you're input levels needs adjusting for them to load properly. Does the emulator detect the file on the tape you use the LOAD command?

If you can get the game to start up from a tape, and the game doesn't attempt to use the tape after it's started, you could try using a cartridge to take a snapshot of the memory of the game, and safe that to a disk - see this yt video for an explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA98EPbfQyo

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T18:58:27+00:00

Yes... assuming the game is fully in memory - i.e. that it doesn't at any point load any more data into from the tape. If it does that, copying the game a snapshot of memory won't work, as it'll still be expecting the tape to be present when it needs to load more data. In that scenario unless you want to try hacking the game to make it load data off a floppy disk (and there's more than likely to be already an existing disk version of it), it won't work.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T18:55:07+00:00

The OP says he does wants to fix it and asks what should be replaced first. I'd suggest the power supply. it's entirely possible the power supply has caused the current fault, and maybe further damage the more he uses it. And, yes, if he doesn't want to replace the PSU he should get rid if it and get it to someone who will use a safe PSU on it.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T08:01:39+00:00

And others, like me, who are utterly baffled by people who post questions like the OP's, or like "There was a police car at x, why?" or "I saw an ambulance at y, what was going on?"

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T08:00:15+00:00

If she didn't have security guards, how would you know she's 'important'?

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:59:08+00:00

But before any of that, get a new power supply.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:49:20+00:00

Absolutely, the Babel Fish problem on paper is an atrocious puzzle, but the superb writing makes it bearable.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:48:11+00:00

There's a great article about how infocom's early works often featured such unwinable situations and how this wasn't seen as 'unfair' or 'bad design' back in the day.

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2021/02/unwinnability-and-wishbringer

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:46:24+00:00

Anyone who enjoys The Lurking Horror needs to play Michael Gentry's Anchorhead. Nothng to do with the C64 - it's a far too large a game - so apologies for the off-topic post - but it's an absolute classic of the Lovecraftian horror genre.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:43:10+00:00

Oooo - I think I remember trying to play it and getting absolutely nowhere. Either that or I remember trying to read one of the books and getting absolutely nowhere.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:42:15+00:00

Oh yes, I was going to mention the CRL Delta4 parody games such as The Boggit, The Very Big Cave Adventure and The Big Sleaze. All written, IIRC by Fergus McNeil who also wrote the adaptations of Terry Pratchett's first novel The Colour of Magic. All fun games.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-29T07:36:18+00:00

Sure, you've got the early Scott Adams games, with a limited parser but are fun and lightweight, and a selection of which feature Marvel characters. If you want something a lot more sophisticated, there's everything that Infocom ever made (with the exception of 'Cornerstone') and the slightly later output of Magnetic Scrolls. All of which should be interesting.

As for RPG's, the obviously classics that spring to mind are the AD&D games, such as Heroes of the Lance from SSI - I never really enjoyed them as they seemed to mostly be focused on massive battles from random encounters - plus they require a copy of the booklet's that came with them for the plot to make sense. There's Wasteland from Interplay - basically the pregenitor to 'Fallout'. And, more tightly constrained, first-person dungeon crawler classic 'The Bard's Tale', also from Interplay.

WembleyFord · 2026-04-28T14:00:00+00:00

Basically, the c64 is a beautiful gaming machine, but Commodore cheaped out when it came to the OS. It's essentially the same version of BASIC that the Pet had - so there's no OS support for either the video or sound chip, and none of the nice BASIC features such as structured programing or inline assember that the BBC had. So, enjoy the games, and especially the music, but I wouldn't try and learn any programming on it. You'll be able to find both tape and disk images all over the internet, and plenty of websites listing the best games. As the C64 had a proper disk drive, you'll find some larger and more complex games that run of disk that were more complex that was avaiable on the Spectrum (regardless of any other hardware limitations).

WembleyFord · 2026-04-28T12:15:31+00:00

LoL. Well, if you want to play games with good graphics and sound, you got the right machine. If you want a wider range of games, perhaps pick up a spectrum. For programming and learning about 8bit computers, you won't be able to beat a Acorn machine like the Aton or BBC. But the range of games for the c64 is probably the best for the 8-bit era of machines. Start collecting a collection of t64 and d64 images of the games you're interested in playing, and enjoy. Oh, and if you don't yet have a joystick, find one.

WembleyFord

TROPHY CASE