The Kahuna-Gordon Messages: Part 1 - Back to BASIC

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom -- The sublime buffoonery of this post will probably only be appreciated by those of us who have had the privilege of using a ZX Spectrum created in 1982 by arch-inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair. With a 3.5 MHz Zilog Z80A processor, 16K of ROM and 48K of RAM, the Spectrum provided a color PAL video output viewable on a TV screen. We respectfully bow to what is possible with 48K of RAM and the holy Z80 machine language.

Kahuna is the proud owner of a Spectrum, still operational after twenty-two years. Curiously, Kahuna’s Intel hardware has not survived the years.

The following high-level language discussion which took place a few weeks ago between Kahuna and Professor Gordon is introduced as evidence of Outright Buffoonery (OB):

Kahuna : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_BASIC
Gordon : Indeed... I once downloaded a ZX Spectrum
         simulator
Gordon : I had about 10 of them running in separate
         windows whilst playing an MP3 too X-(+
Kahuna : Indeed... I play around with said simulator
         from time to time
Kahuna : The games are NB
Kahuna : By The Lords of Midnight[1]
Gordon : Sir Clive was quite the clown
Kahuna : I believe there's a version that runs on
         PalmOS
Kahuna : I will source() this :-D
Gordon : Heh heh
Gordon : Geek X-(
Kahuna : That is totally uncalled for by GOSUB X-(
Gordon : Nonsense by INSTR$[2]
Kahuna : You're failing to see the middle path by
         LEFT$
Gordon : You are POKEing your nose in matters that
         are out of your jurisdiction
Kahuna : Nonsense, by B Integer out of range X-(
Gordon : You're quite DIM aren't you?
Kahuna : A BORDER 0 will sort you out X-(
Gordon : GOTO hell
Kahuna : C Nonsense in BASIC
Kahuna : :=))
Gordon : ABSolute idiot
Kahuna : Nonsense... merely BRIGHT
Gordon : What the BEEP are you going on about now?
         X-(
Kahuna : Can't you READ? X-(
Kahuna : By INKEY$
Gordon : That's a LOAD of tripe. You're getting one
         STEP closer to being ERASEd, FOR you are
         driving me OVER my threshold of patience.
         If I were you, I'd RUN
Kahuna : Q Parameter error
Kahuna : Your BASIC is quite RANDOMIZEd
Gordon : RETURN
Gordon : Would you like to VERIFY that with the
         relevant authorities?
Kahuna : 7 - RETURN without GO SUB
Kahuna : :-D
Gordon : You're really LETting me down now X-(
Kahuna : 0 - OK
Kahuna : :-D
Gordon : :=))
Kahuna : Heh heh heh
Kahuna : Have you revised my CF?
Gordon : (c) 1982 Sinclair Research
Gordon : Indeed X-(
Kahuna : M - RAMTOP no good :-D
Kahuna : Would be the correct response to that
         question :-))

[After a considerable pause]

Kahuna : Are you looking for the processor
         reference manual? :-p
Gordon : Er no X-(
Kahuna : That H - STOP in INPUT was beginning
         to worry me...

Clowns wishing to fiddle around with a Spectrum are advised to download a suitable emulator for their platform of choice from the World of Spectrum. ZX-32 by Vaggelis Kapartzianis is highly recommended for the Windows platform.

Twenty years from now, it may well be possible to emulate Microsoft Windows [signs to avert evil] on whatever form of machine that happens to exist. Why anyone would want to do that of course boggles the mind.

Incidentally, Cambridge in the summer is NB. Kahuna recalls the summer of '99. Those were the days...

[1] PC version available here.
[2] Gordon surreptitiously introduces an invalid keyword into the proceedings.