I found the cursed #Z80 assembler file I hecked together last year, and even updated it to abuse the stack rather than self modify the code (which makes it a bit more compact), but is still clearly the workings of a warped mind...
@vfrmedia Did you know it?
@gemlog I vaguely remember it from Usenet somewhere and the dead tree version of the Jargon file (which I used to have in the late 1980s, alas it went missing during some house moves...)
@vfrmedia Excellent story though (and proven true)
@gemlog even in 1980s there were a lot of unusual techniques used in graphics programming for lower cost 8 bit computers (especially the ZX Spectrum) to minimise time updating the framebuffer (which was really strangely laid out) during the vertical blanking interval (and avoid flicker on the TV screen).
In the last years of high school (1989/90) I did even make a Spectrum with Microdrive into a "dev kit" (put into a A4 boxfile, it was connected to the big tellies in study rooms at school) >>
@gemlog I wanted to write a platform game for it but alas was too late in the era for the days when young lads on their own could make a career of that, plus lack of time (due to A levels etc) and resources to learn from.
I really wanted to do graphics programming but during the 2 years of uni I lasted for the profs didn't think there would be "any commercial market for frivolous things like graphics and sound" (in spite of the graphics system at the rave club already being a thing)
@vfrmedia
I imagine you already know the story of mel as it is an old assembler story:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html