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Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:39 pm
by ibisum
Anyone got any ideas how Andy Green put his selfie into the game of Delta 4 - maybe he used some known techniques at the time to scan a photo, or something? Was just playing this game for a bit of fun and realized thats quite an advanced technique for the time ..

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:37 pm
by Dbug
Well, back in the days there was already things like the "handy scanner", I even remember some magazines articles on how to turn your printer into a 1 bit scanner by adding a sensor on the printer head.

Things like that: http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dart_Sc ... P-Printers

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:43 pm
by Symoon
Another option was to use some graph paper above a real picture and color the squares accordingly.
But that would have taken a lot of time for 48.000 pixels!

Didn't someone demo, at a UK meeting in the early 90's, a video camera (or was it a simple camera?) linked to the Oric displaying pictures in Hires?

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 9:04 pm
by ibisum
Oooh .. now that I would love to see - a camera attached to an Oric?! I could imagine the low-res mono camera of the Nintendo Gameboy providing enough pixels to make such a pic ..

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 7:02 pm
by coco.oric
Not at all, Andy has made a repro of the time machine

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 3:45 pm
by Dbug
I was wondering: What type of packaging did the game came in? There's only one photo of the inlay on oric.org, and it looks like it's never crystal case or clamshell format... I actually think I never played the game, I'm not even sure if it's one game tape or four of these :D

I have a version with 5 files laying around in a folder:
- DELTA4
- DELTA-DM
- DELTA-EC
- DELTA-MI
- DELTA-TE

were these all on the same tape, different tapes, different sides maybe?

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:19 pm
by Symoon
- DELTA-DM
- DELTA-EC
- DELTA-MI
- DELTA-TE
Those 4 programs are from Mission Delta by Ere Informatique (respectively Demo, Ecole de pilotage, Mission, and Test)

IIRC Delta 4 is in a larger package. I haven't transfered it yet but I think I got the tape.

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:42 pm
by Symoon
Found this back, it's on the right.
IMG_1931.jpg

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:48 pm
by Dbug
Rhooo... Lost in Space!

Regarding Delta 4, that looks like a double size clam shell?
Can you take a photo of the content? Is there only one tape, or more than one?

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:02 pm
by Symoon
It's an old photo. The tape is 130km away from me right now, so no, I can't picture anything else yet ;)
In 15 days, if I don't forget ;)

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 7:19 pm
by Steve M
I think it is a double. I used to keep a Design Aid tape in there.

I think there was a mention of the digitised screen in OUM or somewhere - but I don't recall if there was any details about how it was done.

I don't think there has ever been an Atmos version of this ? I enjoyed a couple of the games a lot.

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 3:14 pm
by Symoon
delta4_gl1.jpg
delta4_gl2.jpg

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 4:32 pm
by Dbug
This is so weird! A double size box with room for two tapes, but only one is used ???
Lol :)

Thanks for the photo!

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 4:57 pm
by Symoon
You're welcome ;)
Other strange thing: the inlay says "Nectarine", the program says "Emerald Software", and the tape label and manual say "Foulsham & Co. Ltd".

Re: Delta 4 : Andy Greens portrait ...

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 5:42 pm
by iss
"Foulsham & Co. Ltd" is the publisher and (maybe) the copyright holder too.
Other curious details are some strings inside the TAP file:

Code: Select all

Andy Green, Author of DELTA FOUR, sold  his first 
program, MISSILE BASE to  ACORNSOFT when he was sixteen.  
Since then he's gone on to write PROTECTOR for QUICKSILVA, 
DELTA FOUR (this one!)then ULTIMA ZONE and THEM for TANSOFT..
and this one:

Code: Select all

****    SO, YOU FINALLY BROKE INTO ME!  
TELEPHONE ANDY GREEN ON FLITWICK (0525) 714744    ****
Maybe there is/was kind of protection scheme.... is it possible that this was Andy's real phone number ? :)