It has been a very long time since I updated this site, mainly because I have not had time due to my lifestyle changes and because nothing much has happened …. UNTIL NOW!
A month or so ago, I was contacted by Adam Groome over on the Einstein forums about a new web site that was being created.
http://www.tatungbytes.co.uk/
It is now live and available for anyone who is interested in the Einstein.
The conversation steered towards needing new games on the Einstein and more specifically, porting games from the MSX, a machine with almost identical specifications, to old Albert.
Adam had contact with a Hungarian chap over on the Enterprise Forever forum who was knowledgeable in the fine are of taking an MSX .rom file, smashing it apart, fiddling with its bits and re assembling it into a working Einstein file that can be put on to a .DSK image and run in MAME. This is called PORTING and is possibly how some of the older Einstein games were created back in the day.
So … after a few weeks of backwards and forwards, we have some new games available. Noel/Geco, the chap from Hungary is an absolute star!
- This is a Biggie – Batman 3D by Ocean. YES, that Batman! this is Nirvana!
2. Beach Head – This is a much sort after game that should have been released on the Einstein but somehow never did. There have been rumours about it’s existence, but no proof.
3. BC’s Quest for Tyres. This is quite a cool port as it includes speech!
4. Bruce Lee – I remember this on the ZX Spectrum! Good to see it running on the Einstein.
The intro screen above is shifted 16 bytes to the right, but this is not a porting error, the original MSX .rom file was like this.
5. Double Dragon. Amazing that we now have a proper sideways on beat ’em up to play.
6. Joe Blade – Another game I used to play a lot on the Zx Spectrum
You can see it running side by side with the MSX emulator. Einstein on the left, MSX on the right.
7. Tetris – Mirrorsoft. Who doesn’t like a good game of Tetris? Now available on the Einstein TC01 and 256!
8. Traffic – Control the stop signals and avoid collisions!
So, there you go, after almost 40 years we have new software thanks to the enterprise forever forum members.
All these games are available to download and use over on https://tatungbytes.co.uk under the disk images menu.
There is also a full guide on how Geco ported Double Dragon over to the Einstein! It’s as facinating as it is brain frying! Looks easy on paper ….
We hope you get hours of enjoyment out of them, and there are loads more coming in the future.
Happy days!