Subject: Los Amstrados
   Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 23:47:30 +0100
     To: tips@spesh.com


What? Paul Randall reckons that Mattei's techno mix "sounds 
more like an Amstrad CPC"? What? No way! I mean.. No way! 

For a start, it's called "LOAD ""SCREEN$", a command which is 
unique to the Spectrum and not the crapulous CPC. I mean, you 
try executing that command on a CPC and see where it goes. It 
doesn't! I can tell you.

And secondly, it IS Spectrum data. You just know. These Amstrad 
owners spent their childhood knowing that their parents had 
brought them the wrong computer and never got to hear the beeps 
and boops out of the fancy-schmancy "built in" cassette recorder. 
Us Spectrum owners heard those tones coming out of the speaker 
of the machine! Always! It was built in. It couldn't be turned off. We 
heard those noises EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES. There is no way 
it isn't a Spectrum. You think a mother doesn't know the sound of 
her own children? No way. I mean, no WAY! 

I know what a Spectrum loading sounds like, and that is genuine. 
The long tone and quick burst of data are the 17 byte headers that 
precede a second tone and the full block of data - which in this 
case is a screen image. You can tell by the way it sounds. Of 
course this Rafaelle fellow has messed around with the order of 
which bits go where, and for a start there are something like eight 
or nine repetitions of the same header in the middle of the track. 
That wouldn't load, I can tell you! And the harsher sound is the bit 
of the screen image where the colour attributes load in. Now Mr 
Rafaello has moved those around too, half of the time the blocks 
are in the wrong order. I can only assume he was trying to achieve 
some musical "effect" by this.

That is definitely a Spectrum. No question. I'll prove it. I can load 
that MP3 into cool edit and filter out all the out-of-band "music" 
stuff, shift the blocks around properly and load that into a real 
Spectrum. I will, I promise you. If it comes to it I'll obtain a data 
cassette from an Amstrad CPC, no matter how painful it may be, 
and play a load of house music over that to show everyone the 
difference. Then there'll be no more disparaging the mighty 
Spectrum loader. 

I always enjoy your column. I read it every Friday, after my 
medication. I am not a crank. 

Sincerely Yours,


Ant