Horizons: Software Starter Pack

This tape is a compilation of programs attributed with a didactic tone meant to enrich the knowledge and to give important tools to the ZX Spectrum and Timex user or programmer. Side A concerns tutorials (computing lessons) and a BASIC programming language glossary; Side B concerns several simulations, algorithms, utilities and "Thro' the Wall", the only game present and programmed in BASIC, all bundled in a single tape when buying new computers from both series.

"Thro' the Wall" is an adaptation for ZX Spectrum and Timex, from the original arcade "Breakout" (Atari, Inc.,1976), the predecessor of the arcade game "Arkanoid" (Taito,1986), being both ZX Spectrum and Timex versions exclusively published within this compilation. The main goal is basically the same as the original: there's a wall of "bricks" in the upper corner of the screen and the player commands a mobile platform. Between the wall and the platform there is a powerful ball moved by the force of the "gravity" and the ricochet effects of what it touches. To lose is to let the ball down the lower side of the screen like in a pinball game; to win is to destroy all of the bricks using the platform and the ball as in a "Pong" game - note that Pong was the inspirational source for Breakout. The game is programmed in BASIC language.

It's difficult to separate what is a game and what is a simulation in the list of simulations present in the tape, but "Thro' the Wall" stands up to the standards of what a game is without subjectivity.

Tape Listing:

Side A 1. Hardware - Lessons 1 - Lessons 2 - Lessons 3 - Lessons 4 - Dictionary - BASIC programming language

Side B 1. Thro' the Wall - a Breakout clone, the Arkanoid predecessor - Bubblesort - implements the Bubble sort algorithm - Evolution - a biological evolutionary system simulation of rabbits and foxes based on Lotka–Volterra equation - Life - an implementation of British mathematician John Horton Conway's Game of Life - Draw - a simple object drawing utility - Monte Carlo - simulates rolling two dices showing the probability distribution based upon what is expected and observed - Character Generator - utility for editing UDGs (user defined graphics) - Waves - an acoustic equation of the "Beat" phenomena and the resulting of two Sine Waves