A poem by Robert Barron:

O Spectrum! My Spectrum!

O Spectrum! my Spectrum! our fearful trip is done,
The sinclair has weather'd every rack, the game we played is won,
The plug is near, the beeps I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady rainbow, the keyboard grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
. O the bleeding drops of red,
. . Where in front of the television my Spectrum lies,
. . . Fallen cold and dead.

O Spectrum! my Spectrum! rise up and hear the beeps;
Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the speaker trills,
For you microdrives and ribbon'd tapes -- for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Spectrum! dear computer!
. This arm beneath your head!
. . It is some dream that in front of the televison,
. . . You've fallen cold and dead.

My Spectrum does not answer, his display is pale and still,
My computer does not feel my arm, he has no current nor will,
The sinclair is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor comes with object won:
Exult O shores, and beep O beeps!
. But I walk with mournful tread,
. . Where in front of the televison my Spectrum lies,
. . . Fallen cold and dead.

enough with these outrageous aliases and other juvenile attention ploys...it's gonna turn the gd into the shitheap flame war it once was

Would anyone who appreciates poetry care to post a comment that I can send back to Mr. Barron?

Sorry, I was an Atari fan in the 8 bit days.

AprilMichelle said:

AprilMichelle you say yourself on your profile that "I have been a part of prince.org since I was 16 under about a million different aliases" I'm not suggesting you are doing that now but aliases aren't always a bad thing. This particluar one is just a little reference to Sir Clive Sinclair one of Britain's eighties computer pioneers.

This thread is pretty harmless. If it starts a discussion among us Brits who had a ZX Spectrum computer and want to reminisce, where's the harm in that. Isn't that what the GD forum is for?

Clive85 said:

Couldn't he have included a verse about Manic Miner?

ian said:

Did it ever inspire you to write poetry?

Clive85 said:

Sometimes, but it was usually in assembler or machine code. And sometimes even Atari Basic. Here's a snippet from one of my favourites:

5 REM MY LOVELY PRINCE.ORG BASIC POEM
10 DIM A$(6)
20 FOR LOOP=1 TO 6:READ Q
30 A$(LOOP,LOOP)=CHR$(Q)
40 NEXT LOOP
50 DATA 80,82,73,78,67,69
60 PRINT A$


Bonus points if anyone can tell me what it does...

Ian

ian said:

Yes, it writes you a LOVELY PRINCE.ORG BASIC POEM.

i never created phony personalities for my aliases(in this case a poorly acted 64 year old man)in fact i'd point out who i was upon entering the room a good percentage of the time...clive is one of the less harmful characters i've seen...but any1 who's been here awhile has seen the nastier side of ppl playing games like this...
btw my chat handle is my real 1st name and my pic is posted...all info is the real deal...no gimmicks at all

AprilMichelle said:

Yes we all have but this thread was not the one to accuse of potentially turning the GD forum into a "shitheap flame war". It is perfectly harmless IMHO. Ian is a moderator and he has posted a contibutory message to this thread, I take it he sees nothing wrong here?

still y do we accept this silly and oftentimes destuctive behavior as part of the land scape of prince .org(see the how 2 b popular thread 4 more on that subject) regardless of whether the moderators tolerate it or not, i am going to stand up and say that phony personality aliases(harmless or not) r asinine IMHO and that people need 2 just b themselves...b proud of who u r and your opinions don't hide bhind a coward's mask

Behold my face, the mask of a coward.

ian said:

Does it print "Prince" all across the screen?

AprilMichelle said:

You "standing up" is cool and all, but may actually have the
opposite effect of what you're trying to do. If an alias is
just moving a person to write poetry, let him be. Mark Twain
was an alias, wasn't it?

Housequake2K2 said:

Not bad! It does print the world "PRINCE" once on the screen. Good old Atari

A variation on the more commonly used "Hello World" program, utilizing arrays and a basic DO..UNTIL structure. Nice.

The creative possibilities of artificial and machine intelligence interest me a lot. Keep on with your work Mr. Kiigan.

Clive85 said:

Yeah it's a classic, quasi ironic twist on the silly 2 liner proggy that every kid used to type into C64s and Atari 800xl on display in shops. Thought you'd appreciate it.

Haha well I can send you plenty of my AI code, but you won't get it working on an old Speccy or Atari I'm afraid.