scsirob Great! Glad you enjoyed the video.

Ah yes...Alert!! Klingons in this quadrant! Fire Photon torpedo *1,3*

Me too!.  Loads of fun!

Cool! Thanks for those memories Pete.

Not if you were an Australian in the early 1980s. He was a bit of a legend. Check out the cheezy (perhaps even tounge-in-cheek?) ads. :) http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/promotion.htm

Thanks for the support!

+Majkl98 Hmm. Not sure about that one.

My guess it might have been a few extra floppy disks or cassettes in case some broke or malfunctioned?

Good thinking, because it wouldn't make any sense if it was a dial-up thing because the modems at the time were slow and hard drives were expensive and/or non-existent for the end-user, but then again, it just might just be some sort of proprietary thing...

My other guess would be some kind of warranty on the disks themselves? Or maybe some weird command that saves some files into a rom chip? I'm just speculating hah I'm only 19 so this was way before my time

ROM chips were small (I think) and was not worth it...

Perhaps the programmers were needed for the Super-80 port? :-)

No, I don't know the origin if the game.  It was certainly under a Dick Smith brand.  A lot of space invader games were very similar.  Given that the look and feel of them all were basically the same I imagine it wouldn't have taken too much to simply write a space invader clone.  It seems like it was written with the System 80 in mind as it doesn't use the arrow keys for moving the gun.  The first variant of the System 80 was missing the right arrow key.

Terry Stewart
Definitely a hacked Tandy Invaders IMHO. The graphics are the same, the intro is the same. Different text and different keys - simple hacks.
I remember wondering how Dick Smith could get away with such a blatant rip-off... or perhaps it was a licensed "port"? Would be interested to know the full story, but I suspect we never will.

Mark McDougall
DAMMIT! Know I need to know... which means digging out both and looking through with a disassembler... stay tuned!

EDIT: OK playing the video (Dick Smith INVADERS) and TANDY INVADERS on an emulator side-by-side, I can tell you I'm 100% certain it's the same game. Oh and the graphics have been hacked slightly as well (the invaders). IMHO the Tandy version looks better (closer to the original) and would suggest that DS is the hack. But a disassembly would provide proof.

Andrew Jens
I guess we'll never know, since it seems most Super-80 users simply ended up throwing their machine in the bin. :(

Throwing the Super-80 away was the only way to break the enchanting and all-encompassing spell it cast on its owner. :-)

Mark McDougall
I've taken a look at the Tandy and Dick Smith version of INVADERS. There is absolutely no doubt that the DSE version is a hack of the Tandy version. There are only 189 bytes different between the two, the "DICK SMITH ELECT." text has clearly been truncated to replace "TANDY ELECTRONICS", and the copyright message is a year later.
This begs the question - how were they allowed to get away with it? If it were a licensed variation, then surely the source would've been re-compiled with more fitting text? Otherwise to knock off something sold by Tandy themselves was a bold move!?!
FTR I would count Tandy Invaders as my favourite Space Invaders game for the TRS-80. AI's Space Intruders was also a great game, but by the time I acquired a copy I was pretty much over Space Invaders, so I never played a lot of it.
On an unrelated note: whoever chose the "2" & "0" keys for left-right movement on the DSE version needs a good smack around the ears - that's just plain awful, and detracts from an otherwise flawless game! (Maybe that's why Tandy didn't pursue a lawsuit - they figured it was practically unplayable with that key combination!)

Mark McDougall That's interesting.  That explains something else I've always been curious about.  The "missiles" the invaders shoot at the base can be one of three characters.  In the System 80 it is a star, a "V" and a "\".  A star and a V I could understand but why use a "\"?  Then I got a lowercase upgrade which included a new character set, one which had the four arrow symbols the Model 1 had (In the original Sys80 character set these were [ \ ] ^ ).  Suddenly I had a down arrow as a missile rather than a "\".

I could never figure out WHY Dick Smith would get a program written for the System 80 that used the ASCII code for the down arrow when that code mapped to a character than looks nothing like an arrow i.e. a "\"?  But this ties in with your finding.  The Space Invaders was almost an exact copy of the TRS-80 one?

Did Dick Smith get permission for a port or was it sold illegally?  Who knows. If the latter it would have been very cheeky.  There were lots of Radio Shack stores in Australia.  If the game looked exactly the same as the Tandy version and wasn't an approved port I'm sure Tandy would have come knocking.

Yeah, it was a particularly lazy hack if they couldn't be bothered changing the (non-existent) down-arrow.

I can't imagine Tandy giving permission for their (Australian) arch-nemesis to run their software on another machine. I also find it hard to imagine that Tandy would sign a deal with a game developer that gave them rights to re-sell to said nemesis... and as I mentioned, it's clearly a hack rather than a customise-and-re-assemble job. Hence the reason I can only conclude it was, as you suggest, 'very cheeky'.

Guessing we'll never know. Even if the person who was responsible was still around and could be found, it's possible they won't remember either. :(

Why not ask Dick Smith himself? He might enjoy a (legally-incriminating) trip down memory lane.
:-)

I doubt that Dick had any part in the transaction... we was too busy trying to clone vegemite!

Yes, it is a Korean TV with the tuner removed.  I've seen inside (-: ,  The ability to use the amplifier for sound input was a welcome mod.

I agree.  At that time in computing support was important and "down under" Dick Smith not only had the stores but also gave the support.  I think Personal Micro Computers (selling the PMC-80/81) was mostly mail order, yes?  The Tandy lawsuit also put it under a cloud in the USA I imagine.

Thanks!

Thanks for the comments, although I'm not sure if you meant to post them after my PET video rather than this System 80 one?

Hahaha. True!

Thanks for the support!

As a tip, you can always rerecord them onto a blank tape if you have a device with two cassette decks. Back in the 80's when I had a tape go bad for my Atari 800, I would just dub a new one.

 @CRAZYHORSE19682003  Good info. Thanks!

That's usually more an issue with the Datasette than the tapes itself. I have a lot of eighties era spectrum tapes and they are surprisingly hardy.

 @cygil1  The microtapes or whatever they were called for the Sincalir QL were notoriously unreliable from what I hear.

 @JustWasted3HoursHere  Microdrive casettes, but that's a different issue. The ordinary casettes are very reliable, I don't have a single unplayable casette in my collection all recorded 30-40 years ago.

 @cygil1  Yep, that's what they're called. Thanks. My Datasette cassettes may have been exposed to a magnetic field or something over the years.

Whenever we were in the mall my computer nerd friends and I would play stump the Tandy guy. We would start asking a lot of technical questions about the hardware and enjoy watching the Tandy guy tap dance and try to sound like he knew what he was talking about. The simple pleasures of youth lol.

Not on the video, but on the website, yes. https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/hardware_s80.htm#sys80_mk2

Thanks for the support!

They made a few more. Here's one http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/hardware_eaca-colour-genie.htm and here is another http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/hardware_eaca-genie-III.htm

LOL. Yea, those Scott Adams games. I loved playing them. Thanks for the memories.

Yes, and they were both probably influenced by the Sol 20 ( http://oldcomputers.net/sol-20.html )

Not that much. Some have been donated. Sometime it's a matter of being patient. It's getting harder to specific models at a cheap price though.

I've always wanted one of those business System 80 models... (:

I worked there too!

+Anthony Kernich Yes. Sad although given the direction they went in...inevitable.

+bukster1 Good one!. Perhaps the tapes have degraded?

I think the inbuilt cassette player's had it. I might try loading from a data recorder if I can work out the pin configurations for the din plugs at the back. Same with using my old monochrome monitor.

+Terry Stewart I was able to get an external tape player to work. Cload games work, but not the system games. I see on your demo, you appear to enter a '\' character after the invaders game loads. I take it that runs the game. I'll try again, but use the \ after system game loads. I got one called Outhouse to work. That loaded fine and ran by itself.

+tom bates LOL. Thanks for the support Tom (:

Yes, I guess it's possible,.  It was a very good robust keyboard to type on.  Now that I have other computers to compare I find it better than the Kaypro and Obsorne, and even Apple II+/IIe.  

Yes, and that would have been the time to grab it! (-:

Thank you Tim

Thank you Nik

Choice.   Yes, I couldn't let that one languish in low definition. (-:

Terry Stewart  Or perhaps you should reshoot it in 128x48 resolution?

***** LOL!

Thanks!