9th of January 2011.

JSW-FIXER:

This is patch for JET-SET WILLY by Matthew Smith, released by
software projects in the year 1984. One of the most buggy release
ever for ZX Spectrum, I don't think many people know how buggy it
really is. The times were different back then, software houses could
not admit to a problem and risking their "infallible" image and JSW
was a megahit and software projects was riding high thus there were
no pathces at all. Not just for this game but in general. However
SP was forced to release some fixes but they took the form of four
POKEs published in magazines. They only scratched the very surface
and the fix for the room "Conservatory Roof" was not even a proper
fix for you still HAD to loose a life on it altough all the items were
collectable after the fix. So they even blew the fix! Crap crap crap!
Even the color protection on it was faulty!

The good way to disable the protection is by POKEing in the following:
POKE 33797,135
POKE 33800,202
There are other ways but this is the good way.

So the JSW-FIXER is the patch that should have been, fixing up the
crap of others.

I wrote this in 1999, years ago and forgotten until now. JSW is a
good game and Manic Miner, the game that went before it was a
breakthrough in the computer industry. JSW was just so very buggy.

The fix for "Conservatory Roof" takes after the design in JSW II
and so it is with all the fixes. With the exception of the "Remove
color flashing in pause mode" and that is the only fix I do not run
for myself of all the fixes, that fix takes after Manic Miner. JSWF
has JTCFlag and you have to change it in the code itself but if set
on then the Fixer leaves the game data and game data structures alone.
It stands for, JustTheCode. Just the facts mam, thank God it's friday!!
Dum, de dum dum! But I digress. Well, it is sunday actually.

Anyway, I count 19 distinct fixes but there is some overlap.

The sound or the in-game tune getting worse as you loose lives,
I think that is intentional, not a bug but I count it as a bug
for it is a stupid design or attempt at humor or what the hell MS
was thinking when he wrote the game. Those were the days.

I hope this makes JSW the killer game it should have been all along.


To use it you load in the Fixer and then you load in the Bytes part
of JSW. After you have run the fixes you save the Bytes part back
to tape as the Fixer prompts you to do. Right here is a good place
to press SHIF-SPACE to break into the program and enter the two POKEs
above to disable the color protection. The press C for CONTINUE and
ENTER. Save the bytes part after the Program (BASIC) part on the
tape overwriting the old version. If you do not want to do that use
a fresh tape but then you will have to copy the BASIC part seperatly.
But the loader is easy to break into, just type MERGE "" instead of
LOAD "" and then SAVE it back with SAVE "JETSET" LINE 10. You might
even take out the "POKE 23613,0" to give you an easy accsess to the
loader if you want to put in POKEs. Infinite lives for example.

This patch has been playtested.

Enjoy.

Joe the Iceman.