Firebird Elite

I have a copy of Firebird Elite for the ZX spectrum. It loads fine but I am then greeted by a strange screen with a cross in the middle. I learn later that this is for use with the infamous lensloc, a small plastic lens that you viewed the screen through to reveal a pass code in the garbled text, different every loading and every attempt.

Of course, I have the box, novella, instruction manual, keyboard overlay, guarantee, but NO LENSLOC! Arg!


it is practically impossible to guess. Guess too many times and you have to load again.

Anyone have a lensloc, or perhaps know of a way to bypass this? I appreciate this is very specific but if naught comes of it, at least it's an interesting(ish) topic.

I wonder if the LENSLOC was red piece of plastic film like you see in some of the kid's freebie toys that allows you to decode the secret message. The message is in a light blue but there is a random pattern in red that the film masks out.

Cheers,

80sFreak

Try taking a picture of the screen & using PhotoShop (or a freeware &/or open-source program like Paint Pro) to filter out colors, etc...

found this reference to the lensloc on another site.....

revgiblet wrote:
I had a Lenslock with my copy of "The Price of Magik". I never could see the letters they asked me for, and to this day never know if I got them right. The game carried on regardless of whatever you typed in.

For pottyboy. Lenslock was a piece of clear plastic that was all misty and warped and stuff.


A picture of it in action. ...... BELOW>>>>


The screen would display a blocky mess in a box. You'd have to line-up the edges of the box using the curser keys (this would allow for different screen sizes, although heaven knows if it worked on large screen TV's) and then you'd open out the unit as shown and a couple of characters could be seen. I'm pretty sure you had to type these in and then you could proceed.

It was bloody fiddlty. The only software I had that used it was Art Studio. Thankfully Advanced Art Studio went used words from the manual instead.

Obviously any game that uses Lenslock has long since been cracked so it's only really an issue if you want to use the original software on the original machines

Aye, that's what the screen looks like. Impossible to guess or filter out without having the lensloc to hand! A pain in the arse.

If you have a couple of quid, you can get another game on eBay complete with Lensloc

http://tinyurl.com/2kals7

That is assuming the Lensloc is generic to other software too...

something to invest in when I get the cash, methinks!

Wait, try taking a picture of your screen, & using a computer to delete the first & last 2 pixels* on both characters, & then vertically stretch what's left! That should work! (but it'd be a pain in the @$$ to do more than once)

*by pixel, I mean the units that the text are made up of, not the actual pixels the machine draws.

It could work in theory, without knowing exactly how the lensloc distorts the image though it would be hard to say.
I'll have a look the next time I set up my speccy.

Looks like 2 vertically concave lenses to me. (well, 2 concave moldings into 1 peice of plastic.

Ironically, Computer says no....