Having Fun With Manic Miner
Introduction
This article like many others I will be doing, is a recreation, tidy up, etc of articles originally
published in old User Group Magazines. As the quality of these old magazines is quite
poor, I decided to take it upon myself to recreate those articles and present them in an
improved format, with pictorial enhancements and where possible improved content.
This time I thought I would have some fun with the excellent Manic Miner This article was
originally Published in Einstein Monthly News as part of their Harry the Hacker series of
articles.
Where to begin
Manic Miner comes on an auto-boot disk so the first thing we need to do is put in an
Einstein Boot Disk and boot to the normal prompt.
Now swap the boot disk with your Manic Miner disk and from DOS type;
LOAD MANIC.COM and press ENTER ;note the number of Blocks which will be
used for saving the program
MOS and press ENTER
M 1526 and press ENTER
nn. and press ENTER ;Where nn is the required start screen number
minus one in hex - i.e. for screen 2 enter 01 and
for screen 20 enter 13
Next insert a blank disc, on which you want to save the modified MANIC MINER to and
press CTRL/BREAK, this will return you to DOS. Then type:
SAVE nn MANIC1.COM and press ENTER ;note nn should be the number of
Blocks noted for saving earlier
You should now have your modified copy of MANIC MINER on disc. Load and enjoy.
Happy gaming.
Lee Bendall
I’ve worked in the finance sector since the late 1980s, but my passion for computing began much earlier. I purchased my first home computer in 1982, and from that moment I knew technology was what I truly wanted to pursue. So, when the opportunity arose in the 1990s to transition my career into the Financial IT sector, I seized it with both hands.
Throughout my later career, I had the privilege of working on leading-edge IT projects and was eventually invited to become a member of the British Computer Society, earning Chartered Information Technology Professional (CITP) status—a charter I’m proud to still hold today.
Despite my professional focus, I never lost my enthusiasm for the home computing scene. Over the years, I’ve owned nearly every major machine released in the UK. It was no surprise, then, that when MAME introduced support for vintage computers (initially through MESS), I jumped right in.
Now retired, my love for 1980s and 1990s computers remains as strong as ever. When the opportunity arose to purchase an Einstein TC-01, I couldn’t resist. The seller—Adam Groome—shared a deep passion for keeping the Einstein alive, and his enthusiasm quickly drew me into the community.
Today, I’m involved in several Einstein-related projects, including work on the Speculator, TK-02, and Silicon Disk hardware. In addition to these, I founded the Einstein Document Preservation Project, which focuses on high-resolution rescanning, restoration, and enhancement of all Einstein documentation. I’m also engaged in a large-scale initiative to support and preserve the Einstein’s software library.
