Did anyone have a Sinclair Spectrum?

Dudess

Remember you had to hook it up to a tape recorder and then to a TV? And the games were cassettes? Oh, the crappiness!

i still have mine, got one with the light gun , only thing i didn't like about it was waiting round for ages for a game to load. great machine though

Neil_Sedaka

Yeah, I had one. Upgraded from a ZX81 to a speccy and then to an Atari 520ST.
Spent days and days programming in Basic to get a dot to avoid crashing into other dots!

Then lost the plot and never touched a computer again till 1999 :rolleyes:

elivsvonchiaing

Sure did. Threw it out recently - was fubarred. Still have a spectrum + which I bought years later. Its box is a bit dog-earred but the machine is in pristine condition.

Played many of the games on PC emulators and have to say the guys that wrote them were true artists - they got the max performance out of a machine 1/5000 (think roughly) the speed of your average machine today (no simple clock speed comparisons please remember this was 8 bit).

Yeah this is a machine I have nostalgia for - also the Amiga (R.I.P.):(

matu

Yep I had one the Spectrum only had 4 colours not including black and white and the 4 colours were very bright and sickly looking.
It was one of the first computer of it standard and it showed but it did set a standard for future micro systems.

Roen

Yep I had one in all of it's rubber keyboard goodness.....ahhhhhh.

Zulu

Yup. Me too. Great things, save the 3-5min load time, watching the counter wind down to 0 only to have it "new" agghhhh!

Triangle

ye were Spoilt - we had an Oric (same as a spectrum but no shift key)
gah the horror!!!!!!!

DublinWriter

Yup, I had one.

I remember getting a modem for it in the late 80's and hooking it up to one of the VAX mainframes in TCD and also connecting into a few early Prestel-like BB's in the UK.

Oh, the giddy thrill!

The ZX printer and the Microdrives were jokes.

There was also quite an active postal swapping network for games.

JackieChan

Personally I started with a ZX81, then Spectrum 16K, then borrowed a mates 48k for ages and finally on to the Spectrum 128+2a(built in tape deck).

God I remeber taking the BASIC examples at the back of the manual(for 128K) and converting them to assembly language. Spent my summer as a 13 year old in my room from 8am to 11pm programming!! My mates would come over to see if I was going out and before long I'd have them designing sprites on graph paper!
I'd make a fortune today if there was contract work in ZX80 arch.

Dudess

Roen wrote:

in all of it's rubber keyboard goodness

Oh yeah! Those rubber keys were great!

Archeron

Yeah, I also had one of the Spectrum 128k with the built in tape deck. I felt like the height of sophistication as I waited patiently for jumping jack flash to load.

I actually found a couple of old Crash magazines (remember them??) a while ago and got a good laugh out of the games reviews. One game got 92% for graphics and I had to stare confused at the screenshot for about 3 minutes before I could even work out what it was

There was one game on the speccy called Chaos that came free with Crash magazine one month. That game has still yet to be beaten for playability IMO. Anyone remember that?

Kolodny

Archeron wrote:

I actually found a couple of old Crash magazines (remember them??)

I sure do! That and Sinclair User (cringe)
I think I've still got loads of the Crash tapes in a box in the attic somewhere. Was hooked on all the 'Dizzy' games (anyone remember them?) and actually made a screen map of Treasure Island Dizzy and sent it into Crash once. Way too much time on my hands considering how long it took to load the bloody games!

I eventually gave my 48k to my younger brother but I still have a 128k at home - will dig it out one of these days for nostalgia.

squibs

Crash was such a superb magazine. The Jetman comic strips were gas.

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/

Ah, the memories...

I had the 128k model too with the three channel sound. I remember programming the axel f song into it with drums, bass and melody (from a magazine listing). Took me 2 days....

Also had an old sharp 8bit z80 computer. Hooked up the game port to an equally crappy toy casio keyboard (crakked it open - linked with wires and transistors - none of this MIDI crap!) and programmed a drum machine step sequencer. The timing was based on a variable for next loop and the timing wasn't exactly rock solid...

legs11

i got a 48k model (boxed!), waiting for bi:D g bids in 20 yrs time of course

some really class games, considering the diy architecture. rainbow island had pretty amazing graphics for such limited hardware. chaos engine was also good, i think thats what it was called. then there was mad games like brian blood axe! jet set willy (all of em!), and classics from ultimate: play the game like knight lore and underworld, with retrotastic boxes!

yes, i did spend a fair amount of youth on the speccy, it was on of the main reasons for getting home from skool early, or in some cases not going to skool at all....

now im awaiting delivery of a xps m1710 from dell, how times have changed, but the speccy truly deserves a special place 'up there'..........!

Gyck

I had a ZX80, built it from a kit. Upgraded it with a 16k Ram pack. Used to have to wedge folded paper between it and the back of the ZX80 to stop it crashing.

Sold that and got a ZX81. I eventually got a full size keyboard for that!

I had two Spectrums, both 48k jobs. Great games, Jetpack, Starquake, and all the great stuff from Ultimate Play the Game.

elivsvonchiaing

Gyck wrote:

Sold that and got a ZX81. I eventually got a full size keyboard for that!

Yeah now I remember - the mangy rubber keyboard finally gave out on me too!

A replacement keyboard cost a mint - think it was 50 quid or more.

I went to Peats "junk-shop" and found an old console keyboard from a mainframe - (think it was honeywell-bull). Paid a quid for it and spend hours breaking circuit board contacts and resoldering reed-switches to mirror the speccy keyboard matrix. It worked a treat but probably gave me repetitive strain injury syndrome thingy.

Yeah that was a real keyboard! It worked by lowering magnets over glass-encapsulated reed switches. This technology was really expensive and lasted forever - unless you got it in peats for a quid and feiced it out on a skip 20 years later ! (yeah I do regret doing that).

I still think keyboards should be disposable though - as after 5 years how much **** can get trapped between the keys - and they are a pain in the arse to clean.

Oriel

Remember the colours and noise while the games loaded?

Dudess

Oh yeah, that ear-splitting noise. I've just been transported back to 1985.

matu

Yeah the colours would put you in a deep trance while waiting for those games to load.

deman

I had Speccie 48K. Brilliant machine. And the best thing was that you could copy the games onto a blank cassette. I must have had about 300 different games. Jet Set Willy was the best. Taking new games to school and swapping them to copy was the highlight of the day

DublinWriter

legs11 wrote:

and classics from ultimate: play the game like knight lore and underworld, with retrotastic boxes!

Ultimate were like Gods - two brothers basically, who still refuse to let their early Spectrum software go on to retro sites.

It was amazing how they squez stuff like KnightLore and Underwurlde into 48K.

JetPac was one of my all time favs...and that was 16K.

There was also a ton of other classic software - AntAtac anyone?!

But how many of us here made our careers in IT out of early Speccy ownership?

One particularly geeky genius friend of mine was writing games on the Speccy in Z80 machine code and was a fantasic cartoon artist. He's a vagrant alcoholic these days.

I remember writing my first piece for ZX Computing (the posh Sinclair magazine, cost 2.75 in 1984, a fortune!) and getting a cheque for 20 pounds sterling in the post back in 1983 when I was only 13! I was hooked.

Dudess

DublinWriter wrote:

I remember writing my first piece for ZX Computing (the posh Sinclair magazine, cost 2.75 in 1984, a fortune!) and getting a cheque for 20 pounds sterling in the post back in 1983 when I was only 13! I was hooked.

Damn you ambitious kids! Nothing like that happened to me when I was 13 and lazy.;)

DublinWriter

Dudess wrote:

Damn you ambitious kids! Nothing like that happened to me when I was 13 and lazy.;)

Don't worry, it was all downhill from there.

Dudess

Ah good. *bitterness and jealousy subside; schadenfreud sets in*

matu

Yeah I remember the feeling after you had programmed something you felt great and then to see it working...... well I would nearly pi$$ myself Wooo Wooo.

mikeruurds

I had a ZX Spectrum 48k and my favourite games were the Grand Prix racing game and JetPak (I think that's what it was called).

My ZX had a dodgy power socket and I'd spend all day typing BASIC on that rubber key keyboard only to lose 4 hours work when I accidentaly bumped the power cable.

Good times.

Mike

dazberry

I got a 48k speccy for christmas 1984 (I was a year behind some of my mates and was bursting ALL YEAR to get one).

Beyond the bundled games I think the first 2 games I had were Cyclone (helicopter version of TLL) and Jet Set Willy. JSW to my great disappointment came without the code-card FFS - and although it was fully legit it was a present and well - that was that then - I had to copy one from a friend with coloured pencil (YES - I COPIED IT ALL).

When I was 15/16 (summer of 1987) I got a summer job and earned enough to get a new computer - so I got a Spectrum +2. It kept breaking down (primarily because I kept taking it apart) - so in the end they took it back and gave me a C64C. Of course my mother being more clued in than most IT Managers you'll ever have the misfortune to work for understood the concept of software compatibility - and well lets just say I ended up with a huge credit note (~£200) for computer games - and it took me a long while to spend it - even wasting 2 normal game credits to get one expensive microprose game!

I remember (prior) to my windfall above - saving up one summer to get Shadowfire by Beyond. When I went to get it they only had it for the Amstrad CPC (spit) - but I discovered the sequel called Enigma Force. I think I played it most of the summer again and again.

Now its not that I horde things or anything - but (see attached) ... and remember in those days female characters didn't wear clothes, they wore body paint!

D.

niallb

deman wrote:

... you could copy the games onto a blank cassette ... Jet Set Willy was the best. Taking new games to school and swapping them to copy was the highlight of the day

Do you remember the coloured card that came with it?
You also had to copy that, as it asked you to type in the
4 colours in a particular square before it would start up.

That was a great game, and had other games hidden in it in
various rooms in the house. If you went up on the roof, it
became a game of Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Reading this thread is hilarious.
Gran Prix and Jetpac were great.
I also remember well the sequel, Lunar Jetman, the prequel Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Lords of Midnight, the Artic adventures, the Lords of Time, the Hobbit, PiMania, 3D Deathchase on bikes through the trees, and another one on a bike underground I can't remember the name of.
You survived getting to the end of the caverns, and then had to race
back against a ghostly Easy Rider character (who could ride through walls).

Using the 6,7,8 and 9 keys for cursor control set me up well
for later life using h,j,k and l for vim.

Must get an emulator some day (or an attic ladder).

NiallB

P.S. The sharp machine squibs mentioned: MZ80K maybe? also was an A and B model in later years. Serious machine at the time, with a built in monitor, and a lever to pull the lid off to add more software on chips.

Unlike the spectrum with its multi function keys, the sharp had a second
keyboard just for graphics characters.

dazberry

niallb wrote:

and another one on a bike underground I can't remember the name of.
You survived getting to the end of the caverns, and then had to race
back against a ghostly Easy Rider character (who could ride through walls).

Wheelie

D.

byte

Ah yes, I had a Speccy 128k +2A, which had the "datacorder". I think it's still lying in the attic somewhere.

It came with a lightgun and rubbish. It used to take over 10 minutes to load up CrashHQ (anyone remember that?) "Let's go Mr Driver!"

Also, I fondly remember Operation Wolf, and can anyone remember a game that had a Snake either side of the screen that hissed depending on who was hit, and a monkey came along to take away the head of the defeated? I thought it was Gladiator, but not sure.

byte

Ah, just found it! It was Barbarian! Damn I loved that game
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=^Barbarian$&pub=^Palace+Software$

Cobra Kai

I had a ZX128K spectrum. I remember it had to load for ages and played this annoying screeching sound. Dizzy was an amazing game, we got all of them one christmas and it kept us entertained for the year. My old brother got well into the programming side. He would type code for hours and end up drawing a red circle in a blue box or something. Those were the days.

Skerries

Archeron wrote: »

There was one game on the speccy called Chaos that came free with Crash magazine one month. That game has still yet to be beaten for playability IMO. Anyone remember that?

indeed i do, i spent many moons playing that game and a lot of the other Julian Gollop games such as Laser Squad, Rebelstar II and Lords of Chaos

you can play it online here to bring back your memories
http://www.mykeblack.com/flash/chaos/chaos_content.html

and try Rebelstar II
http://www.lasersquad.org/RebelStar.html

i still have my 48k boxed and a 128k+2 and also a pile of old mags somewhere

i'm afraid my programming skills only ended up at being able to write

10 print "i have a big willy"
20 goto 10

which just filled the screen with my big willy

bullets

Skerries wrote: »

indeed i do, i spent many moons playing that game and a lot of the other Julian Gollop games such as Laser Squad, Rebelstar II and Lords of Chaos

you can play it online here to bring back your memories
http://www.mykeblack.com/flash/chaos/chaos_content.html

and try Rebelstar II
http://www.lasersquad.org/RebelStar.html

I had a CPC464 so that was my favourite apart from the 8086 we had in the
house with only 2-3 games but also had a 48k speccy and bought those magazines with the free games on them.

My favourite was Rebel star II and Chaos.
rebelstarII was Soooo Hard, How the heck those aliens could get such long
shots in I'll never know, was convinced that the game was fixed!

~B

Skerries

i think i only ever finished it twice and it was seat of the pants playing

Dudess

Jaysus, how young and fresh-faced I was back in 2006!

Cobra Kai

I think i'm going to try to buy one on e-bay, nostalgia has taken over. Did anyone play Max Headroom? It is possibly the worst game ever made.

CamperMan

yes, I had one of those, it's amazing looking back just how $hit it was

thankfully computers have come on a long way since then..

Paparazzo

Memories of it loading!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYryKa3CQTE

commodore 64 FTW!

Skerries

pfffft!!!

Welease

Still have all mine

Run_to_da_hills

Father brought one back from the UK, a couple of tennis games were about all that were played on it before it got binned.

BBDBB

We had a Commodore Vic 20..............it was ****e

tk123

we had a zx81 then a 48k. I rememeber getting blisters from playing Daley Thompson's olympics - a hyper olympics rip off!!! Other games I remember - Ant Attack, Manic Miner, Dizzy, Rollercoaster, a weird labyrinth type game that showed your health as a canary and as you got injured the canary would turn into a skeleton, SoftAid (fast forwarding Do they know it's christmas to get to the games!! ), the worse was when you'd wait and wait, almost there when the picture finally loads and then....nothing happens!!!

Stab*City

i had one..

gerry1h

oh yes jet pac memories hours of fun

telecinesk

still own my spectrum and tried it the other day. had to load the .tap file from my laptop into it using winamp as playout. funny, as I dont have a tape recorder these days. Also did a mod to improve the video out. Last game <i tried was zzoom .. vector graphics ftw

deckie27

Had a speccy 48 for a year
Do you remember having to reset it to enter cheat codes.
I couldn't afford the reset attachment so used a paperclip or something to short the 2 pins. I think it was pin 1 and 3 ??
on xmas #2 i shorted the 2 pins on the wrong side. a little spark and that was it. got a commodore 64 after that , but prefered the basic on the speccy it seemed more modern

Also it was so particular about tape recorders. for a while i used my getto blaster with a wire soldered onto on of the spearkers(there was no headphone socket) we'd have to leave the room while loading games as you have to have it at nearly full volume

hshortt

Oric Atmos. It's claim to fame was that it had more 'available memory' than the Sinclair. They planted the seed early see!

It was Red and Black and had a very limited range of software that had to come from Belfast until Peats got some. Manic Minor was great. But watching it load the blocks..... jeesh.

From that it was to Atari, 800XL, then ST then to a range of consoles. Megadrive, PS1, N64, PS2, Xbox, PS3 and XBox360. And still I've not enough time for games!