SPECTRUM thread!!!!
 

We had CPC, MSX and C64 threads. So what about the Spectrum! A machine usually much hated by us Commodore and MSX fans. However it still has good things!

I find it technically appaling (though its fast Z80 could pull vector games much faster than the C64), but it has many EXCLUSIVE games and, to me, that counts a LOT.

I bought my first Speccy last year. A Lithuanin guy convinced me that the Spectrum is the shit and I bought the thing (same happened to me with the amstrad CPC!).

I got a spanking nice Spectrum 128K +3.

I had to get a PSU for it, for I bought it with none. I found one and brought it home via surface...

When it got here, I tested to see if the machine worked... Booted up, and put it in storage.

Until today, when I decided to play with it! I downloaded TAPER and Manic Miner from the brilliant World of Spectrum site. After some initial problems with TAPER, it finally worked. my Speccy recognized the program!!! Then it showed some jumpy MANIC MINER letters on screen while loading.. I was so fucking excited!!!

Now the game has booted and I'm having lots of fun with it :D Here are pics of the machine playing its very first game:


It's appearing in B&W because my TV is PAL-N andthe machine is PAL-B...

Anyway, the Speccy was a very popular machine so lots of people surely have stories about it. Share them with me here! I will keep posting my experiences with other Speccy classics. For now, i'll go back and waste the night with Manic Miner :D

ZX81
 

Mee dun't lika spackyyyyy. Mee lika ZX81

Ahhhh the Speccy...cheap and cheerful.

I remember in the schoolground pecking order, the Amstrad CPC owner would look down upon the ZX Spectrum owner :disgusted whilst the Commodore 64 owner would spit on both! :D

They were the 8bit Trinity :o, you would always goto to the back of any cassette tape cover or magazine adverts and compare the three screenshots graphics. And if you were the owner of the former pair you always were glad when you saw the speccy one!

Oh how I miss those days...

Got a 128+, +2 and +3 in my collection, I always thought it was sad how Amstrad killed off the Spectrum "look" with its Amstrad clones the +2 and +3, as the ones before were always so distinctively styled.

I always loved how almost any popular game made it onto the little black box of joy and how they were stripped down to their basics just to make it work. The Spectrum really had its own unique graphical look which at the time i scoffed at, but now i really adore: the basic looking, colour limited, but usually detailed graphics.

This series represented for many their first encounter with the world of computers and will always be special.

Muchos respect to Sir Clive Sinclair. Would have loved to have seen how the QL would have developed but thats another story...

And the C5 !!! :D

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/c5onroad.jpg

Re: SPECTRUM thread!!!!
 

Build an RGB cable for your 1084S monitor!! :D

http://sinclairmania.speccy.cz/euroconector.html

How could i forget the Spectrum ... it was my first computer; i bought it with 16K of memory (WOW how much!) and then expanded to 48K.

I still have it (only a couple of keys don't react anymore) and will never give it away, even if i never turned it on after buying the amiga, it brings me too much memories to separate from it.

Re: Re: SPECTRUM thread!!!!
 

That was the idea but my 1084 is DEAD ;P

I blasted the night away with Manic Miner... I will now proceed to the next step: convert my Minidisc portable player in the most coolest-looking tape drive ever :D. It's black and all so it will match! I should find a rainbow stripe decal to place on it :D

I must admit, I´m not very impressed by the Spectrum 48, 128, whatever machines ! I once owned a 128 but I gave it away (I wasn´t a collector that days ;)). The only Sinclait machine I really really like is the ZX81 ! It´s really fantasic what you can do with B&W and only some KB of Ram :D

Re: ZX81
 

But you lameulate!!! BOOO for you!!! :D

I would like a Spectrum +3. It is great since you can mount a 3.5 floppy and load games directly with the floppy.

Though, extremely rare here in Sweden :mad

But the 3 1/2 diskdrive needs to be like one of those you need for an Amiga, so it's quite difficult to get :/

Anyway, Spectrum +3s are non-existant here in Argentina, I imported mine from the UK. I bought it for something like 10 UK quid! Go to ebay and look for one, you can find shitloads :D I bought mine without PSU though, but I was very lucky to find a seller with a spare +3 PSU to sell!

and the MSX user would spit and step over all of them :D

I used to hate the Speccy because the MSX had lots of direct ports from it, not using the superior MSX power. Because of that, we had a crap version of Double Dragon, a crap version of Toobin, and a crap version of lots of other cool arcade games.

But today I don't hate it anymore, it has lots of nice, exclusive games like Akira said, and I have grown up and now I know gfx doesn't matter at all.

But the MSX still is THE 8 bits machine :D

8 Bits Enough !

Hahahahaha! That's one of the funniest typos I ever read mate :D you mixed the order of spit and step :D

hahaha
 

excellent typo!

well the Speccy was my first computer as well.. I got Commando first I think.. the I got some of the Ultimate Play the Game titles :)

NO, NO, NO!!!

I dunno why but I don't like the MSX2 now that I own one. I plugged my 8245 more that eight months ago, played Nemesis and packed the computer again. Now is under my bed :evilgrin

Dammit, I LOVE da Speccy!!!

It was my first computer. So cool. It kicked ass from day one. So many cool games, all at cheap prices - I can list the first few games I bought, even now. Mr Freeze. Booty. Rebelstar. Fahrenheit 3000. Rockman. Bombjack. Wild Bunch. Chaos. Think! Turbo Esprit. Saboteur. Agent X.

Beautiful, beautiful classics, all of them. Anyone who has not played these games should play them.

I will always cherish the time I spent as a nipper with my Spectrum. MSX? C64? BBC? All the same to me. Pah. :p

Man, Nemesis is an MSX1 game! You are wasting the machine's capabilities! No wonder you put it under the bed :D

I know it, Akira :)

Re: Re: ZX81
 

Actually I still own my TK 85 (ZX81 clone). Problem is, I can't wait five minutes to load those games!!!

And the truth is... when you have only b&w, no sound and 64x48 pixels only, lamulation is close enough :)

Re: Re: Re: ZX81
 

That is untrue! Look at my snapshot... Can you emulate badly sintonized RF signals? Can you emulate fiddling with the tuning dial until you get a decent picture? And waiting 3 minutes for a tape to load rocks, you always have a picture or something to entertain you while waitinG! :D

Nothing Beats the Real Thing!©