ZX Spectrum to be re-released

[JohnnyWalker]

OMG. I used to love my +3. What an amazing machine.

I have to say that, when I upgraded to an Amiga 500, my initial reaction was one of disappointment... It just didn't seem as fun, for all the amazing graphics. Of course, that soon passed and I loved my Amiga, too.

I seem to be the only person who remembers this, but: Before the Spectrum "died" CodeMasters released a CD with a ton of their games on... FOR THE SPECTRUM. It came with an audio cable that you plugged into the back of your Spectrum (where your tape player would plug in) and you used a normal CD player to load your games.

Apparently it loaded games at 10x the speed (or something similar).

Does anyone else remember this?

Also: This "re-releasing" of the Spectrum is lame if it's really just an emulator and keyboard. There's such amazing potential for this thing, especially with the WOS website making 99% of Spectrum games available without copyright problems. (Those guys rock!)

They could hook this machine into it and have leaderboards, listing popularly played games, etc.

[antonvaltaz]

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

I seem to be the only person who remembers this, but: Before the Spectrum "died" CodeMasters released a CD with a ton of their games on... FOR THE SPECTRUM. It came with an audio cable that you plugged into the back of your Spectrum (where your tape player would plug in) and you used a normal CD player to load your games.

Apparently it loaded games at 10x the speed (or something similar).

Does anyone else remember this?

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infos...567&loadpics=3

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by rare_j

I saw this video of what it takes to get a real speccy working in the US.

[ Show youtube player ]

It's an absolutely mental amount of work and money just to get the original hardware switched on for NTSC users.

I haven't seen the video yet. Atleast one Spectrum was released in the US, under the name Timex Sinclair.


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by cybernoid

"But my USA C64 trashed the speccy", Parsec

Well ... there's only two things that c64 was better: doing marketing at the magazines and SID.

Go check the hardware for yourself, and play some games.

I think it's you who needs to check the hardware.. The speccy is a great computer, but it can't be compared to C64.

No hardware scrolling, shit sound capabilities, and 8 colours compared to 16 (128 possible with tricks!). It's as clear as day which is the superior machine.

[ant512]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

8 colours compared to 16

13 if you take bright mode into account.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

I seem to be the only person who remembers this, but: Before the Spectrum "died" CodeMasters released a CD with a ton of their games on... FOR THE SPECTRUM. It came with an audio cable that you plugged into the back of your Spectrum (where your tape player would plug in) and you used a normal CD player to load your games.

Apparently it loaded games at 10x the speed (or something similar).

You can do something similar today with any MP3 player and a bit of software called OTLA.

http://code.google.com/p/otla/

[SWIV]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I think it's you who needs to check the hardware.. The speccy is a great computer, but it can't be compared to C64.

No hardware scrolling, shit sound capabilities, and 8 colours compared to 16 (128 possible with tricks!). It's as clear as day which is the superior machine.

Takes me back to the Speccy Vs C64 Vs Cpc banter in the playground ,i own several units of both systems and although i have seen afew good games on the C64 like Ik+,Rainbow Islands,Armalyte and Nebulus my opinion is unchanged - Speccy rules , there were simply not enough good games on the C64.
The graphics on the speccy were fine and did the job i mean at least they were neat enough so you could work out what you was looking at unlike the C64 and although people slag off the later monochrome graphics of the speccy and sound the poo like colours on the C64 were dull and garish and the church organ drone of the commodore sound used to remind me of the dentist chair.
Lots of playable games make the Speccy the clear winner.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by SWIV

The graphics on the speccy were fine

I don't care much about any 8-bit system anymore tbh, but calling the graphics on the Speccy 'fine' sounds a tad exaggerated 'Not causing immediate eye cancer' would be more like it

[Baboon]

Originally Posted by SWIV

The graphics on the speccy were fine and did the job i mean at least they were neat enough so you could work out what you was looking at unlike the C64 and although people slag off the later monochrome graphics of the speccy and sound the poo like colours on the C64 were dull and garish and the church organ drone of the commodore sound used to remind me of the dentist chair.
Lots of playable games make the Speccy the clear winner.

Completely agree with all of this!

The sound on the 128 machines I thought was also much better than on the c64 (check the sampled speach on Robocop, Chase HQ etc).

I loved the c64 but it wasn't a patch on the old specky.

[Hewitson]

Not enough good games? What a joke!

Anyway this discussion is about the hardware, not the software. I suggest you watch some good C64 demos so you can see just how crappy the Spectrum hardware is in comparison. Here's one of my favourites:

Oxyron - One-Der
[ Show youtube player ]

[rockersuke]

Aaah! All those useless debate memories!

We're talking about playground riffs, but I was at college in my speccy days (mid 80's) and there was that hippie fellow at class who used to write free-lance game reviews for a C64 local mag. He was a progressive-rock listener and I was into psycho-billy (yeah, that helped a lot too! ). We were supossed to be adult mature open-minded people but, of course, kids playground brawling looked like sophisticate disscussions beside our "my-computer-is-better-than-yours" constant rant

Going back on-topic I don't feel quite enthusiast about this so called Spectrum re-release (whatever it finally happen to be) but am currently working on two classic spectrum related personnal projects. First is adding a SD HxC floppy emulator to my Spectrum +3 to work as a second external drive (a cased model and the required cables are on their way home right now) and second is getting a 48k Plus model (which was my first personnal computer ever!) to use with a divide thing (both speccy 48+ and divide also on their way home right now!)

Once I have settled all that next step is require the services of a skilled-in-soldering friend to hack into the 48k+ and make the hardware mod to give it composite video output so I have a better chance to use it with a modern monitor. In payment I'll give to him my Amstrad CPC 464 which will be replaced by the new speccy guest, as I don't have enough space for more retro-gaming stuff at home.

Next step in the master plan is, of course, world domination, so I have free time to go on my always-on-progress text adventure!

--

[Photon]

Kids today are missing the excitement of new brands and models fighting for their favor. That's sad really, I think they're missing out. Everything is standardized today, so not many 'brand fights'. Discussing which was the best is quite pointless today, but it's good to see that [ Show youtube player ]!

Since any home computer rerelease is bound to be for previous owners only, it would be nice if they took the opportunity to remove their worst flaws - for the speccy it would likely be easier than for other platforms (faster CPU, more memory, replace all drives and I/O with a card interface, proper keyboard).

[desiv]

Come on people. It's time to get over these silly wars...
6 different people will tell you what they think and what do you get?
4 different opinions that just breed contempt...
Rest easy knowing that both are fun.
Usability just depends on the user's experience with the machine..
Love what you had, because that's all that matters..
Even if you disagree with the other person, it's perspective...
Silly wars will prove nothing...

;-)

desiv

[TCD]

Originally Posted by desiv

Silly wars will prove nothing...

But they are fun...
Just imagine we didn't have ours those ST... guys... you know