Don't forget the ZX Spectrum!

[TheWildWhelk]

I've ran many emulators down through the years, whether it be for the Amiga or Mame, but the 'console' i still keep coming back to is the Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. I've completed all of the Ultimate Play The Game titles (even Bubbler and Martianoids) and still try to beat personal bests on the likes of Jet Set Willy 2 and Atic Atac (think speed run on the latter.)

Various emulators are also perfect for playing those previously-annoying multi-load games, such as Karnov. After many years, i finally finished that.

Anyone else have favourites for either the rubber-keyed beast or it's brothers?

[Eidolon]

yes, seame here. I've had Emulators for a while, but got a 128k +2A on eBay with a load of games for £25 last month. much nicer to have the original machine.

[quirkmanly]

Ant Attack and Fairlight were always my favorites, however me and my brother spent hours on the Ultimate Games. Bugaboo the Flea was tremendous fun too, but played with my sanity a little too much!

[brettallica]

I'd never even heard of this thing until I Googled it just now. Looks like it was mainly a UK system. Am I right about that?

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by brettallica

I'd never even heard of this thing until I Googled it just now. Looks like it was mainly a UK system. Am I right about that?

yes, which is why it isnt widely known (at least outside the UK and apparently Russia), and it's games dont turn up on the Wii like C64 games do.
A real shame as there's some great stuff available for it. Ultimate Play The Game are probably the most well known company, and they did brilliant packaging as well.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org

[quirkmanly]

Originally Posted by brettallica

I'd never even heard of this thing until I Googled it just now. Looks like it was mainly a UK system. Am I right about that?

I know that there were some Spanish language titles produced, so I had always assumed that they were available on mainland Europe too, but it was a mainly British phenomenon. They were huge at my school.

They were eventually edged out by Commodore Amigas, Atari STs and the Sega Megadrive.

[quirkmanly]

And how could I forget The Lords of Midnight.



Epic.

[kolibri]

Head Over Heels was one of my favourites. Sabrewulf was another classic, along with Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. I've been hoping for a decent emulator for the iPad.

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

yes, which is why it isnt widely known (at least outside the UK and apparently Russia), and it's games dont turn up on the Wii like C64 games do.
A real shame as there's some great stuff available for it. Ultimate Play The Game are probably the most well known company, and they did brilliant packaging as well.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org

Originally Posted by quirkmanly

I know that there were some Spanish language titles produced, so I had always assumed that they were available on mainland Europe too, but it was a mainly British phenomenon. They were huge at my school.

They were eventually edged out by Commodore Amigas, Atari STs and the Sega Megadrive.

The system looks really cool, and I think I would like to try it. There appears to be a lot of support for emulators out there, so I might have to give that a gander. I bet these games look phenomenal on the good ol' big screen HDTV! Anyone have any experience with that?

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by brettallica

I'd never even heard of this thing until I Googled it just now. Looks like it was mainly a UK system. Am I right about that?

Timex had the 1000 and one other I believe. the Timex 1000 was a rebadged ZX-81. And was hell to type on. My neighbor had one in the early 80's. A friends dad had a ZX Spectrum, it was pretty cool by early 80's standards.

[Astrakan]

Originally Posted by brettallica

Looks like it was mainly a UK system. Am I right about that?

It was relatively popular in Sweden too. I'd guess "mainly a European system" would be more accurate.

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by brettallica

The system looks really cool, and I think I would like to try it. There appears to be a lot of support for emulators out there, so I might have to give that a gander. I bet these games look phenomenal on the good ol' big screen HDTV! Anyone have any experience with that?

yes, I plugged my 'new' 128k into my 40" HDTV via an RGB Scart (you have to get a special one made-up), and it looked fantastic. What's nice is that when the TV is set to zoom mode, the image fits the screen horizontally perfectly, as it takes off the top and bottom unused borders.

It's been a little awkward to keep the Speccy in the sitting room to use, with all the cables (and the Scart doesn't reach my sofa), so I've ended up putting it with the portable TV in the bedroom for now.

[kingofgrills]

I never did get the ZX Spectrum. My dad ordered the ZX 81 kit, which he assembled in his shop. He was an electrical engineer for the government, and always brought home random keyboards, oscilliscopes, and huge magnetic drives that were put out to be scrapped. Anyway, he wired one of the full-sized mainframe keyboards to the ZX 81, so we wouldn't have to use the crappy membrane keyboard.

After we had the ZX81 a while, we jumped to the Texas Instruments TI 99 4/A, and then the Commodore 64, followed by the C 128. I totally missed the Spectrum.

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by kingofgrills

I never did get the ZX Spectrum. My dad ordered the ZX 81 kit, which he assembled in his shop. He was an electrical engineer for the government, and always brought home random keyboards, oscilliscopes, and huge magnetic drives that were put out to be scrapped. Anyway, he wired one of the full-sized mainframe keyboards to the ZX 81, so we wouldn't have to use the crappy membrane keyboard.

After we had the ZX81 a while, we jumped to the Texas Instruments TI 99 4/A, and then the Commodore 64, followed by the C 128. I totally missed the Spectrum.

eBay. It's never too late.
You need one of the 128k or above models though, as they support RGB connections. The 16k and 48k models only have rf connections, which are on the same frequency as channel 5, and as such render the machine unusable.

[brettallica]

Check out this sweet system:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=260653497538

[serpheus]

I swapped my nes for a speccy a decision i regretted for a long time.

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by brettallica

Check out this sweet system:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=260653497538

strange, i've never seen one designed like that before. He'll be lucky to sell it at that price.

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

strange, i've never seen one designed like that before. He'll be lucky to sell it at that price.

Interesting! I thought for sure that was a good find. According to Wikipedia, the design from the eBay auction is pretty similar to the one shown in the Wiki entry. Not saying that it's right necessarily, but I am just throwing it out there. Here's the Wikipedia entry, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum. There are probably some nuances of the design that I'm not picking up due to being unfamiliar with the system itself (having never seen one in person).

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by brettallica

Interesting! I thought for sure that was a good find. According to Wikipedia, the design from the eBay auction is pretty similar to the one shown in the Wiki entry. Not saying that it's right necessarily, but I am just throwing it out there. Here's the Wikipedia entry, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum. There are probably some nuances of the design that I'm not picking up due to being unfamiliar with the system itself (having never seen one in person).

i recognise all of the Wiki machines, but not the eBay one. It's clearly a 48k rubber keyboard in there, but the casing is odd. May be worth asking about it over at World of Spectrum.
He's asking a lot of money for a very niche interest retro machine, in a country that doesn't really know about it, and it's a PAL system too of course.
Still, the seller is based in Hungary, so maybe he's advertised it on the local eBay as well. Possibly it's some kind of hungarian exclusive version?

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

i recognise all of the Wiki machines, but not the eBay one. It's clearly a 48k rubber keyboard in there, but the casing is odd. May be worth asking about it over at World of Spectrum.
He's asking a lot of money for a very niche interest retro machine, in a country that doesn't really know about it, and it's a PAL system too of course.
Still, the seller is based in Hungary, so maybe he's advertised it on the local eBay as well. Possibly it's some kind of hungarian exclusive version?

Ah yes...I just went and looked at these on my larger monitor (those other posts of mine came from the iPhone), and now I can clearly see that these are not the same units. Not even close, really. The one on eBay says "CZ Spectrum" in the upper left corner, while the authentic ones say "ZX Spectrum." Further, the one from Wikipedia has the embossed "Sinclair" relief on the case right there above where it says "ZX Spectrum." Obvious discrepancy there. Plus, the angles and chamfers on the casings are totally different from each other.