[Closed] 30th birthday of the ZX spectrum today.

In my school you were either C64 or Spectrum. I was C64 and revelled in the better graphics.
Oh... then there were the kids that had Acorns or BBC Micros, they all went on to be computer programmers, or let them sit gathering dust as there were not as many games to distract from the learning element.

I was firmly in the C64 camp but my mate who's mom baby sat me had 48K and then a 128K. Best of both worlds.

I did wonder about starting a Spectrum v C64 thread.. had to move mine the other week, it'd been up in my gran's loft for well quite a long time.
Now safely stored in our loft!

Spectrum 48+ owner and proud!
TBH I never actually saw a C64 run, as everyone had Spectrums

Atari 400/800 and then Xl here.

Then Atari ST... and an Amiga 500

Then a PC ever since.

PS: Still play games from the above XL and Amiga/ST on emulators.

The three dreaded words:

Tape Loading Error 🙁

New games are still being released for the speccy - roughly 100 new ones in the last year or so

[url= http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0027057 ]LOADING……..[/url]

C64 all the way. Rather liked the ZX though.

64 then Amiga here.

As an aside, in what must have been 1992 ish there was a 64 still running the ticket queue in the Leeds HMRC buliding. I remember being shocked at the time.

Not surprising that STW is populated by former C64-ites. Middlde class all the way innit?

I'm sitting at work all misty-eyed over crappy rubber Speccy keys and shaking my fist at the yoof who tell me I'm old. Sabre Wulf and Jet Set Willy FTW.

Manic Miner has to be one of the ALL time great games.

Many, many an hour was spent trying to finish that sodding game.

ZX Spectrum 48+ for me.

Zynaps, Code Name MAT 2, Cybernoid, etc

Rose tinted memories...

Brilliant - but now I just feel OLD.

What will it be like in the next 30 years.

Speccy and Speccy +2 boy here.

The only C64 game I liked involved bombing damns with lancasters I think.

Then we went on to Amstrad 464 and 664, before out first PC.

Amiga boys always had the best graphics though.

Best game in the world, eva
[img] [/img]

enjoy
http://www.zxspectrum.net

How could I have forgotten the VIC 20. Can't for the life of think where they ended up.

We had a Spectrum ZX 48k and a Commodore 64. Started playing when I was three years old, my earliest game memories are of Jet Set Willy, Booty, Horace Goes Skiing and The Perils of Bear George. It pretty much set the course for my entire life.

Mrs Toast, Games Designer.

BBC micro?

I've still got a fully working ZX Spectrum 48k with rubber keys.

Always wanted a BBC micro, to play Elite on.

Only game on the C64 that was worth playing was Slap Fighter.

Cracking days they were.

Vic 20 > Speccy 48k > C128 (why?) > ST > PCs etc.

BBC micro?

Elite was the only decent game - it was all a bit too 'educational' and didn't get the game development the others did.

One of my colleagues has admitted to having an Oric 1. The nicheness.

I had one after a ZX81 then upgraded to 48K so I could play the Hobbit 😎

I think I had an Oric too, it was crap.

And an Atom (? - cheaper BBC) but I'd got bored with it by then.

How could I have forgotten the VIC 20. Can't for the life of think where they ended up.

Easy to forget the VIC 20 - they didn't really do very much, there were hardly any games for it, and hardly anyone had one. Just you.

And errm, me.

We had a BBC Micro, and yes my brother went on to be a computer programmer. Was always a bit jealous of the games on other platforms though.

Happy birthday speccy, bought a 16k version (yes 16k!!!) direct from sinclair research mail order, cant think of a game since that i have been addicted to like some of the speccy games , Manic Miner,Jetpac and Atic Atac to name a few, youth of today dont know how much they owe to this little piece of plastic and rubber!!!

The marvin phone app is superb for playing spectrum games - linked to the wold of spectrum website for downloads. The gameplay is timeless for some of those classic games. Only drawback is the the touchscreen on most phones is a bit cumbersome when you're trying to control Miner Willy or Daley Thompson.

We never had a Spectrum. We had the lesser known Commodore 16, and an Acorn Electron. Which was amazing.

And now I'm a computer programmer for my sins 😮

Check out ZX Spectrum Orchestra on Youtube, few cool tracks on there.

Dungeon Master on the ST was the best game ever and OID's. If you had Automation97 😉

and check this EPIC AwEsomness out.... TOTAL Dungeon Master Clone. Who needs Call of Duty etc.

Invoke FUL for magic torch 🙂

http://www.grimrock.net/
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Had a +2 then bought a 48K years later at a car boot sale. Epic memories of

Gauntlet
Dizzy
Jet Set Willy
Enduro Racer
Green Beret
Target Renegade
Double Dragon
Yi Ar Kung Fu
Skool Daze
Mental Mikey
Daley Thomson's Decathlon
etc

Etched in the memory for life

Wow, memories! Had a Spectrum then a C64. Manic Miner, brilliant. Mrs Toast comes in with Horace goes skiiing! I havent' though about that game for, well, probably 30 years but I absolutely loved it.

Jetpac, Atic Atac, I'm going to have to go and have a little cry - where have the last 30 years gone?!

How to destroy the rubber M&N keys on a orignal 48.. install Daley Thomson's Decathlon 😀

You also forgot Commando off your list Bob!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew - BIP

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew - BIPaBIPaBIPaBIPaBIPaBIPa

etc.

cynic-al - Member
I had one after a ZX81

I remember trying to play 3D Monster Maze on a ZX81. Never knew what was happening until a t-rex shaped bunch of blobs would kill me. I don't remember ever getting out of the maze.

I made an ar$e of re-programming Football Manager to use Scottish team/player names. Don't think I've ever been quite forgiven for that by my wee brother.

Playing Elite in a darked room whilst wearing a puffer jacket for that extra space man realism... it would have been less embarrassing if my mum had caught me having a hand shandy.

I used to code on the C64. When we got an Amiga, I tried Amos, but the book was boring and grey and Deluxe Pain III was much cooler and had Tutankhamen on the cover. I had loads of floppy discs of animations I’d created. Most of them were rather short, as I watched Rolf’s cartoon club when they visited the Disney studios during the making of The Little Mermaid, and they said how they were doing 24 frames per second.

“HA!” I thought. “I TOO SHALL MAKE MY CARTOONS 24 FRAMES PER SECOND!”

Sadly, at 24 frames per second the Amiga 500+ was capable of about three to four seconds before it ran out of memory. 🙁

I've still got a couple of 48K Spectrums up the loft along with my ZX81 and it's wobbly 16K RAM pack. Got a couple of BBC Micro's as well.

Back in the mid 80's as well as the usual Spectrums and C64/VIC20's there were quite a for others around as well - Dragon's, ORIC's etc. I remember wanting a Jupiter Ace - can't really remember why!

30 years on, and we're still having the Spectrum vs C64 debate. I love you guys.

I was a Spectrum owner. First computer was a 48K issue 3, then I was an early adopter of the Atari ST. Went via a 1040STe to the PC. I have an Amiga these days too, but it's a relatively recent acquisition, I never had one in the day.

But, the Spectrum was my first love. Halcyon days. Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, Sabre Wulf, Atic Atac, TLL... Many many text adventures; The Hobbit, Subsunk, Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle, Questprobe (Hulk and Spider-Man)... good heavens.

Oh, bless them, check Google's front page today.

30 years! jeysus!

had a Texas Instruments Ti99/4A then a ZX spectrum 48k+ then a C64 then an Amiga A500, happy days! had the speccy wired up to my grandads old tape player piece of junk, god knows how many times I've gone batshit when "tape loading error" came up right at the end of loading.
kempston interface and atari joystick FTW!

kids these days and there "instantly available to play" games consoles.dont know there born!

Now this was a great game !
anyone else remember ??

I had an Oric 1. There were fewer games, but it was better than a spectrum. It had good sound, and it was better to program on.

Go on, you know you want to:

[url= http://www.twinbee.org/hob/play.php?snap=hobbit ]Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.[/url]

10 Print "You Are Gay"
20 Goto 10
Run

Hours of fun

I was the weird one in the geek club and my folks got me one of these instead of the spectrum (or a BBC).

[img] [/img]

A Texas Instruments ti-99/4a. Kevevs, you and me must have been about the only people in the country - although the biggest seller in the states.

Just googled them - $525 - assume the same in the UK. **** me, my parent's must have loved me!

Easy to forget the VIC 20 - they didn't really do very much, there were hardly any games for it, and hardly anyone had one. Just you.

And errm, me.

Ah. Me too. At some point we got an ST, then it was PC's all the way. I think I just used mates' computers...

Now a software developer 🙂

C64 > Spectrum, better keyboard and the tape player hooked in directly, so no loading errors.

Easy to forget the VIC 20 - they didn't really do very much, there were hardly any games for it, and hardly anyone had one. Just you.

And errm, me.

And me , infact i still have a working one in the box ! twas my first computer .. very shamefully after an early interest i stopped coding and just started playing games & therefore missed out on earning big bucks as some kind of Asp.Net C# Super coder ..still had fun playing the games !

I played Lords of Midnight so many times on the Spectrum, I reckon i could sing the loading tape noises into a mic and have it run.

Aww Skool Daze on the zx was brilliant!!

After building up a sweat playing Galaxians your fingers used to slip off the rubber keys on the old 48k!!

30 years old?

Congratulationt! 😉
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Convert -dunno why I got the Texas Instruments,think it was cheap/reduced, cos I wanted the speccy. I think like most kids at the time I was banging on at my parents about doing "homework" on it, and it had a proper keyboard for "typing stuff" or whatever and great for my parents to do "bills n stuff" on it. and it had that cartridge port like on my Atari 2600. I don't remember actually doing much with it. It's like kids now persuading their parents they "need" a smartphone!
[img] [/img] WHOA!

Spectrum here.

ZX81 (with obligatory wobbly 16k RAM pack)
Spectrum 48K (with obligatory Kempston joystick)
Atari 800XL
Amstrad 464
Windows PC
Linux PC

Always had mates with C64, ST, Amiga etc. so also got to play most of the good stuff on those regularly too.

Spectrum games were great but never sure whether that's rose-tinted-specs or because they had no choice but to focus on gameplay since the graphics and sound were so poor). Still got a heap of tape images sat on my HD here to play under FUSE.

Would add Dark Star, 3d Ant Attack, TLL, Combat Lynx, Chaos, Tau Ceti and Shadowfire to the list ofawesome Speccy games.

Anyone running a spectrum emulator should try Buzzsaw if they haven't already - new speccy release - kind of a jumped up tetris but very good.

slainte 8) rob

Underwurlde was my favourite.

LOL at BoardinBob,then think you`re a top programmer!!
Unfond memories of buying a magazine and spending 3 days typing a program in, press run and the dreaded syntax error and nothing else, lost count of the times I did this!!!

haha, I remember typing in programs from crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_(magazine) and them never working. or was it C&VG?

whatever happened to Oliver Frey?

colournoise - Member
Windows PC

(3.1 > 95 > 98 > Me > XP > Vista - spent too long in thrall to uncle Bill)

slainte 😳 rob

3d Deathchase was rated the best ever Speccy Game in it's final days. I liked Psytron and probably would have liked Ant Attack except I was terrible at it.

As for other home computers of the time - anyone have a Colour Genie?

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I remember typing in programs from crash

I was talking to Julian Rignall on Twitter a couple of days ago.

whatever happened to Oliver Frey?

I've got a book here along the lines of 'the artwork of oli frey' - it's very, very good.

3d Deathchase was rated the best ever Speccy Game in it's final days.

... Yep. Which is odd, cos it's one of the oldest.

has Julian Rignall still got that mad haircut lol! oh man I'm going back now.. re-wind.. I think I was enthralled by his reviews when I was a youngster and some other bloke I can't remember that was on zzap64

I had an Oric 1. There were fewer games, but it was better than a spectrum. It had good sound, and it was better to program on.

Tht's what aaaaaaaall the kids (both of them) who had an Oric said - whilst the rest of us were talking about high scores and new games 😀 I do remember the keyboard being 'different' and the sound being slightly less crppy than a Spectrum. That was a niche fatbike of an 80s computer.

My first computer was a +3. Paperboy and Nomad where were it was at!

A Texas Instruments ti-99/4a. Kevevs, you and me must have been about the only people in the country - although the biggest seller in the states.

We had a Texas. I didn't want it, but my dad bought it anyway. It was shite.
Then we had a BBC Master (Ooooooohhh!!) but my dad INSISTED on buying a proper computer monitor for it..... A green screen one.....!! FFS!!!! Would he buy a 16in portable colour TV? No. Would he heck. 🙁

Knight Lore has to be one of the best games on the spectrum, and just a landmark game in general. If you were writing a book on the history of computer gaming, 1950-2000, it would merit a page or two.

Did anyone ever play Swords and sorcery by PSS? Wasn't super popular (can't find much about it on the net other than the WoS page) but again ahead of it's time. Unlike Knight Lore, though, it was too ambitious a game engine and full of bugs - couldn't be completed IIRC.

[img] http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/wosfiles/ingame/SwordsAndSorcery.gi f" target="_blank">http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/wosfiles/ingame/SwordsAndSorcery.gi f"/> &sa=X&ei=k12WT_L5JsL88QP2tOCfCg&ved=0CAwQ8wc&usg=AFQjCNHr8BF3puvot1TMty8pic7N5jEaDg[/img]

Yay - someone else recognises the genius that was Knight Lore!

I remember trying to play 3D Monster Maze on a ZX81. Never knew what was happening until a t-rex shaped bunch of blobs would kill me.

Also fond memories of the JetPac series, Chucky Egg, the Manic / Jet Set and this gem

Written by the same guy who did The Hobbit ('Kill Thorin' seemed to be everyone's opening gambit!) and had the ace feature of being able to design your own levels

Tht's what aaaaaaaall the kids (both of them) who had an Oric said

True though.. and I actually spent more time programming mine than I did playing games.

I still have an Oric and a stack of games although sadly it's not my original one. I also have my Atari ST, complete with 16MB hard drive and high res mono monitor that I bought much later from eBay for buttons.

Pyjamarama and Matchday were my favourite wastes of time.

Oh and Gauntlet!! Me and a pal started playing it at about 10am on Christmas Day and didnt stop until about 3am next morning. Not even for Christmas Dinner. Loved the seemingly endless killing and magic....

And funnily enough my wife has never really accepted my overtures about getting an Xbox/PS3 etc

Edit - The only "programming" I ever bothered with/managed was the faff where you could print your name over and over again on the screen...

Knight Lore has to be one of the best games on the spectrum

Legend has it that Knight Lore was completed a couple of years before it was released. Ultimate held it back so that it didn't harm sales of their other games.

And funnily enough my wife has never really accepted my overtures about getting an Xbox/PS3 etc