Retro Rewind - The Spectrum

[Webzcas]

Many of us who grew up in the 80's first encountered a personal computer by using a ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 or BBC Micro especially in schools.

My first ever machine was the rubber keyed 48K Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which I truly loved and wish I had kept. However, on 22nd November next month, the same company behind the Mini Amiga A500 and other classic retro machines, are releasing The Spectrum.

This is on my Christmas Gift List!!

 

[Jono777]

ZX Spectrum my first ever computer, like you really wished I kept it. Hours of fun and loved it.

Later had an Atari ST and Amiga 500, again long gone and wishing I'd hung on to them.

 

[Webzcas]

Never had an ST, but did get the Amiga A500 for Christmas in 1988. I absolutely loved that machine. But alas, I think my dad got rid of it. As was no longer there when we cleared my mum and dad's house out when he passed :-(

 

[goatwack]

Who can forget the marvellous home computer days of the '80s, from which many great gaming memories were formed, all under the pretext of doing 'serious computey things' as we duped our parents into buying one?

Past the rudimentary consoles and Q-Bert-esque bleeps and bloops of the Atari and Colecovision era, we now had our very own powerhouse programming hubs on which to become the next Steve Jobs, such as entering prompts on the command line so as to witness the spectacle of the cursor doing a little sideways shimmy!

Alas, the anticipation of buying a new game at a 'bargain' price at a derelict market stall for £1.99 and expecting an arcade game we'd never heard of, only to toil in frustration at the games not loading.....for the fourth time in a row!

Formative days indeed, without which we'd not have the technological feats and toys of today. I opted for the C64 of course, and would play my mate's Speccy religiously anyway, as many of its games had a charm all of their own, often outshining its rivals. By and large, the sprites were just better, hindered only by the limited colour palette and calculator sound chip. What they squeezed out of the humble Spectrum's phenomenal, and it got an unfair rep as far as I'm concerned

Never trusted anyone that had an Amstrad though, the people were usually weirdos of the highest order, would have acne on their acne, and generally smell of cheese for some reason

Will be eagerly anticipating this emulator for sure, even if just to collect. What an iconic computer! Huzzah!

 

[Webzcas]

You can't beat the old games. Especially the King of the Joystick Killers

 

[satchnz]

I wish RetroArch for iPadOS and tvOS had some sort of persistent storage so I could rely on it to play Speccy, PS1, and arcade games on these devices. As it is, these OS’s can delete your ROMs at any time. The joys of Apple software…

 

[Webzcas]

Fuse runs fine on MacOS no probs

 

[Webzcas]

As does OpenEMU on MacOS for other retro consoles

 

[satchnz]

@Webzcas I have a windows laptop on which RetroArch works fine but there is nothing like the convenience of playing games on my iPad or Apple TV.

And let’s not pretend the software on these devices is superb. Have you ever tried using the files app with network shares on an iPad or iPhone? It’s flaky at best

 

[goatwack]

That's a very comprehensive frontend for a multitude of emulation I see!

Certainly a far cry from the manual grind of the more mid-noughties MAMEs of this world and suchlike, albeit even for these swish new ones e.g OpenEMU etc, I suspect one would still have the chore of seeking out each corresponding bios, roms and so forth. Ain't no thing as a free lunch!

* that 'Warlords' Atari cover has stirred some ancient recollection by the visual alone, I'm pretty sure I owned that, or at the very least 'prolonged borrowed' it from an accomplice back in t'day

The cross-play functionality of these Apple emulation apps looks very convenient for sure. Yet I would certainly always find a way to back these files up incase of a dreaded digital purge or just licensing issue

 

[Webzcas]

@Webzcas I have a windows laptop on which RetroArch works fine but there is nothing like the convenience of playing games on my iPad or Apple TV.

And let’s not pretend the software on these devices is superb. Have you ever tried using the files app with network shares on an iPad or iPhone? It’s flaky at best

Nope, I can't disagree with you. I only use my iPad Mini for watching Netflix / Youtube / DAZN / iPlayer.

If I want to play games, I use my MacBook or iMac. But I am not a big gamer these days. The heyday was in the 80's and 90's for me

 

[satchnz]

Nope, I can't disagree with you. I only use my iPad Mini for watching Netflix / Youtube / DAZN / iPlayer.

If I want to play games, I use my MacBook or iMac. But I am not a big gamer these days. The heyday was in the 80's and 90's for me

We must be of similar age as it was the 80s and 90s for me too.

I’m not a big gamer either hence my desire to use one of the devices most in my presence. The laptop is all the way upstairs. I use my iPad for most “computer” type functions so I can’t be arsed carrying around my laptop too, just in case.

 

[YouTubeSlots]

This thread reminded me of when I had a Amiga 1200 with floppy disk games. Like chaos engine, lemmings, captain america, zool etc those were the days.

Now a days game are broken on release and need 600 updates and patches before it becomes a full product. Back in the day you put your floppy disk/cartridge in and played.

 

[conker]

The first ever game I played on a console was Pong on a ZX Spectrum. I quickly got bored of that and found R-Type, an awesome space shoot-em up game that was incredibly addictive. I then went to a Sega Master system, where many other kids at the time went to the Nintendo 64, Commodore 64 and already mentioned Amiga 500.

Great days, I really miss them.