ZX Spectrum - Your memories

[Mark C.]

Oh dear lord you guys have just brought back all kind of weird and vaguely disturbing memories for me...rofl

And saberwulf ftw...hehehehe

[manwithnoname]

I had one of the very first 48k Spectrums. I was stationed in Germany at the time so I got it VAT free. The list price was £175 but I got it for about £150.

Happy days spent typing in page after page of listings to play a really simple game. You'd spend hours typing it in then twice as many hours trying to find the syntax errors that stopped it running. It taught you a lot about programming though.

Anyone remember the Sinclair printer that used silver thermal paper and produced listings that were almost completely unreadable?

Spectral Invaders? Hungry Horace and of course Manic Miner.

It was the Spectrum that led me to go into computers when I left the Air Force some years later.

The printer was perfect for creating cassette labels they'd fit a treat - if like you say you didn't need to read it.

[Dirk]

I had the speccy +3 with the floppy disk drive stuck on the side. I remember playing tresure island dizzy and fantasy world dizzy for hours. Did anyone ever complete the great escape? The bloody dogs always got me after I had got under the fense!

[DavidM]

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[timread]

I still have a Speccy +3. Haven't used it in a long time though.

My favourite games were the 'Ultimate' series - Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, and Knight Lore. I also remember enjoying Avalon and Dragontorc of Avalon.

There was a great one too where you drove a sort of dragster car around a map, collecting things and avoiding enemy cars, but I can't remember what it was called.

I also recall spending hours typing in code from those Speccy magazines to run rudimentary games. Then working out how to tweak the game (e.g. more lives, more power etc!)

[DavidM]

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[DavidM]

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[DavidM]

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[Ciber]

Many happy hours on my spectrum. Most memorable being Manic miner and Knight Lore.

[manwithnoname]

Currah did a handy gadget called the MicroSlot - or something similar ... basically gave another expansion slot so you could plug in a Joystick interface as well.

I had a similar one with the PlusD interface

it was no good for the version of Joystick interface I had, when plugged in the joystick cable would point toward you and lay over the keyboard http://www.clive.nl/images/23157.jpg

No matter which way you plugged the peripheral you wouldn't be able to plug in the Joystick cable.

[DavidM]

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[Betty_Swallocks]

I had a programmable joystick interface which emulated key presses. You selected which keys you wanted it to use by connecting crocodile clips to a sort of metal grid.

[Stewart]

You deserve an award for spelling it correctly Not a bad game for a budget...

Haha.

I spelled it so wrongly the first time even Google couldn't work out what I was on about.

Then I added ZX Spectrum to the search, and still nothing.

In the end I had to check the World Of Spectrum archives to get anywhere near the right word.

Nonteraguous was my best attempt.

[mycarsavw]

Nonterraqueous?

I loved that game.

I used to leave the Speccy on over night so I could carry on the next day. Mine had (and still has) a dodgy aerial socket which, if looked at wrongly, would make everything reset, losing all progress. The last time we broke it out for some retro gaming, I had to wedge three cassettes under the back just to make it power on

[DavidM]

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[Betty_Swallocks]

No, I think it was this one