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ZX Spectrum - Your memories
The ZX Spectrum was launch 25 years ago this month.
What are your favourite memories of the speccy and your favourite games?
So the loading times were frustrating, but I used to love the excitement of waiting for the likes of Manic Minor or Football Manager to load.
I used to organise weekend competitions with my brother where we'd compete for the highest score on games like Jet Set Willy, The way of the exploding fist, Commandos and Chuckie Egg.
I also used to like the text adventures such as The Hobbit.
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JetSet Willy ftw! :rockon:
I still have my ZX80 & 81. The ZX81 has the wobbly 16k (yes, a whole stokingly large 16k!) expansion pack.
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i never had a spectrum
we had a dragon 32, which was like a tandy trs-80, but welsher
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I have a full 128k (EDITED to add the +2 part) system sitting in my office at work, 50 odd games, kempston joystick etc.
I think about selling it once a week as I stumble around the box but I just can't bring myself to put it on fleabay.
I remember the old man bringing it home from Currys in the long, colourful box with the 10 grey games (Nifty Lifty, Snooker etc) and setting it up on our tiny B & W television on the dining table.
It sat there for months, he'd come home from work in his lunch hour, have a quick game of Nifty Lifty and then back to work again.
I loved the Never Ending Story (or Never Ending Loader as we used to call it) and all the Dizzy games too, especially the second one which, upon completion congratulated you with the word;
"Congratultions" (or something like that)
What a good thread, oh the memories
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I'd an Atari 400, with 16KB and a membrane keyboard.
Top loading cartridges, played the best version of Defender ever. Graphics were way better than the Spectrum could ever offer.
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That the c64 was better. Those horrible rubber keys! Oh my god I hated speccies!
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Wrote up a short feature on the Speccy
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=106050
My girlfriend's dad threw her 48K spectrum away a couple of years ago. I've never liked him since then.
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best game was chuckie egg, my memories of the spectrum would be the blue and yellow loading lines round the edge of the screen + the noise, the boot on manic miner when you die and getting horace goes skiing on some weird little mini cartridge that plugged into a port on the kempston? joystick add on port at the back and marvelling at how it loaded in 5 seconds rather than 15 minutes.
im sure theres more i'll try and think of a few more.
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We had the old 16k rubber keyed thing which was promptly upgraded to 48k...
Remember the old days of writing code line by line from magazines, poke this, nibble that...
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I was lucky enough to start with a 128k+ although my cousins had a 48k :)
I then had a plus 3 with multiface so I could rip games all day :)
best game , probably dictator ( old 16k game )
or laser squad.
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I almost filled my trousers when my Father In Law said he had an original boxed ZX-80. Sadly he was wrong and it's just a ZX-81. In reasonably good condition though :)
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Nick was telling me that they cost around £140 in the day!! Is that right? I can't remember, but I do know that my parents couldn't afford to upgrade to the 128K version.
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I've still got my Spectrum +3 (with disk drive!). No idea whether it works though.
I remember breaking many a kempston compatible joystick playing Super Test (and Hyper Sports).
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Snowball and other Level 9 adventures were great on the Spectrum. I spent ages making maps for adventure games.
I still have my Spectrum plus the DKTronics keyboard I bought for it, the Kempston joystick the other joysticks I rewired to work with the programmable interface I bought.
Fantastic fun. :)
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Price of Majik was the best :)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
i never had a spectrum
we had a dragon 32, which was like a tandy trs-80, but welsher
Still got one in my garage, along with my first gaming system the Atari 2600 (and a B2000.. and a CD32..). Of course back then there were other wonderfully weird computers - the commodore PET springs to mind (the 'scientific' keyboard needed a stylus to operate the tiny keys) as well as the ZX80 and 81. My first (own) computer was an Amstrad CPC - to which I owe a lot as having a full sized keyboard and a _decent_ version of BASIC probably got me into computing and science in general.
Surprised you can remember the speccy or the dragon given your diminutive years ;) God I feel old :help:
I've got a Dragon 32 game with SPEECH :)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aaron
I've still got my Spectrum +3 (with disk drive!). No idea whether it works though.
I remember breaking many a kempston compatible joystick playing Super Test (and Hyper Sports).
I snapped loads of those little, what we'd now call OEM, joysticks clean off playing Sports games.
Remember Daley Thompson's Decathalon.
JKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJK just to make him run.
Or Ninja something where you had to break the wood by powering up the Ninja with ASASASASASAS.
I also remember copying out the 8 or so pages of code in the back of the user manual to make the Union Jack. It took close to a whole day and when I went to save it (play & record on the inbuilt tape deck) my little sister hurled something which popped the aerial connection out the back of the Spectrum, wiping everything.
<happy content sigh>
I may have to break the Speccy out again soon, show the kids what real computing was all about.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
mycarsavw
I may have to break the Speccy out again soon, show the kids what real computing was all about.
10 print "dad is cool"
20 goto 10
:bowdown:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
dangel
Still got one in my garage, along with my first gaming system the Atari 2600 (and a B2000.. and a CD32..). Of course back then there were other wonderfully weird computers - the commodore PET springs to mind (the 'scientific' keyboard needed a stylus to operate the tiny keys) as well as the ZX80 and 81. My first (own) computer was an Amstrad CPC - to which I owe a lot as having a full sized keyboard and a _decent_ version of BASIC probably got me into computing and science in general.
Surprised you can remember the speccy or the dragon given your diminutive years ;) God I feel old :help:
I've got a Dragon 32 game with SPEECH :)
think my dad still has about 100 copies of Dragon User in a cupboard, complete with typo'd program listings
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I remember playing "sweevo's world" for hours and not knowing what the hell was going on...
...playing all the dizzy egg games and never quite getting to the end of any of them.
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Underwurlde, SabreWulf, Rick Dangerous, Chaos, Lords of Chaos, and whatever the predecessors to Laser Squad were, i remember they had names like Vasquez and Dan Dare in them.
Head over Heels, Batman 3d and Movie, Chase HQ was particularly good too, Power drift
Wizball? (may have been amiga, but sure it was speccy) Afterburner, Full Throttle, Checquered flag, Pole Position
Wheelie, Robocop, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Renegade, Target Renegade, Double Dragon, Outrun, Star Wars.
and who could forget Ant Attack!!!!
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Attic Attack :)
don't go down to the cellars !!
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..... R Tape loading error, 0:1.
:D
Joking aside, I have loads of great memories with my speccy. What a great machine.
Atic Atac was the first game I ever completed. Lunar Jetman was the game I KNEW I would never complete lol ..... How tough was that!
Starquake... Thats another one I used to love... Soooo many great games
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Manic Miner! This thread brought back a lot of memories so I thought I'd dig this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRviXqHL2pM
Genius.
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I was jealous of me mate as he had ZX Spectrum and I only a ZX 81.
However, I took my revenge by being headboy in Skool Daze.
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I spent many a happy hour with my speccy 48k, many of them playing knight lore. http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...84507023050970 :)
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Well, I've been tinkering with the Speccy Emulator and te C64 Emulator the past few days. Been playing loads of the old classics.
Think this thread needs a few screenies. Will get some later if I can put Guild Wars Nightfall down!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vowo
I was jealous of me mate as he had ZX Spectrum and I only a ZX 81.
However, I took my revenge by being headboy in Skool Daze.
Loved that game, although I could never complete it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
UpTheToon
I remember playing "sweevo's world" for hours and not knowing what the hell was going on...
...playing all the dizzy egg games and never quite getting to the end of any of them.
You never got to the end of any games back then. Nobody has ever got to the end of any Specturm game, ever.
Being able to get to the end of games was only introduced during the 8bit era.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stewart
You never got to the end of any games back then. Nobody has ever got to the end of any Specturm game, ever.
From memory - I remember completing the Hobbit, Lords of Midnight, JSW 1 + 2, more text adventures then I could ever remember, Knight Lore, Alien 8, Attic Attac, Sabre Wulf and Chase HQ (although admittedly I also found a cheat mode published in a few places for that one)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
g8ina
Attic Attack :)
don't go down to the cellars !!
Not to be confused with "Trapdoor" :)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vowo
I was jealous of me mate as he had ZX Spectrum and I only a ZX 81.
However, I took my revenge by being headboy in Skool Daze.
The PC remake of that was pretty good indeed.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...89319143102644
This guy finished atic atac in 5 mins, amazing , video of it on google
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Not impossible :)
(Just need to be lucky with the starting location of the parts of the ACG key)
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we went through quite a few zx spectrums , also went through a lot of adapters . The games were cheap , loading times made the game more exiting , today games just dont have the loading times as they use to before. LOL
I played most of the the zx spectrum games , loved them . Its amazing to see how things things has evolved in the past years, the spectrum I remember was for £80 , still remember the coding book with commands in it. like 'go sub'
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
nope
today games just dont have the loading times as they use to before. LOL
Obviously never played a PSP, 5 mins to get into PE6, PS3 isnt much better mind.
I dont have very good memories im afraid, the only two games i had were a chess game and a flight sim, the fact that i was 5 and the ZX was quite old at the time probably added to it. I got an Amiga 500 not long after so the ZX is still in the loft gathering inches of dust.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
From memory - I remember completing the Hobbit, Lords of Midnight, JSW 1 + 2, more text adventures then I could ever remember, Knight Lore, Alien 8, Attic Attac, Sabre Wulf and Chase HQ (although admittedly I also found a cheat mode published in a few places for that one)
Dunno about the rest, but Jet Set Willy and the follow ups were almost impossible. If you were lucky enough to have a version without bugs so it actually could be finished... it was still next to impossible.
Well done sir.
What about Manic Miner? I've still never finished that. Can get up to about the Warehouse, then I get deaded in the head.
The Dizzy games as well... sooo hard.
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In JSW-1 just needed 3 pokes to get through the Attic... and to fix the little buglet in there... the data in the room table became corrupted otherwise...
The warehouse was a bit cruel :)
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My mate finished both Manic Miner AND Dynamite Dan (who's excellent Rondo Alla Turca intro music got me into playing the piano)!!!!
I used to love Batman! Not the man of course - the game, which was a precursor to the isometric Head Over Heels.
Other favourites included Kung-Fu Master, Rambo, Trapdoor, Ghostbusters and Dan Dare (which I completed BTW):mrgreen: .
I remember Trap Door especially as it was the first game I ever saw on the speccy - the sprites where huge for a spectrum game, and somehow the colour clash had been kept to a minimum. I owned a Commodore 16 at the time, so to me it looked like the darn TV show to me (I had a similar epiphany when I saw the commodore 64 and hear The Last Ninja, and Thing on a Spring).
Also, anyone remember Starstrike on the speccy? It was a complete rip-off of the Atari Starwars arcade game which came out YEARS before the authorised licensed version - man it was like having an arcade machine in the house:)
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manic miner was my fav, booty and most of the codemasters games were cool too. I used to have the rubber keyboard one with interface 1 and 2 with 2 microdrives.
Now that has bought back some great gaming moments :)
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The main thing was Chase HQ taking what felt like 30 minutes to load. Even when I got a +3 and a multiface, it still took an age to load off of the 3" disk.
I had, at various times, a 128k+, a +2, a +2A and a +3. Oh, and a Sam Coupe, if that counts. Never had a QL or a ZX81.
I had a crappy thermal printer for my + though. And a lightpen.
Time with my speccies was mostly spent playing the various Dizzy games. Codemasters stuff in general, actually.
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Have ytou guys tried HOB - the online speccie emulator:
http://www.twinbee.org/hob/index.php
It's got Manic Miner ready to rock and roll :rockon2:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
BazookaJo
Tried an emulator, couldn't believe how hard MAnic Minor is! Think I only got to about 6th level.
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Sabatour was one of my favourites on the speccy (had the 16k, upgraded to 48k) :)
Does anyone remember the Shakin Stevens game, it was at the end of the B side of "The Bop Won't Stop" album? :embarrassed:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
Does anyone remember the Shakin Stevens game,
Only in my very scariest nightmares.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
Does anyone remember the Shakin Stevens game, it was at the end of the B side of "The Bop Won't Stop" album? :embarrassed:
:crazy: fortunately, I don't remember that!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
Only in my very scariest nightmares.
Mine too!
+hums "Green Door"+ :help:
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I'm the one who bought a Currah (?) MicroSpeech (??). Crap, it was.
edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currah
I got into all of the 'Wally Week' games, my fave was 'Pyramania.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Deadlight
I'm the one who bought a Currah (?) MicroSpeech (??). Crap, it was.
edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currah
I got into all of the 'Wally Week' games, my fave was 'Pyramania.
Man - the Currah speech was awesome dude - it was like having Stephen Hawkins swearing on command.
Though admittedly F*** all use for anything else.
My fave Wally game was "Everyone's a Wally" as the hot chick on the loading screen game me exciting dreams :mrgreen:
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
I must admit i've been a fan of Speccy games for years, in the 80's i had a Spectrum and tons of games and then was very happy when i discovered emulators !
Yes the graphics are basic, tunes basic but at the end of the day its about playability, many modern games have great graphics/sound etc but no gameplay. I was amazed to find a huge retro community on the web !
worldofspectrum is a great community, great forum, a huge archive of games to be downloaded to play on an emulator.
Theres a site to play online Speccy games and it keeps scoreboards of all the games, great site and you'll get a lot of memories playing here !
Theres even a monthly retro mag out in WH Smiths - Retro Gamer - which regularly features the Speccy (And C64, NES, SNES, Megadrive, Gameboy etc).
We've created a Speccy review book full of reviews also 1982-1984 - 270 pages, 200+ reviews, black and white with colour covers - covers games such as Scuba Dive, Jet Pac, Manic Miner etc
1985-1986- 370 pages, 300+ reviews, a pound more but a bigger book. Covers games such as Knight Lore, Elite, Dynamite Dan etc
We dont make much money per book, mostly done for the love of it. Lulu.com take most of the money (as its print on demand). If any fans of the Speccy want to write reviews of games please let me know, we pay 50p per review
Games are still coming out on the Speccy to this day ! Great old machine ! The scene is huge at the moment, retro gaming is becoming more and more popular.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BazookaJo
Man - the Currah speech was awesome dude - it was like having Stephen Hawkins swearing on command.
Though admittedly F*** all use for anything else.
My fave Wally game was "Everyone's a Wally" as the hot chick on the loading screen game me exciting dreams :mrgreen:
Ha ha the speech on the games wasnt great.
Death Star Interceptor was one of the few games to have speech (without needing a Currah unit), it used to have PREPARE TO LAUNCH in a weird voice like someone was holding their nose.
Robocop i'm sure used to have speech as well which wasnt too bad
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Never knew that. Lunar Jetman i 'wanted' to like but just couldnt get into it, sooo damn hard and frustrating !!
Knight Lore was a great game to look at but again it was just a case of wandering round the rooms, was always amazed at the graphics but just way too tough for me back then (and now).
Seriously you should check out myspeccy.com , been wasting way too much time on there (Do have the top Cobra score!) but a great site. i thought i was good at games until i registered there, way way way too many better players than me !
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
i think i had thomas the tank engine on spectrum :D
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Thought of another game with speech - Ghostbusters !
Think most kids had that back then, the Speccy game was pretty poor, still liked it as Ghostbusters was huge back then at the cinema but you go back and look at that game now and it was pretty bad. Hugeeeee blockbuster hit for the Speccy back in '84 though
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
The game was rubbish on all formats - but the C64 had some nice tunes on that :)
Yeah agree about that ! Thats one game for sure the C64 was much better with.
Robocop was another classic, wasnt that one of the few games which started life on a computer and was then converted to an arcade game (Instead of the other way round).
Anyone remember Softaid ? Great idea which raised a ton of money for the famine in Ethiopia, they bundled about 8 games on one tape (only 3.99 i think) with the vast majority going to charity. Sold a ton back in the day. Think that was one tape even home computer pirates didnt copy
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psj3809
Thought of another game with speech - Ghostbusters !
Think most kids had that back then, the Speccy game was pretty poor, still liked it as Ghostbusters was huge back then at the cinema but you go back and look at that game now and it was pretty bad. Hugeeeee blockbuster hit for the Speccy back in '84 though
"He slimed you!" in the aforementioned Stephen Hawking/Speak 'n' Spell voice
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Anyone remember Glug Glug?
Movie? Betcha don't remember Movie. Class it was.
Nonterraqueous?
Mountains of Ket?
Barbarian?
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
Luna Jetman used the Currah as well... also had the advantage of re-routing the standard sound via the TV, which the old 48K model never did as standard. (That was fixed on the 128K models)
I had a 48k, Kempston joystick Interface and the Currah micro speech - couldn't plug both of them in at once so I'd have a couple of hours with Currah micro speech plugged in playing games on the keyboard. I had very old model of the spectrum (the heatsink was either at the bottom right hand corner or a big one running the just about the width of the machine at the top) the speccy I had was the later and after a couple of hours if you were using the top row of the keyboard the play games it would be too hot to handle - so I'd unplug the Currah micro speech plug the Joystick in and keep playing.
'.. I'll get you lunar Jetman'
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Oh dear lord you guys have just brought back all kind of weird and vaguely disturbing memories for me...rofl
And saberwulf ftw...hehehehe
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Betty_Swallocks
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.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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!
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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!) :)
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Many happy hours on my spectrum. :) Most memorable being Manic miner and Knight Lore.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
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.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
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. :D
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stewart
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 :(
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
No, I think it was this one
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidM
Sounds like the
Comcon interface - Frel Electronics.
I met a relative of the chap who invented that a couple of times.
friends had a comcon - I used to happy snap quickshots :)
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
never had one :( but one of my mates did many a day spent waiting for it to load :)
got cd full of snapshots stashed @ my mum and dads after i moved house (was for the amiga but files will work on pc)
will need to dig it out but mrs moans @ me for spending so much on good pc to play spectrum games
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Whoa. I had a Spectrum 128K.
Wat a good thread. My favorite game was Werewolves Of London
The first game ever to feature day and night cycle? I never did complete this game. I think I had 1 more of those family members left to kill. Although what the video didn't show is where you eat people. I loved that. And some of the police shoot you start bleeding but when you turned back into a person you stopped bleeding. And If I remeber right you could use the file to go into the sewers.
I also loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Dizzy games were excellent.
Also CJ's Elephant Antics.
Oh yeah, Robocop 2. And what about How To Be A Complete Bastard?
Although, my mate had a C64 which was a lot better.
Does anyone remember the thick manual that came with it. It had pages of code you could type into the Speccy to do silly things.
I had a go once, and only once. I spent hours copying in loads of code and my reward? a few beeps in a crappy tune.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Does anyone remember NiteFlite?
It was a flight simulator with no outside view. You flew by instruments alone. Bloody difficult. There was a mountain half way round the track you had to fly and if you didn't gain enough height soon enough you crashed into it.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stewart
Anyone remember Glug Glug?
Movie? Betcha don't remember Movie. Class it was.
Nonterraqueous?
Mountains of Ket?
Barbarian?
I remember Movie, great graphics but i dont know, bit boring !
Barbarian - Wasnt that the one where if you swung around you could chop their head off ? Controversial at the time.
Remember the great advert though featuring Maria Whittaker ;)
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CaseyV9
Although, my mate had a C64 which was a lot better.
Does anyone remember the thick manual that came with it. It had pages of code you could type into the Speccy to do silly things.
I had a go once, and only once. I spent hours copying in loads of code and my reward? a few beeps in a crappy tune.
C64 better ? Blasphemer ! ;)
In the early days of the Speccy you used to buy mags with lines and lines of code, used to spend ages typing it all in (praying your machine didnt reset itself) and then you found there were bugs and the whole thing was useless as it didnt work or you couldnt save it due to the bugs.
Must admit learning BASIC back then did help out with my career later in life as it was obviously the basics of programming. Frustrating typing all those lines of code though !!
Its good to read peoples views on some of the older games, please help us if you want to write some reviews of old Speccy games !
www.spectrumgamesbible.co.uk
Trying to write as many reviews as possible of old games, currently done two books (1982-1984 and 1985-1986) and working on the third.
Any favourite games you want to review please let me know. More the merrier.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psj3809
C64 better ? Blasphemer ! ;)
In the early days of the Speccy you used to buy mags with lines and lines of code, used to spend ages typing it all in (praying your machine didnt reset itself) and then you found there were bugs and the whole thing was useless as it didnt work or you couldnt save it due to the bugs.
One of the magazines I use to buy waS 'INPUT'.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Oh hey!!!!!
C64 was the king of the 8 Bit era, don't even go there or I will have to go retro on you!!!
Anyone that knows me on these boards know that I am a huge retro gamer and the C64 is at the heart of it!
Mind you the C64 version of Outrun was utter pants. Spectrum version even on the 48k was way better.
Few other titles that whooped the C64's rear on the Spectrum in my eyes were :
Rastan Saga (Sprite collision and visuals were quite horrid on the C64)
Manic Miner (We only had Blagger, not as good as miner though)
Outrun (Already Mentioned)
Head Over Heels
Afterburner
Robocop (They did the same horrid small graphics again like Rastan)
On the other hand the C64 pulled off games like Last Ninja series, IK series, Wizball (was this released on the speccy? ) and Bionic Commando much better than its rival.
I love the C64 but do respect the Speccy. I play both machines via emulators which I bought legally with loads of games on them (Not forgetting the Wii virtual console C64 games as of late). Got them from HMV, I have the Speccy 99 disc and also a C64 disc with a poor emulator but loads of games! Got Vice to sort that one out!
Oh I remember Softaid also (As per DavidM's post from Scan!!! ), it did have a few good games on it. I remember trying to get the first game to load and took it back to the store because it wouldn't go. I was informed then that it had the Do they know its Christmas song on the front end on both sides and thats why it wouldn't load up !!!
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
speccies ruled !
my memory is of the horrible loading noises bbrrrrrrrrrrrr bp, brrrrrrrrrr bpbpbpbpbpb!
fave games were horace goes skiing, robocop, carrier command, simcity, target renegade
oh the memories come flooding back !!!
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ferral
Oh hey!!!!!
C64 was the king of the 8 Bit era, don't even go there or I will have to go retro on you!!!
Anyone that knows me on these boards know that I am a huge retro gamer and the C64 is at the heart of it!
Mind you the C64 version of Outrun was utter pants. Spectrum version even on the 48k was way better.
Few other titles that whooped the C64's rear on the Spectrum in my eyes were :
Rastan Saga (Sprite collision and visuals were quite horrid on the C64)
Manic Miner (We only had Blagger, not as good as miner though)
Outrun (Already Mentioned)
Head Over Heels
Afterburner
Robocop (They did the same horrid small graphics again like Rastan)
On the other hand the C64 pulled off games like Last Ninja series, IK series, Wizball (was this released on the speccy? ) and Bionic Commando much better than its rival.
I love the C64 but do respect the Speccy.
Thats the thing even though i was a Speccy fan i did appreciate the other machine. Ghostbusters was very good on the C64, dire on the Speccy.
Bomb Jack one of my favourite games was poor on the C64 but great on the Speccy. I loved Skool Daze and Knight Lore which werent available on the C64 either.
Great games on both machines. Talking of the C64 this book is great...
http://www.c64goldenyears.com/
Got my copy, the Speccy one sold out though. Really takes you on a trip down memory lane ! As i said earlier i'm glad retro is still very popular.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
As for Soft Aid the games on this were (For the Speccy)...
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infos...cgi?id=0011356
Side A 1. Spellbound Beyond Software
2. Starbike The Edge Software
3. Kokotoni Wilf Elite Systems Ltd
4. Pyramid, The Fantasy Software [1]
5. Horace Goes Skiing Sinclair Research Ltd
Side B 1. Gilligan's Gold Ocean Software Ltd
2. Ant Attack Quicksilva Ltd
3. Tank Duel, 3D Realtime Games Software Ltd
4. Jack and the Beanstalk Thor Computer Software
5. Sorcery Virgin Games Ltd
Jack and the Beanstalk was awful, Kokotoni Wilf was a classic back then.
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
manic miner and the fact mine didnt have a reset button, but a good smack with my fist in a fit of rage used to reset it :)
and the manky tape recorder with its 25% chance of loading a game after half an hour :(
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Kokotoni Wilf and Gilligans Gold were on the C64 version also I think. I kinda remember them, Kokotoni Wilf was the guy that had the wings and you had to get past various obstacles. Gilligans Gold was like Boulderdash. We also got Falcon Patrol and Fred on the C64, looks like it was a better compilation than the Speccy. Gumshoe was really good, reminded me of Elevator Action.
More on Softaid :
http://www.gamebase64.com/oldsite/ga...64_softaid.htm
With some of my 64 games I had to turn the tape deck upside down to get it to load!
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
I was a Speccy 48k/2+ fan, but then I saw 'Uridium' on the C64, like, 'woooooooah!'
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Yeah Uridium was excellent on the C64, not a bad version on the Speccy but i hate to admit it but the C64 won that one !
It was quite sad to see the 8-bit scene decline, i jumped ship to an Amiga (Funny how many Speccy users who were anti-Commodore then got an Amiga !) and the leap in graphics/colour/sound was amazing.
But for old skool memories etc your first 8 bit computer has special feelings !
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Yeah, seemed to be a pretty good early game for Thalamus (Was it released by Thalamus? Not 100% sure).
Sanxion, Armalyte 1 & 2, Hawkeye to name just a few. How about Paralax on the C64. First game ever to use 2 way scrolling. Background changed directions everytime you moved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalamus_Ltd
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Yeah, I went for the Atari 520STFM, as the CPU was 7mhz faster! LOL! But then I saw one Cinemaware's 'TV Sports Football', and then I started on the Amiga 500/500+/1200(x2)/1500/4000 road...
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ferral
Yeah, seemed to be a pretty good early game for Thalamus (Was it released by Thalamus? Not 100% sure).
I think it was published by Hewson Consultants.
BTW, I didn't know you can get Uridium on the Wii Virtual Console!
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Deadlight
Yeah, I went for the Atari 520STFM, as the CPU was 7mhz faster! LOL! But then I saw one Cinemaware's 'TV Sports Football', and then I started on the Amiga 500/500+/1200(x2)/1500/4000 road...
Used to love that game on the Amiga - TV Sports Football. Was frustrating having to change the disk everytime i scored a touchdown though to load up the extra point sequence !
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Re: ZX Spectrum - Your memories
At the minute there are 11 Commodore 64 games on the Virtual Console. I am starting to wonder though are they going to add a few other 8 bit machines (especially Speccy). Or add the Atari ST or Amiga as the games on those 2 machines were awesome.