ZX Spectrum - Your memories

[Steven W]

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.

[0iD]

JetSet Willy ftw!
I still have my ZX80 & 81. The ZX81 has the wobbly 16k (yes, a whole stokingly large 16k!) expansion pack.

[directhex]

i never had a spectrum

we had a dragon 32, which was like a tandy trs-80, but welsher

[mycarsavw]

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

[BigFatCat]

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.

[menthel]

That the c64 was better. Those horrible rubber keys! Oh my god I hated speccies!

[Steven W]

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.

[bee]

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.

[[GSV]Trig]

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...

[Moby-Dick]

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.

[Mike Fishcake]

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

[Steven W]

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.

[Splash]

Two words - Laser Squad.

[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).

[Whalefish]

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.

[DavidM]

Price of Majik was the best