ZX Spectrum rememberance thread

[Skywatcher]

Got quite misty eyed and sentimental on the other thread thinking about my Spectrum last night. I had 2 the first one being the squdgy grey key one and the second was a black hard keyeyed speectrum + that I had second hand for Christmas as I broke the first one by pulling out the joystick whilst the computer was on ( a quickshot 2 no less playing Elite)

It was a monumental leap from the 1k zx81 and even the 16k suped up zx81

Made me think about the hours and hours I spent playing on the games, totally absobed even though the music was bleepy and the graphics a bit blocky

200 miles away a young Lisa was doing exactly the same

Thought we could share someof those game memories

The ones I spent hours on were

Elite ( truely ahead of its time and massively immersive)
Rebelstar
Manic Miner
Jet Pac
Skool Daze
The Hobbit
Pssst
Atik Attack
Match Day
Football Manager
Bruce Lee
Way of the Exploding fist



I'm sure Ill think of others - found a few on the internet that run in Java windows on a web page

[tb2830]

wow great thread if i remember rightly was favourite game was chucky

also loved playing the games on the commodore 64

[Skywatcher]

Speccy Games

A searchable database and so many are playable under Java!!

[lisaw]

Manic miner was and still is my favourite game ever!

Used to have a game on the Commodore 64 where you collected runes on the Isle of Wight - can't remember the name but loved it!

[simonwebb74]

Manic miner was and still is my favourite game ever!

Used to have a game on the Commodore 64 where you collected runes on the Isle of Wight - can't remember the name but loved it!

Was that Spirit of the Stones ???

[Skywatcher]

Yeah my brother was a commodore 64 owner - it was pitch warfare ion our house - even though clearly it was the better machine from a technical standpoint Sinclairs were the computers of the people!

We had Commodore PETS at school that were then replaced with the truely awful BBC machines - anyone remember them?

[Keith]

Oh I so need to reply to this when I have more time but yeah elite on the spectrum with that copy protection thing, a sort of prism you had to put over the screen to decode the words before playing It WAS a great game, though sadly better on the bbc than it was on the spectrum.

Manic miner and jet set willy were superb and of course EVERYTHING by ultimate play the game. sabre wulf, lunar jetman etc.

A little off topic explanation of how I got the spectrum
I desperately wanted a spectrum but it was £179, far outside my capability to buy one lonely wet summer day we were at a caravan park in North Wales and in an attempt to cheer me up my parents said if I could save half the money they'd pay the other half. I'm sure they felt this was a BRILLIANT offer but saying to me I "only" needed 80 pounds was utterly the same as saying I needed 180! Equally impossible or at the very least, YEARS away!

I walked down in the rain to the games room, with no money. On the way down I found a 50p coin which would've been enough to play defender and buy some sweets!

In the event I saw through the window of the over 18s bar the flashing fruit machine "Top win £30 for play 50p" and stayed a good 20 minutes pondering whether to chance it or not.

I ended up sneaking in, put the 50p in and bar-bar-bar YAYAYAYAY sound of £30 in coins hitting the tray well I scooped up the money but like any fool, seduced by the lights, I put in one of the coins to try again. AMAZINGLY, it offered a hold, so I held all three bars and ding ding, another £30 of course I HAD to try again didn't I? so another 50p, another hold only this time, no sound of money hitting the tray. It had run out of money!!

I then felt the proverbial heavy hand on my shoulder and the barman telling me to get lost and that you had to be 18 to play. As he scooped up the winnings and told me I was lucky he didn't call the police and my parents, I was shouting at him how the machine had run out of winnings and he owed me £90 Anyway, got a little heated when a huge Scottish guy intervened towering over both of us. He marched the barman back to the bar to get the £90, gave me the notes and said "now get lost and dont let me see you back in a place like this until you're big enough to deal with scum like him".

I ran top speed all the way back to the caravan to a very shocked set of parents who now had to find 80 quid

[Keith]

We had Commodore PETS at school that were then replaced with the truely awful BBC machines - anyone remember them?

yeah we had huge fights, I used to call it the commobORE 64

the pets were great, really liked them but the BBC model B was brilliant, honestly it was. I never had one, WAY too expensive at £399 but I always wanted one.

[Skywatcher]

They faded away after a few years though - spent ages learning the code

tHAT IS A TRUELY 'Charlie and the chocolate factory' story Keith, I won £100 in the slots in a pivate members club in Bournmouth with my mates and the barman came over and got shirty - luckily as I was with 5 of my mates we 'tactfully' pointed out he was happy enough for us to put the money in in the first place and he duly handed over the notes

[ukwdwnut]

omg yeah i remember the zx, i borrowed one from a friends for a few days. i got a commodore +4 could hardly get any games for it, the ones i could i used to drive to dartford to buy them lol

then when the the +4 broke i got the great amiga 500+ what a beaut of a machine, used to program in basic as well as play some fantastice games...geoff crammonds grand prix was one, a few flight sims, graphics were the best id seen in a games machine, well it would be the amiga was by far and away the best games pc money could buy at the time. shame commordore went to the wall really

the bbc machines were quick they had the RISC procecessors which they say were by far better than the intel variants