The Sinclair Spectrum is 25 years old today.
It was first sold in April 1982. I devoured Spectrum-related magazines for over a year until I eventually got my hands on a 48K model in September 1983 for my 21st birthday and haven't looked back since.
I should think my iRiver or my mobile phone has more processing power than that rubber-keyed black box, but I still look back fondly on Manic Miner, Jet Pac, Alien 8 and all the other Spectrum games.
In the past I have dabbled with Spectrum emulators on modern PCs, every few years I get the urge, and I think I can feel it coming on again… just seeing those pictures of the shiny black object with its rainbow flash in the corner has me feeling all retro and remembering the days when I could spend hours playing that pool game (you could spend 10 minutes just waiting for it to load!) or take half a day typing a program into the thing and then finding out that it wasn't very good.
I don't want to descend into hyperbole, but really it was a design icon of the 20th Century and opened the door for many of us into a career in IT. Kids of today might think this lookspretty lame compared to teh games available on their new mobile phone, but for anyone over a certain age this screenshot is likely to engender strong affection and maybe a little moistness of the eye…
You seem to be a decade out – I presume you meant to say 1982 not 1992…
I joined the party a bit late, and got my Spectrum 48K at Xmas 1983. First thing I did (after viewing the Horizons tape – remember that?) was to write a program to draw planetary orbits. See, I was sad even at 17!
Poke 23692,255
Oops. I have corrected that and will send my Maths O level back in tomorrow’s post.
So I got mine three months before you did. First thing I did when I got mine was invalidate the warranty by opening it up to see which version ULA chip it had in it.
Apparently it mattered, but I can’t remember why.
Do you want everyone to know about the great big map you made when you were trying complete Manic Miner (or possibly Jet Set Willy). I seem to recall it taking up quite a lot of space in the flat you had over the chip shop in Hither Green.
Rob still has his Speccy keyboard in pride of place in front of the monitor….
I didn’t make the map, it was a gigantic pull-out poster from Crash magazine which had screenshots from every single level of Jet Set Willy stitched together.
At other times I also had similar posters for Atic Atac and Alien 8 when I was trying to work through them.
What a brilliant magazine Crash was.
Oh, Crash magazine was fantastic. As well as the free games on the tapes, Jetman had me addicted.
The fact that it was a pull out from a magazine makes it so much less geeky. I may now resume my older brother worship…. I’m just anti-technology today because the first thing I did at work was break the main printer.
The Hobbit! Come on, best game ever! Let’s all join in:
+LOOK
You are in the goblin’s dungeon. You see:
Thorin.
A short strong sword.
The vicious warg.
Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.
The vicious warg attacks you.
+
That is bad Jane. First thing to do at work is make a brew and then break the main printer.
I do hope that Rob had to look up that Hobbit stuff and was not quoting it from memory!
“The Vicious Warg” – what a great name for a band!
Quoting from memory I’m afraid. Although I seem to recall a similar experience with the evil goblins, and then the wicked goblins, the nasty goblins, the vile goblins, the tory goblins, the rotton goblins….