80s Technology-ZX Spectrum

[shyoldguy]

Hi,

My last post was a bit of a downer, so here's something a bit lighter. Who here had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum back in the 80s? For the uninitiated, it was one of the top selling home computers in the 80s.

Anyone remember their favourite games? Anyone remember Crash magazine and the dodgy covers?

Lets put the tape in the machine, adjust the vlume and bass and loaded up those 80s memories.

[Mortigantoj]

I had a ZX-Spectrum in the '90s :rolleyes: and a Commadore 64 before that (sorry, am I allowed to post in here? ) Had about 300 games, but they were mostly the same thing...in different colours

[Swiss]

Was the extremely proud owner of a ZX Spectrum 16k!!! Couldn't believe it when Dad told me he'd bought a computer. Waited an eternity for it to arrive - back in the days when you did actually have to wait 28 days for delivery. In my mind I pictured on of those huge arcade machines sitting in our front room. Have to say I was a touch disappointed when I first clapped eyes on that little rubber piece of shit but I learnt to love it like my own.

Was always rooting for the foxes to win though. Pesky ****ing rabbits.

Originally Posted by shyoldguy

Anyone remember Crash magazine and the dodgy covers?

Boo. Your Sinclair all the way. Advanced Lawn Mower Simulator ftw.

[danielv]

yep, I had a spectrum ZX

[Gattaca]

My first computer was a Spectrum 48k. Happy times swapping whole tapes of games with friends. It all started me on my gaming addiction which is still going strong

I also used to get Crash magazine and enjoyed the saucy cover art too

[ernie]

It was manic miner and jet set willy all the way for me - sure, I played lots of others but these 2 stick in my memory.

Every couple of years, I dig out my old spectrum - it wasn't the one I used in the 1980s, that died - shame because my grandad paid for it to be upgraded to a plastic keyboard ( the ZX+ did they call it? )
i dig it out load up manic miner, put in a poke, get infinite lives ( a boot appears on the screen if that means anything to anybody ) and can jump around from room to room by pressing down various combinations of numbers. Then, when I've honed my skills, worked out the timings, I'll load it up for real and go through all 20 screens on my 2 lives.

Jet set willy, similar - put in a couple of pokes to remove the bugs ( the attic bug and getting on the conservatory roof being 2 I can recall ) but it's still a bugger to finish - I've finished andy nobles pc version a few times, but i think there's still pokes I need for the spectrum, cause in some places you seem to have to sacrifice a life for a sprite.

You know, I still have the nightmares about seeing "R tape loading error" - it used to scare me stupid when I saw that lol

[far]

Didn't have a Speccy but I had am Amstrad CPC 6128 and even we had issues with dodgy tapes and having to adjust volume etc to load them in! Mind you, I had a VIC-20 for most of the 80s too - no games mind

[shyoldguy]

Well this has started something. I remember Jet Set Willy , but still never completed it even with an infinite lives poke.

My top 5 games were:

1. ELITE
2. Commando
3. Uridium
4. Desert Rats
5. Their Finest Hour

I did get some pirate tapes. That was one way I did get to socialise a bit as a kid. I sold my Speccy a few years ago as I no longer had a decent tape machine.

I remember the infamous Crash magazine Dun Darach cover! I don't think I quite got it at the time (I was very innocent) but the "Game Over" advert a couple of years later really got the hormones going.

Admittedly I did switch to Your Sinclair when Crash went down to about 20 pages.

I bet there's a whole swathe of members here don't know what the hell we're talking about!

[José Raúl Capablanca]

Used to love all the "Dizzy" games
can't remember much about tmem other then it was the adventures of and egg wearing Boxing gloves.

[Mark_One]

Over the years I had a rubber-keyed 48k Spectrum, a +3 (with the built-in disc drive!) and a +2A (the black version of the +2 with built-in tape but not quite as good as the +2).

Had all the classic games and Ive still got a box full of Spectrum games what I rebought in the late 90s - after I sold my 80s collection! Got some Crash and Your Sinclair magazines also.

However, the best thing is the cd Ive got for the pc which has got 100% perfect working full-screen emulators of ALL versions of Spectrums on it. Oh and it does come with 1000s games as well! Never knew there was a Jet Set Willy 3 until I got this cd. Not used the cd for a few years but I cant think of any game that isnt on it.

Games were proper games in those days, even if they did have see-through graphics lol. Few favourites off the top of my head are: Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy 1/2/3, Atic Atac, Skool Daze and Back to Skool, most driving games especially Chequered Flag, Chase HQ and Outrun.

Ahh remember playing Spectrum Outrun along to the Outrun arcade music themes that were on the other tape with see through graphics in black green and blue! The joys of bashing at the keys for the sport games like Hypersports! Pokes pokes and more pokes! The joys of an 'r tape loading error'! Taking hours to type programs in from Sinclair User or Sinclair Programs only to find they were absolute rubbish or (more usually) they didnt work! Digitised speech in the Robocop Game! Oh god remember the Multiface by Romantic Robot??? They were the best thing ever back then!

10 Rem Simplest program I could think of but I did once write (simple) pacman in Basic and I think I called it Mazemuncher
20 Rem The Rem, Print and Goto should be in all capitals but I didnt want to get told off for shouting
30 Print "I had better end here or I will be here all night."
40 Goto 30

(C)1982 Sinclair Research Ltd.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Cynic

I thought it was 3 lives?

yes, it was - i stand corrected

Originally Posted by Cynic

Jet Set Willy was boss! I used to do that 3-key combo to freeze the programme, go to another room and re-start. Those were the days.

it was more than 3 keys on mine, I think but did you appear on the screen at the same place that you had been in your last room - leading to multiple death if you didn't pick your spot carefully, or if you had infinite lives, "infinite" death? lol till you switched to another room obviously

Originally Posted by Cynic

A few years later, I had a go at Jet Set Willy II on the C64, but I don't recall it being as good as it's predecessors. The Dragon 32 versions written by Roy Coates were said to have whipped the ass of Matthew Smith's Spectrum originals.

yeah, there was no imagination on jsw2 i didn't think, just like take jsw and add a few more rooms in, nothing new.

Originally Posted by Mark_One

Taking hours to type programs in from Sinclair User or Sinclair Programs only to find they were absolute rubbish or (more usually) they didnt work!

lol, yeah I remember that

[britman]

lotus espritt challenge, colin the cleaner lol. pongo, space invaders. I still got a load of games somewhere but cant sell them as half dont work and forgot which dont work, the tape deck on the console failed so cant play them.

[Taking That Shot]

JSW 2 didn't have just a few rooms, it ended up about twice the size, factoring in the space travel and all that. Can't remember if the attic was fixed or not. But nobody could ever beat that in one sitting, the game was just too huge by then.

Anyway, the DIE MORTAL room freaked me out as a kid, whereas today its pointlessness just confuses me. As well as the lament that they released a game you could not legit beat due to a glitch.

Stuff I played on the speccy (short version)

Saberwulf
Underwurlde
Rapscallion
Horace goes Skiing
Attic Attack
Manic Miner
JSW I/II
Kokotoni Wilf
Antics
Technician Ted (aka the evil, evil JSW clone)

Good times. Even though the C64 replaced it.

[Taking That Shot]

Originally Posted by Mark_One

However, the best thing is the cd Ive got for the pc which has got 100% perfect working full-screen emulators of ALL versions of Spectrums on it. Oh and it does come with 1000s games as well! Never knew there was a Jet Set Willy 3 until I got this cd. Not used the cd for a few years but I cant think of any game that isnt on it.

JSW3 was fan made, no legit game ever existed.

Having tried that one out, good thing.

[Gattaca]

Some of my faves (that I can remember)

Match Day
Match Point
Fairlight
Everyone's a Wally/Pyjamarama
3D Ant Attack
Starquake
Spy vs Spy
Back to Skool/Skool Daze
Renegade
Saboteur
Wheelie
Laser Squad
Lords of Midnight
Ikari Warriors

[wlien]

The sports games were weird where you had to use two keys to walk, faster you pressed the faster you went, unless you had a joystick to waggle. Thank god we now have the wii remote.

One game i used to like was Finder Keepers, also collected all the Dizzy games and Horrice Goes Skiing was a legend.

Did anyone use theirs for more than just games, I used to have a disk drive and a dot matrix printer for mine.

10 Print Spectrum was the best
20 Goto 10

[Mark_One]

Originally Posted by Taking That Shot

JSW3 was fan made, no legit game ever existed.

Having tried that one out, good thing.

Many thanks for that info on JSW3. When I saw JSW3 for the first time I just assumed it was a 2nd sequal that never got released in the UK. Ive just reinstalled the cd to have a look at it and the others again, they seem so old now and the graphics hurt my eyes but I love the nostalgia! What I had very much forgotten with JSW was the great music that plays when it has loaded (the 'press enter to start' screen). Still good to listen to even now - link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAx7p...eature=related

I remember there seemed loads of pokes for JSW and Manic Miner. Feel sure I had infinte lives, collect items automatically when entering a room and invincibility. Was it JSW or Manic Miner which had the (8 digit?) number code you typed in and you could change rooms or something by pressing different keys?

Aside from the above though, does anyone remember Chuckie Egg 1 & 2? Loved them both and Chuckie Egg 2 was a massive game - did anyone ever see it all?

What about all the 3D games? Knightlore, Alien 8 (looked good but far too hard!), Nightshade and Fairlight 1 & 2 (improved graphics but even harder!). Gyroscope, Marble Madness and Spindizzy were brilliant though! Didnt an issue of Crash have a very long program to type in which let you edit the rooms in Spindizzy or was it Sweevo's World? Aaaarrgghh! Whatever happened to Sweevo?

To be continued...

[Taking That Shot]

JSW was made in this country, so for one of the games to not be released would be... typical. But yeah, JSW 3 (or Miner Willy Meets the Taxman, as it would have been known) never released.

You'd have to wonder if anyone ever saw all of Chuckie Egg 2. The game was epic in scope, particularly in a time without saved games (alright, it was possible, but lets face it, nobody really had the tech to save their game on the Speccy). In fact, I could play it 4 times and go in completely seperate directions and see new screens. I believe I reached the highest point of the factory. Probably fell off too.

http://spectrummagic.emuunlim.com/Ma...ckieeggmap.gif

Wow.

And that site just reminded me of some other games, the Monty Mole series! Isometric Batman! Bruce Lee! (Though I did have most of the Monty games and Bruce Lee on the C64, but still)

[G-1]

JSW was quality.......

And I had Chuckie Egg on the Amstrad, and it's still one of the best games of all time, I play it on my CPC464 emulator.

[mark1111]

Lazer squad and Chaos rocked :]

[Generation Erm]

you can get emulators for just about every computer and console on romnation.net.
i grew up on commodore computers and still have all my zzap64 mags boxed up, but i remember playing gaunlet on the speccy around this guys house for hours.
a few years back i got into mame and bought an x-arcade joystick. i was addicted to playing retro arcade games like donkey kong, defender and commando.

[Taking That Shot]

Originally Posted by Cynic

The C64 was well better than the Speccy.

Mostly anyway. A few games ported really badly. The C64 shined however on sound. Some of the game BGM on the C64 are legendary. I used to have a CD of them. Used to -_-.

[Mysterio]

Ahh, the smell of the Interface and it's dodgy connection with the Keyboard and the Kempston "rapid fire(?)" Joystick

Used to love losing myself in text based adventure games.

[Mark_One]

Originally Posted by Mysterio

Ahh, the smell of the Interface and it's dodgy connection with the Keyboard and the Kempston "rapid fire(?)" Joystick

Used to love losing myself in text based adventure games.

I loved the text adventure games on the Spectrum! Did try writing my own adventures also - even in good old basic before GAC and Quill came on the scene.

Ah yes the rapid fire switch lol. I preferred the Cheetah joysticks but cant remember the model number. Used to cost about £9.99 I think.

[iloverain]

Don't know about that zx81 but what about Manic miner featuring Miner willy!, brother of Major willy

found this link http://www.darnkitty.com/manic/

Just as frustrating as it was back in the good/bad ole days!...ahh the fights me and my brothers would have to have an extra hour on the puter...

[Mark_One]

Rufus, I also really liked 3D Ant Attack. I think that was the game where you could choose to play as a boy or girl - am I right?

Cynic, GAC was Graphic Adventure Creator which came out around 1988ish. This software could produce adventure games with text and graphics.

Quill was the (first?) software which came out around 1986ish that let you create text only adventures. Afterwards the Quill was followed by the Illustrator from the same company (Gilsoft?) which allowed you to add graphics to an adventure.

Ive used GAC briefly but it was a long time ago and I dont think Ive ever used Quill or Illustrator. There were a lot of adventures produced though that were made with Quill.

As far as Spectrum adventures go I think my favourite was the Hobbit.

[Taking That Shot]

Originally Posted by Mark_One

Rufus, I also really liked 3D Ant Attack. I think that was the game where you could choose to play as a boy or girl - am I right?

Sure was.

I guess It Came From The Desert was its spiritual successor.

[Harry Batt]

I had a 16k Speccy too. I can even remember getting the memory upgrade kit and the spectrum + kit for it and spending quality time with my Dad fitting the bits or sat doing those type in programs.

By my fave was my speccy 128k, loved that machine, in fact I've still got it.

Anyway if anyone is interested in reliving those speccy memories then get yourselves to www.worldofspectrum.org. You can download loads of games from there and just about every emulator out there. I personally recomend ZXSpin. Or you could try Spectaculator, it's not free but it's well worth the money, best £20 i ever spent. You can get it from www.spectaculator.com

Fave games of mine

Target Renegade
Stormbringer
Dan Dare
Barmy Burgers
I Ball
Olli and Lissa
Geoff Capes Strongman
Robocop
Batman

Also If you have a nintendo DS and a flash card then get yourself a copy SpeccyDS, you can get that from the emulators section of www.worldofspectrum.org

Colour clash colour clash ra ra ra

[Woo]

I didn't have many games: manic miner, atic atac, jet set willy, 3d ant attack and adventure. Adventure was great - no graphics at all - just text! I remember spending an eternity playing atic atac and being really disappointed when I eventually escaped from the castle. I think I was hoping there'd be another game beyond the doors. I never did manage to get through ameobatons revenge on manic miner. Did all the others through the level selector thingy. I used to be a bit afraid of the ants in 3d ant attack

[The Lone Stranger]

I didn`t have a spectrum but I used to play on my friends one , the first game I ever played on it was jetpac and I used to love matchday but it had a few bugs in it. I remember playing manic miner as well and probably a few more. I had a vic20 then a commodore 64 then an amiga which are all in the loft now , I had a go on the vic a few years ago but the 64 wouldn`t work for some reason.