Retro Games Ltd Unveils The Spectrum

[FourWheelDrift]

After their A500 Mini and C64 Mini which I have and the Atari 400 they now have a Spectrum.

https://www.infinitefrontiers.org.uk/retro-games-l...

[GliderRider]

Unless it takes half an hour to load the game from a cassette tape, with the greatest likelihood being that it will crash in the twenty nineth minute, how can the user experience the euphoria of not only successfully loading Defender et al but actually getting to play it too?

[Countdown]

GliderRider said:

Unless it takes half an hour to load the game from a cassette tape, with the greatest likelihood being that it will crash in the twenty nineth minute, how can the user experience the euphoria of not only successfully loading Defender et al but actually getting to play it too?

(Especially if you were trying to get a pirate copy to load....)

[Mammasaid]

No Jet Set Willy, I'm out!

[Alex Z]

Mammasaid said:

No Jet Set Willy, I'm out!

It’ll be trivially easy to add extra games to these. Just make sure you get a fixed version of JSW that can actually be completed.

[Collectingbrass]

Countdown said:

GliderRider said:

Unless it takes half an hour to load the game from a cassette tape, with the greatest likelihood being that it will crash in the twenty nineth minute, how can the user experience the euphoria of not only successfully loading Defender et al but actually getting to play it too?

(Especially if you were trying to get a pirate copy to load....)

Cassette tapes? Pirate Copies? Which private school did you go to? We had to make do with handwritten copies of the type it yourself games out of spectrum magazine!

[GliderRider]

Collectingbrass said:

Cassette tapes? Pirate Copies? Which private school did you go to? We had to make do with handwritten copies of the type it yourself games out of spectrum magazine!

[Zad]

It'll all be based on the same ARM based emulator board in the other machines anyway. I guess most will be bought for dad/grandad/uncle, because surely most people who want to play them have an emulator on their PC or phone, have an original or one of the existing copies.

[J4CKO]

Zad said:

It'll all be based on the same ARM based emulator board in the other machines anyway. I guess most will be bought for dad/grandad/uncle, because surely most people who want to play them have an emulator on their PC or phone, have an original or one of the existing copies.

I like having an original looking new version as an ornament.

Got a little R36S for £50 that emulates multiple systems, really good little piece of kit, but having the actual box, even a reproduction is part of it for me.

[EmailAddress]

& load your own games via USB

Just like every Emulator ever, but for monies in our pocket!

[dundarach]

ZX Spectrum, never heard of it?

[dxg]

The link says it comes with a working keyboard.

But is it a wobbly rubber keyboard, though?

[J4CKO]

dundarach said:

ZX Spectrum, never heard of it?

Hmm, with a username like that...

[Griffith4ever]

Collectingbrass said:

Countdown said:

GliderRider said:

Unless it takes half an hour to load the game from a cassette tape, with the greatest likelihood being that it will crash in the twenty nineth minute, how can the user experience the euphoria of not only successfully loading Defender et al but actually getting to play it too?

(Especially if you were trying to get a pirate copy to load....)

Cassette tapes? Pirate Copies? Which private school did you go to? We had to make do with handwritten copies of the type it yourself games out of spectrum magazine!

At my comprehensive (after being expelled from boarding school....) I took a briefcase to classes with Speccy games on tape, with a full hand written price list of games available to order (that obvs I'd copy for them thater evening). I got summoned to the headmaster's office after a couple of days. It wasn't the copying they were concerned about (they barely understood what "software" was) - it was the "amount of cash" I was carrying round school - lol.

(My copy of JSW included a hand made copy of the colour code card - wth colours replaced by letters!)

[DoctorX]

I’m sorely tempted, just for the nostalgia. Having ran some of these games on my Pi, there’s literally a few minutes of entertainment these days.

Still…

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

DoctorX said:

Having ran some of these games on my Pi, there’s literally a few minutes of entertainment these days.

That sums up all of these retro gaming devices for me. The anticipation and excitement of getting it far outweighs any enjoyment I get from playing the games when it arrives.

I recently bought a Trimui Smart Pro handheld which emulates Mame, Game Boy, Super Nintendo, Megadrive, PC Engine, Neo Geo etc. and has thousands of games on the supplied SD card It arrived last week, I played if for one hour and haven't switched it on since.

Just the thought of something like this even existing back in the early 90s would have blown by mind back then and caused many sleepless nights. Now I can't even be bothered to turn it on.

I have been through this numerous times over the years, even going to the lengths of buying a Real C64 and Amiga about 20 years ago and spending hours and hours setting up Mame on my Laptop. The result is always the same, the realisation that the games are crap and not at all like my memories of them.

In some ways it has actually damaged my memories of the countless hours I spent as a child playing these games. I used to wake up on a Saturday morning and play on my Super Nintendo until it was time to go to bed. Now I cannot even play them for five minutes without getting bored.

I wonder how long I could play Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg, Scuba Dive, Wheelie etc. on the Spectrum before listing it on eBay?

[Griffith4ever]

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

and spending hours and hours setting up Mame on my Laptop. The result is always the same, the realisation that the games are crap and not at all like my memories of them.

Mame comes alive when you have the correct controllers - no arcade games were make for keyboard and mouse, or Xbox controller. They were made for joysticks and buttons.

I built a full size game cabinet. I realised 1942 on a keyboard just doesn't work, and fancied a project. The games come alive with the correct controllers.

[Gary C]

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

I wonder how long I could play Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg, Scuba Dive, Wheelie etc. on the Spectrum before listing it on eBay?

Its a fair point. I have about 40 retro computers including (of course) a spectrum and my main enjoyment is fixing and restoring them, but the attraction of playing old games does fade.

However, I re-ran the whole of the Elite mission on my BBC with its 6502 second processor and am also playing an original copy of Half life so there are some that still hold interest.