30 Years Of The Zx Spectrum

[Riedquat]

Oh yes, RISC OS had one of the best GUIs ever, holding up well against modern system long after its demise.

I'd occasionally Google RISC OS to see what was going on but it took so long to get to a state where it wasn't tied to old Acorn hardware that any momentum had gone. It doesn't have a modern web browser, unklike many obscure and old OSes. It's coming to the Raspberry Pi, though, so maybe some geek will port a WebKit browser.

There was a (not entirely finished) Firefox port from about three or four years ago but it was unreliable and incredibly slow. I still use RISC OS occasionally but almost always via an emulator.

On everything else I really, really want right click to select a menu option and keep the menu open and not faffing around with messy save dialogues. I also keep stuff organised in a logical near-the-top directory structure (in contrast to what Windows keeps trying to force me to do) and wonder why the hell people seem to have piles of additional software to keep track of their files. I put that down to RISC OS. Considering the mess Windows has made of the start menu (and 8 promises to be even worse) I may have to resort to creating an easily accessible and organised directory of shortcuts to the programs I want and use that instead, if I don't abandon the Windows partition altogether for everything other than games. Come to think of it there's not much reason for not doing that right now, although the directory structure of shortcuts approach is something I might try anyway.

[OnionTerror]

My first computer wasn't one of these 8 bit classics, I wasn't born until 1981 so I didn't get my first computer until we'd entered the 16 bit era.

This is the bad boy that got me into computing and resulted in not just me becoming software developer, but my kid brother as well!

Aint that a RF modulator at the back? Bloody thing always kept falling out...Check out these beasts...

The 3DO was a wonderful machine...

[joe_]

Aint that a RF modulator at the back? Bloody thing always kept falling out...Check out these beasts...

CD32 was a flop and pointless, just a crippled Amiga 1200 - Around the time it came out Dixons were selling off A1200s for half price (I know, I bought one)

[OnionTerror]

CD32 was a flop and pointless, just a crippled Amiga 1200 - Around the time it came out Dixons were selling off A1200s for half price (I know, I bought one)

I forgot to add the point of irony, regarding the CD32...

[Ologhai Jones]

Such a beautiful design.

I can scarcely believe the view is objective, but, yes, the Spectrum strikes me as a lovely looking thing.

At this point, the image is dripping with nostalgia for me, but I'm pretty sure I thought it looked fantastic the very first time I saw a picture of one.

[Frank8]

I had a compukit UK101 (you would never guess ). There is a simulator online. I got it running the other day. Played all the old games. Mainly Hectic and New York Taxi.

http://uk101.sourcef...docs/index.html

Also, I don't think the Atari 800 has been mentioned (which was the Atari 400 with a proper keyboard and more memory). It was very expensive though. I was very lucky to have one.

You were my excuse for buying it.

[Bradbury Robinson]

Great thread, brings back a lot of good memories of my childhood, the Amiga Batman pack particularly and I'm not even sure if I had that one!

My path was a ZX Spectrum 48k when I came home from school one day in the mid-eighties, onto a 128k and then a Spectrum +3, the change from tapes to discs was ground breaking! After that it was an Amiga which was just an awesome machine for somebody in their early teens. I think I then went to a console of one kind or another, I remember a SNES for Christmas one year and think I had an Atari Lynx, the obligatory Gameboy, an N64 at one point and then a PS1. By 1999 I got my first PC and I haven't really touched many consoles since then.

Back to my memory point! Having recently watched a couple of videos one Youtube, for Spectrum and Amiga games, I went looking for some old emulator discs that I had and fired up a few games. These games were absolutely stone cold classics in their day, on their respective machines, but the memory banks is where you should leave them really. What were greats in their day, eeking out every bit of memory that they could and ringing out those tiny pixelated graphics, are now sadly overshadowed by the free stuff you find on the net and things you pay 69p for from some 'market' or another.

They should never be forgotten and will always live on on Youtube, but I won't be cranking them up again in a hurry!

[pl1]

Great thread, brings back a lot of good memories of my childhood, the Amiga Batman pack particularly and I'm not even sure if I had that one!

My path was a ZX Spectrum 48k when I came home from school one day in the mid-eighties, onto a 128k and then a Spectrum +3, the change from tapes to discs was ground breaking! After that it was an Amiga which was just an awesome machine for somebody in their early teens. I think I then went to a console of one kind or another, I remember a SNES for Christmas one year and think I had an Atari Lynx, the obligatory Gameboy, an N64 at one point and then a PS1. By 1999 I got my first PC and I haven't really touched many consoles since then.

Back to my memory point! Having recently watched a couple of videos one Youtube, for Spectrum and Amiga games, I went looking for some old emulator discs that I had and fired up a few games. These games were absolutely stone cold classics in their day, on their respective machines, but the memory banks is where you should leave them really. What were greats in their day, eeking out every bit of memory that they could and ringing out those tiny pixelated graphics, are now sadly overshadowed by the free stuff you find on the net and things you pay 69p for from some 'market' or another.

They should never be forgotten and will always live on on Youtube, but I won't be cranking them up again in a hurry!

I always wonder if people from a century ago, so 1912, were having chinwags about their time in the 1880s, the glory days of Victorian Britain and the age of discovery and remembering the newspaper stories of Jack The Ripper.

[OnionTerror]

Great thread, brings back a lot of good memories of my childhood, the Amiga Batman pack particularly and I'm not even sure if I had that one!

My path was a ZX Spectrum 48k when I came home from school one day in the mid-eighties, onto a 128k and then a Spectrum +3, the change from tapes to discs was ground breaking! After that it was an Amiga which was just an awesome machine for somebody in their early teens. I think I then went to a console of one kind or another, I remember a SNES for Christmas one year and think I had an Atari Lynx, the obligatory Gameboy, an N64 at one point and then a PS1. By 1999 I got my first PC and I haven't really touched many consoles since then.

Back to my memory point! Having recently watched a couple of videos one Youtube, for Spectrum and Amiga games, I went looking for some old emulator discs that I had and fired up a few games. These games were absolutely stone cold classics in their day, on their respective machines, but the memory banks is where you should leave them really. What were greats in their day, eeking out every bit of memory that they could and ringing out those tiny pixelated graphics, are now sadly overshadowed by the free stuff you find on the net and things you pay 69p for from some 'market' or another.

They should never be forgotten and will always live on on Youtube, but I won't be cranking them up again in a hurry!

For me, the SNES is probably the best ever console... Others would argue it was the Megadrive, Dreamcast or PS/PS2...I fell out of love with gaming about 10 years ago, after I got bored of the constant rehashing of games, where developers would hide the lack of gameplay under the veneer of poncy graphics...I don't mind the odd bash of "modern games", but I'd rather play F-Zero, Pilotwings or Mario Kart...

[Bradbury Robinson]

For me, the SNES is probably the best ever console... Others would argue it was the Megadrive, Dreamcast or PS/PS2...I fell out of love with gaming about 10 years ago, after I got bored of the constant rehashing of games, where developers would hide the lack of gameplay under the veneer of poncy graphics...I don't mind the odd bash of "modern games", but I'd rather play F-Zero, Pilotwings or Mario Kart...

I think it's hard to say what is the 'best ever' console as I think it depends what stage in your life you were at. I think the Gameboy came out when Iwas about 11-12, the SNES when I was 15 and the PS1 when I was about 18-19, so they all probably hit me at the perfect points and I'd rank them all up there. After getting the PC my interest waned a little so after about 2000 I can't really comment on them.

I find it interesting that, in the early days of gamin, the developers had to rely on gameplay as the graphics were so basic, then when the new systems were developed a lot of sub-standard games started to appear that simply relied on flashy graphics, big names and/or movie tie-ins, etc.. Now if you look at some of the mobile games which are the biggest players we seem to have gone back to the basic gameplay again, albeit with graphics which are 10,000 times better than Manic Miner but by today's consoling standards are still rather basic.

You don't start to notice the difference in graphics until you work backwards through the consoles. My Nephew has a PS3, there is a PS2 in my Mum's house and I have a PS1 lying around, all still in use. When you work backwards through them all you get to the PS1 and cringe, but I remember at the time it was released being amazed at how good the graphics were and thinking you couldn't get it any better!

I remember reading an article around the time of release of Metal Gear Solid on the PS2 and it stated that the main character's (Snake I believe!?) moustache in the PS2 version contained as much detail and definition as the whole character did in the PS1 version. (I can't remember the word for the little triangles and shapes they use to define texture and movement! Something like a fractal I think?!). A massive jump in definition over only a few years, now things have moved on even more, we're probably ten years on from that.

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

After the RISC OS mention |I downloaded an emulator and, afrer some head scratching, have RISC OS 5 running. Posting from NetSurf, which seems to be the best RISC OS browser, which is a bit of a shame as all the Amiga-style OSes, Haiku, etc. have decent WebKit ones.

What's the most old, obscure OS or platform you can post from?

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

After the RISC OS mention |I downloaded an emulator and, afrer some head scratching, have RISC OS 5 running. Posting from NetSurf, which seems to be the best RISC OS browser, which is a bit of a shame as all the Amiga-style OSes, Haiku, etc. have decent WebKit ones.

What's the most old, obscure OS or platform you can post from?

Probably worthy of a separate "Obscure Platform posting thread" !

[MrPin]

I had Napier's Bones, and a stick and hoop!

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

I had Napier's Bones, and a stick and hoop!

Haven't heard of Napiers Bones. How many K of memory did that have ?

I can add it to the list if you want.

[MrPin]

Haven't heard of Napiers Bones. How many K of memory did that have ?

I can add it to the list if you want.

It's on the internet, ,(you can googlyfy) it, and didn't require batteries! The memory was all in your head!

[pl1]

I think it's hard to say what is the 'best ever' console as I think it depends what stage in your life you were at. I think the Gameboy came out when Iwas about 11-12, the SNES when I was 15 and the PS1 when I was about 18-19, so they all probably hit me at the perfect points and I'd rank them all up there. After getting the PC my interest waned a little so after about 2000 I can't really comment on them.

I find it interesting that, in the early days of gamin, the developers had to rely on gameplay as the graphics were so basic, then when the new systems were developed a lot of sub-standard games started to appear that simply relied on flashy graphics, big names and/or movie tie-ins, etc.. Now if you look at some of the mobile games which are the biggest players we seem to have gone back to the basic gameplay again, albeit with graphics which are 10,000 times better than Manic Miner but by today's consoling standards are still rather basic.

You don't start to notice the difference in graphics until you work backwards through the consoles. My Nephew has a PS3, there is a PS2 in my Mum's house and I have a PS1 lying around, all still in use. When you work backwards through them all you get to the PS1 and cringe, but I remember at the time it was released being amazed at how good the graphics were and thinking you couldn't get it any better!

I remember reading an article around the time of release of Metal Gear Solid on the PS2 and it stated that the main character's (Snake I believe!?) moustache in the PS2 version contained as much detail and definition as the whole character did in the PS1 version. (I can't remember the word for the little triangles and shapes they use to define texture and movement! Something like a fractal I think?!). A massive jump in definition over only a few years, now things have moved on even more, we're probably ten years on from that.

I think it's voxel or texel, I could be wrong.

I agree with all this, I remember seeing 3dfx and first generation direct-3d for the first time. It was a stunning leap forward. I think we'd all agree the leap forward year by year since then has not been as astonishing more like minor yearly revisions rather than a generational jump. I think we'll just see more fine tuning in the future. I saw a graphic on youtube of the interior of The Titanic and they compared the hi-res to the very hi-res and it was so subtle it was almost unnoticable.

[OnionTerror]

I think it's hard to say what is the 'best ever' console as I think it depends what stage in your life you were at. I think the Gameboy came out when Iwas about 11-12, the SNES when I was 15 and the PS1 when I was about 18-19, so they all probably hit me at the perfect points and I'd rank them all up there. After getting the PC my interest waned a little so after about 2000 I can't really comment on them.

I find it interesting that, in the early days of gamin, the developers had to rely on gameplay as the graphics were so basic, then when the new systems were developed a lot of sub-standard games started to appear that simply relied on flashy graphics, big names and/or movie tie-ins, etc.. Now if you look at some of the mobile games which are the biggest players we seem to have gone back to the basic gameplay again, albeit with graphics which are 10,000 times better than Manic Miner but by today's consoling standards are still rather basic.

You don't start to notice the difference in graphics until you work backwards through the consoles. My Nephew has a PS3, there is a PS2 in my Mum's house and I have a PS1 lying around, all still in use. When you work backwards through them all you get to the PS1 and cringe, but I remember at the time it was released being amazed at how good the graphics were and thinking you couldn't get it any better!

I remember reading an article around the time of release of Metal Gear Solid on the PS2 and it stated that the main character's (Snake I believe!?) moustache in the PS2 version contained as much detail and definition as the whole character did in the PS1 version. (I can't remember the word for the little triangles and shapes they use to define texture and movement! Something like a fractal I think?!). A massive jump in definition over only a few years, now things have moved on even more, we're probably ten years on from that.

I was about 12 when I got my first SNES...a mate of mine got his about a year before me - he got his for a birthday present the day it came out...I remember playing Super Mario World on his machine, and I wowed at how phenomenal it was..I was a bit jealous at the time, and even contemplated getting a Jap version (Super Famicom) - until I saw the price (roughly 500 quid). I used to wheel and deal with games & consoles in my formative years, and I ended up getting almost every console that came out (surprisingly not including the Atari Jaguar)...I even remember getting my hands on getting a "magic drive" type machine, where you could boot SNES games from a number of floppy discs. FIFA on the Megadrive (around '94) revolutionised football games...much like Sensi Soccer did, and the anticipation of Ridge Racer on the PS1 was huge at the time...Now EA take the piss, by releasing FIFA a couple of times a year, in various formats, all slightly "tweaked"...

Its interesting the perhaps one of the most popular games at the mo is Angry BIrds...its a very similar vein to Lemmings, which came out the best part of 20 years ago...The gaming industry think they can fool the gaming public, by putting out yet another FIFA or James Bond tie-in (most, apart from Goldeneye on the N64, were all terrible).

Retro gaming is as popular as ever...I think a lot of people are bored of the same old same old...When games were 45 quid (and with no ebay, etc) people used to choose quite hard which games they wanted, and as games were so expensive, people used to follow the advice from magazines such as Mean Machines, Super Play or CVG. This kept developers on their toes, as these mags could make or break a game, and they couldn't afford to landfill tens of thousands of games (which I believe Atari had to do in the early 80s).

Gaming is now a massive industry, but along with this, you have gaming for the masses, which, perhaps is a shame from pure gaming enthusiasts, who can see through the crap gameplay of a lot of games, and end up turning back to the likes of the Amiga, SNES or Spectrum....I got a TV plugin thingy that had replica versions of the Megadrive versions of Sensi & Cannon Fodder on it for a quid from a charity shop...they can keep me amused for days, if not months...

[Riedquat]

After the RISC OS mention |I downloaded an emulator and, afrer some head scratching, have RISC OS 5 running. Posting from NetSurf, which seems to be the best RISC OS browser, which is a bit of a shame as all the Amiga-style OSes, Haiku, etc. have decent WebKit ones.

Interesting, I wasn't aware that there was a freely available emulator that RO5 would work on (mind you I've not been keeping track of what's been going on with RISC OS for a couple of years).

[Ruffneck]

If you want a laugh check out videos for street fighter 2 on c64 and speccy.

[The Eagle]

This is the ultimate gadget for retro gamers:

http://openpandora.org/