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Offline Karlos

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2010, 04:54:18 PM »
Quote from: Khephren;593411
As a working class family in the eighties, thank god for Clive Sinclair!


+1
int p; // A
 

Offline Reiknir

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2010, 06:31:42 PM »
Quote from: runequester;593416
What was the price difference between the spectrum and the C64 when it appeared ?


The Spectrum was half the price of the Vic when announced, predates the C64 in Europe, C responded by dropping the price of the Vic but too late, gained back some traction when the C64 finally arrived but never again became market leader

The great thing about the spectrum was the industrial design and the software catalogue, the graphical adventures in particular both from the UK, Australia and Germany never had their equal in USA made software during the 8 bit era, a bit like the Atari ST which had OK hardware, the lamest excuse for an OS but a catalouge of German and French utility and application software that meant that both my Mac and my Amiga were relegated to being used as toys.

I had a Coco and a Memotech MTX during the 8 bit era so I misssed out on it all

My studio still has a couple of Atari Falcons operational for stuff that is too timing sensitive to use a PC/MIDI/VSTI
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2010, 07:01:38 PM »
I had a Sinclair ZX81, Spectrums/CPCs/C64s were the stuff of dreams to me... then I got an A500... and those lumps could swivel!

Offline swift240

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2010, 07:05:32 PM »
Well my first ZX was a 128K the large heatsink on the side.  I thought the 64k RAM disk was a very usefull thing to have on a computer.
Now I use the Zx Spectrum+3 with the sound mod I done myself a simple 1 resistor mod to gain pure sound and no distortion. With a Multiface 3. If you use any that has the RGB port then use it the picture is amazing.,Ohhh yes and for those who do not know on the Amstrad Spectrums like the +2A, +2B, +3A, and +3B try this:-

Press the RESET button then Keys QAZ and PLM all together at the same time you come up with the engineers program to test out these machines.
Mike.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2010, 07:08:05 PM by swift240 »
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Offline Dazxy2001

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2010, 07:43:21 PM »
I had a few of them after buying them up at car boot sales, then ended up ditching the whole lot when moving to a smaller house as I just didnt have the room :/
I had Spectrum 48K, Spectrum+, Spectrum 128, +2 and +3 machines with various peripherals including interface 1 and 2, another interface I had for the 48K plugged into the expansion port and added a 3.5" drive to the machine as well as additional ports, parallel etc. Literally 100s of tapes and some game cartridges that plugged into the top of interface 2 i think it was. I deeply regret parting with them now, as well as my C64 and Amiga collection :/ I never seem to learn lol.
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
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Offline Managarm

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2010, 08:08:31 PM »
Hi Guys,

Talking of Spectrums, does anyone know of any decent emulators for it on the Amiga or Windows?

I downloaded one for the Amiga off Aminet years ago and it was slow and seemed to only play games which turned out to be crap. I Googled a few for Windows but they were either fiddly or weren't free.

Cheers,
Rob.
 

Offline cybernoid

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2010, 08:57:10 PM »
Hello,
I bought one 16k in 1982 (still have it)

Spectrum is a great home computer. Faster than C64 and with a much clear Basic.
The sound was not very good, but they made miracles, like the tune of Agent X.
Later, 128k came with a decent soundchip. More or less the same yamaha of the original Atari ST.
There are thousands of g-r-e-a-t games for Spectrum.
There are some impressive demos for Spectrum (I'm thinking of one called kkolor).
Comparing to C64, Spectrum demonstrations are much more creative, thus making me think that C64 was less versatile. In fact, you can play many games that look like C64, but you can't play head over heels @ C64...

Well for me, Spectrum is the father of Amiga. Same spirit.

Spectrum has also the best emulators (in all O.S., inc X and Workbench), sometimes better and stable than the real machine.

So YES: this computer is a legend not because of propaganda, but by it's own merits. -Exactly like Amiga.
 

Offline orange

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #21 on: November 21, 2010, 09:14:51 PM »
+3 was my first computer, second was a500.
there were no original games on 3" diskettes in my country. so I played only those few that came with +3.
after some time (years) I figured out how to connect a tape recorder and play all those 48K games..  
also there were always problem with sound and picture because of poor RF out (and different PAL system). wish I knew about RGB SCART then, and composite hack..

if the zx game is really good (and there are many of them), after some time you forget about its graphics limitations.


@Managarm
spectaculator is very good, I think.
basically all modern zx emulators are very good, best ones can do advanced stuff like microdrive and fdd emulation..
« Last Edit: November 21, 2010, 09:19:44 PM by orange »
Better sorry than worry.
 

Offline kd7ota

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #22 on: November 21, 2010, 10:25:29 PM »
I never got to own a spectrum, but the static noise it created is like music to my ears. :)

This is probably the best spectrum song I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ZdrQRi6W8

Raw Recruit from Tim Follin
-=-=-=-=-=-
Mine!  :-D
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #23 on: November 21, 2010, 10:47:08 PM »
Quote from: kd7ota;593467
I never got to own a spectrum, but the static noise it created is like music to my ears. :)

This is probably the best spectrum song I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ZdrQRi6W8

Raw Recruit from Tim Follin


Man, that's awesome. None of your 3-channel AY nonsense here. Pure software PWM/PDM :D
int p; // A
 

Offline Speelgoedmannetje

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #24 on: November 21, 2010, 11:15:48 PM »
Quote from: cybernoid;593453

Well for me, Spectrum is the father of Amiga. Same spirit.
I don't see your point. The Atari 800XL is in fact the real father of the Amiga, and technically beseen, the C64 has also the custom chipset concept implemented. The ZX spectrum line does not in any way. That's why you hear those bleeps when loading a program from a cassette. Also think of the color 'leaking'.
Maybe the processor of the ZX spectrum is more powerful than that of the C64, but it also NEEDS to be more powerful.
Very PC like indeed (apart from the fact that the Z80 is a fork of the x86 architecture)
« Last Edit: November 21, 2010, 11:19:25 PM by Speelgoedmannetje »
And the canary said: \'chirp\'
 

Offline Khephren

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #25 on: November 21, 2010, 11:21:13 PM »
Quote from: Reiknir;593429
both my Mac and my Amiga were relegated to being used as toys.

I had a Coco and a Memotech MTX during the 8 bit era so I misssed out on it all

My studio still has a couple of Atari Falcons operational for stuff that is too timing sensitive to use a PC/MIDI/VSTI


wow. I guess your a midi boy through and through? ST was great for MIDI, and had great midi software.

But the 'toys' you put away had photoshop, lightwave, deluxe paint, quark express octamed, and the one we are all here for had one of the biggest freely downloadable software archives in the world (aminet), and the first computer to feature a digital soundprocessor.

Now your here...you might as well try them!
 

Offline fitzsteve

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #26 on: November 21, 2010, 11:23:30 PM »
Quote from: Managarm;593450
Hi Guys,

Talking of Spectrums, does anyone know of any decent emulators for it on the Amiga or Windows?

I downloaded one for the Amiga off Aminet years ago and it was slow and seemed to only play games which turned out to be crap. I Googled a few for Windows but they were either fiddly or weren't free.

Cheers,
Rob.

Hi Rob,

What spec Amiga do you have?

ZXAM Spectrum runs perfect on 030 or 040 Amiga's and ASP is the best one if you have an 060.

I play a lot of Speccy games on the Amiga because you can use a regular Joystick and full screen on TV is about as close as you can get to to the real thing.

PeeCee emulators all suck, seems sooooo fake....

Steve.
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #27 on: November 21, 2010, 11:50:57 PM »
Speculator, originally written for QL, wasn't bad either IIRC.
int p; // A
 

Offline brownb2

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #28 on: November 22, 2010, 12:44:23 PM »
*cough*Image to ZX Spec*cough*

Written by yours truly when you just can't get enough of that colour clash ;) or simply want to mash up your jpegs or avis retro style.

Note first post at the top of that link is a hack I made to have it run as a proxy, you really want this link right here to get the software (runs on any Java 6 capable machine...).
« Last Edit: November 22, 2010, 12:47:40 PM by brownb2 »
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Offline Franko

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Re: Tell me about your spectrum
« Reply #29 from previous page: November 22, 2010, 01:37:07 PM »
The only one I ever had was used to keep the back door wedged open on hot summer days... :)