New ZX spectrum!

[bigegg]

this thread's a blast from the past.
Got a zx81 for Xmas 1981 when I was 9. Knew I was getting it from September, so spent three months learning BASIC from a text book on TRS80 BASIC bought from Radio Shack.
Bought a Spectrum in 1982, and had my first program published in Sinclair user in 1983. Had 4 or 5 more published over next couple of years in sinclair user, zx computing and the "tape only" magazine that I can't remember the name of (16/48???).
Bought a pushbike in 1987 for £299!!! (lot of money then) from the proceeds, then bought an BBC/Acorn Archimedes in early 1989. Had a couple of articles published in Acorn User, then Risc User. The fees from that bought a RISC PC and paid towards getting married .
Since then, never programmed since

 

[Rocketman]

Dreamcast all the way for the best game count vs amount of time out for me.

The thing that really sticks out as a seminal moment on the spectrum gaming and gaming as a whole was ultimate's knight lore. That was just something you didn't even think possible on such a machine. Total breakthrough in game design. Brilliant for it's time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Lore

 

[brewdexta]

I seem to remember banging my head against a wall trying to find the error in the lunar landing code on my dragon 32

 

[daleyd]

Skooldaze, paperboy and spyhunter were my favourites....

I may have to find an emulator and relieve my youth

Not to mention Daley Thompsons Decathlon........ quite what parents thought their kids were doing when they caught them frantically sweating and wiggling their kempston joysticks in their bedrooms............

 

[eSCHEn]

Paperboy, what a game. I think they did a remake not that long ago.

The strategy to win Daley Thomson round my way was to put a pool ball between the two keys and roll it back and forth. Got you a good score but knackered the keyboard

 

[clift_d]

Our first computer was an Acorn Atom with a whopping 2K of RAM!

 

[Wedg1e]

I had a ZX81, then a Spectrum 16K. The Speccy cost me £99 from WHSmith. The only game I ever bought was Niteflite 2 (you had to land a plane in the dark).
Then I got into ham radio and flogged them both to buy other kit. Then I got a VIC20 and used it to turn my aerial rotator; then a Commodore 16. As the market got flooded with less-popular 2nd-hand kit I tried an Oric; then got a Commodore 64 and another Spectrum, this one a Speccy+ with the aftermarket dual tape drive - that was fantastic!
In the 90s I collected C64 stuff from car boot sales for peanuts and sold it on as complete outfits. I had floppy drives, printers, plotters, Commodore's own monitors, you name it.
I always wanted a Sinclair QL but by the time they were cheap enough I'd lost interest.
I still have a Spectrum+ and one complete C64 (late model, the slimline version) in the loft, for old time's sake

Elite. Best game ever!

 

[rtbcomp]

The ZX80 had 1k - you had to keep variable names short to save space.

 

[Kayos]

I had a C64, even a disk drive but preferred the carts

Terminator and Flimbo's quest were amongst my favourites

 

[wookie]

Our first computer was an Acorn Atom with a whopping 2K of RAM!

Hope you still got it, they are worth a bob or two now.

I almost agree with Wedg1e about Elite being the best game ever, I dread to think how many hours I've spent just waiting for it to load from cassette, nevermind playing it, best I ever got up to was 'Dangerous'

 

[eSCHEn]

I've been racking my brains trying to think of a game I played as much as Elite, maybe Shinobi or Wonder Boy in Monster Land but Elite is just such a masterpiece of coding it just has to top spot.

 

[skotl]

I paid £1000 for a twin-floppy CPM machine + £1000 for a Daisywheel printer and a few hundred for a VDU back in 1985. You certainly get more bang for your buck these days.

Aha! Now we're talking

Cromemco System 1, 2 and 3 (the latter with 8" floppies) with S100 buses, running MP/M
PDP-11 running RT-11
Apple II (not the plus or the europlus)
An ICL 2903 mainframe
DecWriter II and III teletypewriters (110VDC on the boards and you could only troubleshoot them with the power on)

Later on, Rair Supermicro 286's running 32 workstations (combination of Wyse 50 and Lear Sieglar ADM3As) on MP/M

Ah... them were the days!

 

[the snooper]

doesn't look remotely like a spectrum though

 

[skotl]

doesn't look remotely like a spectrum thoughView attachment 57001

Errr... whit?

TheRegister has a funny headline about this;

Sinclair is back with the Spectrum Vega ... just as rubbish as the ZX

 

[Paul99]

Missed out on the Spectrums for some reason but started on an Amstrad CPC 6128 with a printer too we were probably too young to get into serious coding but certainly spent many hours playing and copying code out of books. Favorite game by far was Dan Dare though I also remember spending hours playing Bubble Bobble and Chuckie Egg too. Because of this thread I just read through the list of Amstrad CPC games on wikipedia and it's brought back happy memories of so many games I haven't thought of for 20+ years.

 

[wookie]

Later on, Rair Supermicro 286's running 32 workstations (combination of Wyse 50 and Lear Sieglar ADM3As) on MP/M

Ah... them were the days!

Wyse 50 terminal, not seen one of those for years, I must however admit to wanting one, just for old times sake. I can remember seeing skips full of them back in the late 1990's and I never thought to grab any. Currently I use a terminal emulator on my Model B to log in to my headless Linux server, would love to use a Wyse terminal instead...

 

[skotl]

I used to love the Lear Sieglers, though. When every other terminal was full of straight lines, the ADM3a was all curvy;

 

[Wedg1e]

best I ever got up to was 'Dangerous'

Likewise: many's an hour I spent running between Leesti and Diso (how's that for memory!) racking up the credits to add more toys to my ship... escape pod, docking computer (no Blue Danube on the Speccy but there was on the C64 ), pan-galactic gargle-blaster...ok, maybe I don't remember everything 100%

 

[Rocketman]

I used to love the Lear Sieglers, though. When every other terminal was full of straight lines, the ADM3a was all curvy;

Hah me doing injection mould design all the time I started looking at the main curvy moulding as soon as I saw that

 

[rtbcomp]

Aha! Now we're talking

Cromemco System 1, 2 and 3 (the latter with 8" floppies) with S100 buses, running MP/M
PDP-11 running RT-11
Apple II (not the plus or the europlus)
An ICL 2903 mainframe
DecWriter II and III teletypewriters (110VDC on the boards and you could only troubleshoot them with the power on)

Later on, Rair Supermicro 286's running 32 workstations (combination of Wyse 50 and Lear Sieglar ADM3As) on MP/M

Ah... them were the days!

I worked on Cromemco and the Comart & Northstar Horizon copies. The 1st floppies were 8" single sided 180k ? The Cromemco ran Cromix, a Unix clone, or CPM.

There was a whole range of VDUs from 'glass teletypes' to quite sophisticated ones. They all had different control codes and ran from RS232 or very occasionally current loop. Screen colours came in green, B&W or orange.

The non-S100 micros I worked on - Shelton Signet, Televideo, Superbrain, Northstar Advantage, Apple
Printers - Ricoh, NEC Sprinwriter, Loads of Epsons, Anandex, Juki, Centronics plus a few others.

I also worked on ICL 1900 mainframes & Perkin Elmer (Interdata) minis, MDS key to disk.

The ICL mainframes were controlled via Westrex Teletypes, had 60 MB disk drives almost the size of washing machines and powered from 3 phase mains.

Burroughs adding machines & TC500/310

Back in the day when you went on a course you went through every single transistor (or chip) in the machine, fault find in the field to board level and fix the board in the workshop.