For the Mag: ZX Spectrum Memories

[jdanddiet]

As the enlightened amongst you will already be aware, this year marks the 30th anniversary of that wonderful little micro-computer, the ZX Spectrum.

So let us know your memories of the little wonder (like maybe the time you first saw the Spectrum for real, or discovered Santa had left one for you ) and your favourite or most memorable game.

[markopoloman]

Nodes of Yesod. Played it on my mates Speccy - he almost wet himself when it loaded up and it SAID (yes, spoke) 'Nodes of Yesod by Odin computer graphics'!!! Not beeps - but a voice.
Quite impressive really.

[the_hawk]

Holy cow, how long have you got?

I could fill another 100 issues of RG with my love for that machine. (Not that it would make for goo reading! )

[markopoloman]

Holy cow, how long have you got?

I could fill another 100 issues of RG with my love for that machine. (Not that it would make for goo reading! )

It's only Goo reading for speccy lovers that remember playing Sam Fox Strip Poker..................................

[the_hawk]

[ipmarks]

The Spectrum wasn't just part of my childhood, for some years it pretty much was my childhood.
Everything I did centred around it, all my friends had one, and when we went to each others houses that is what we did... played Spectrum games.

I just adore the little black machine, I still have it, and it still works to this day - and more importantly is still used.
Games like Jet Set Willy, Knight Lore and Lords of Midnight were what I thought of upon waking in the morning, and what I went to sleep dreaming about...

It all sounds a little bit sad now, but for a couple of years I think I was addicted to Sir Clive's little box of tricks.

[The Laird]

I think my first memory was of when my friend got one, I was about 9 and went round to his house after school and I was so excited. The only time I had used a computer before was Granny Garden on the BBC in our classroom and had always loved arcade games from the first time I saw one. He had a few tapes full of games his older cousin had copied for him and we played Manic Miner and Skooldaze, mostly the latter it has to be said. Back then I thought it was the most amazing game I had ever played and from that moment I just had to have one!

[Morkin]

I felt incredibly lucky when I opened my Spectrum one Christmas morning. My parents weren't exactly well off & I hadn't even written it down on my Christmas list so I was gobsmacked when I saw what they'd bought me. Goodness knows how they paid for it & thinking back to that day brings a tear to my eye. The following weeks/months were spent having a fantastic time playing loads of different games borrowed from my school friends & reading Crash & YS. I have fond memories of Hunchback as it was the first game that I bought with my own pocket money. I also loved going to the local supermarket after school with my parents & seeing what new budget games were on the shelves.

[Sputryk]

First memories:

Calling round to a friend's home one Christmas to find he had been bought a 48k and numerous games. Spent the best part of the following few months playing mostly Manic Miner and Tranz Am (clocked the first several times, never found all the trophies of the latter). Would be a few years before I got my own, the 48+ edition.

A few years later, saving to buy the 48+ for Christmas and buying Issue 20 (Red Moon) of Crash in preparation. Monty On The Run was reviewed and it became by first game purchase (and my favourite platformer). Brilliant Christmas! Have managed to complete the game over the years, though not often as it is evil.

Now, whenever I load up MOTR I get the same warm glow, and both Manic Miner and Tranz Am provide a great moment of pure nostalgia. Nothing else evokes such gaming memories.

[Hitman_HalStep]

my first experience was my brother getting one for christmas,it was a complete eye opener going from a pong clone machine to watching manic miner,monty or pitman seven running.admittedly when i was rarely allowed a go i was lucky to get past the first screen but the gaming seed was sown.

[mlucifersam]

I was one of the last of my mates to get a Spectrum. I'd heard them talking about this thing you could play games on. I was 13, had a paper round which earned me £3.50 a week, so had no chance of getting one myself. I'd played on my cousin's ZX81 but this was, apparently, better! One weekend I got my mum to give me a lift to a part of town I'd never been before so I could see this machine in action. My mate Neil Anderson had one and had invited me over to sample it's delights. I remember being a bit bored waiting for the games to load, he didnt have any posters on his wall to look at while the tape loaded in. He showed me Atic Atac, Chequered Flag, Bruce Lee & Jet Set Willy. I'm sure there were others but these ones stuck out. I remember thinking that the jumping noise in JSW sounded like twinkly water! How did the Spectrum do that? Bruce Lee was ok, though I think Neil finished it there and then. And Atic Atac, well, that looked like an arcade game, but it was in Neil's bedroom! I didn't play on them much, I let Neil show me them. I didn't want to show myself up, I was bound to be rubbish!

Anyway, I must have been bitten by the bug because within a few weeks I'd just got home from school, a few days before my birthday, and my mother motioned towards the gap in-between the sofa and the chair. THERE in a box was a 48k ZX Spectrum!! I must have been mithering for a while to have persuaded my parents to get me one. It cost £175!! Not cheap at all back in 1984! I asked my mum last week if she remembers where she bought it from, she didn't, and when I told her the price she couldn't believe that they could have afforded one. It MUST have been from her trusty catalogue!! Buy now, pay off at a fiver a week! Oh yes. That would have been the only way I could have got my OWN Spectrum. I was gobsmacked anyway and set it up on the downstairs colour TV as quick as I can. I could do without watching Dangermouse and Newsround that night but I knew I wouldn't have long because Dad came home from work soon and he would want the TV. I had to cram some time in getting to know my new toy.

I acquainted myself with the wonders of the Spectrum over the next few months. I bought Crash every month and when I wasn't reading it I was playing games. I had a good circle of mates who had Spectrums and everyone would let everyone else copy each others new purchases, when new releases had been bought. I was lucky because one of my mates must have had at LEAST £50 a week given to him by his step dad and most of that went on either Farah trousers or new Spectrum games. I bought one when I could. It wasn't easy but I now earned a whopping £10 a week working 8 hours at the Co-Op. If I wanted to, I could buy a game a week! Wow!

I was there to see games like Avalon, Tir Na Nog, Knight Lore, Skool Daze, Full Throttle, Sabre Wulf & 3D Starstrike as NEW games. Me and my mates were witnessing the first generation of computer games and things were changing SO fast that a game that was 2 months old already looked out of date. Didn't realise this at the time but we were part of the LAST generation of children to have a time where there were NO computer games! Things would never be the same again.

I discovered my fav' types of games were the ones where you could pretend you'd traveled to another land. So I favoured the aforementioned Tir Na Nog & Avalon games, I loved Dragontorc too. Loved the Ultimate games until I couldn't find one in Nightshade (I did look!) and companies like Software Projects, Quicksilva, Mikro-Gen, Durrell, Micromega, Gargoyle, Ocean, Bug-Byte among many others left their indelible mark on part of my childhood.

I now have the biggest collection of Spectrum originals I've ever seen and 7 of the little buggers in their various guises.

[JetSetWilly]

My first memory was opening up a blinking big box on Xmas morning, roughly 1986, and finding a +2 staring back at me. I spent the whole morning trying, and failing, to complete both Green Beret and Rambo First Blood pt II. Mind you, it was then I found out how dire Knight Rider, Miami Vice and Highlander were. I can't believe I wasted time loading the things up!
What I also remember fondly was buying OutRun off Harlow market in about 87, then rushing to play it. £8 well spent I think. It's just a shame I didn't get P47 Thunderbolt at the same time, as it's pretty hard to get hold of now. The last thing I remember was buying Predator for £2.99. And to this very day, I still feel cheated!!!
I do have more memories, but I'd probably bore you all to death with them all

[Wookiee]

Christmas morning....finding a +3 under the tree, then a slight delay while my dad plugged things in and whatnot before putting in the 6 game disc that came with it

Gift From The Gods

Hours of entertainment to start with but things like Ikari Warriors, Bubble Bobble, The Great Escape, Head Over Heels, Cobra, Where Time Stood Still and Marauder all burned lots of time....as did BASIC itself

[slacey1070]

I felt incredibly lucky when I opened my Spectrum one Christmas morning. My parents weren't exactly well off & I hadn't even written it down on my Christmas list so I was gobsmacked when I saw what they'd bought me. Goodness knows how they paid for it & thinking back to that day brings a tear to my eye. The following weeks/months were spent having a fantastic time playing loads of different games borrowed from my school friends & reading Crash & YS. I have fond memories of Hunchback as it was the first game that I bought with my own pocket money. I also loved going to the local supermarket after school with my parents & seeing what new budget games were on the shelves.

This, Sir, is a great post . . . . knowing your parents did something really special. Good on you.

[psj3809]

I heard about computers but only saw them in catalogues or on display in Dixons etc. Went round my best friends after Xmas one day and saw he had a 16k Spectrum ! I loved it, i was amazed you could just keep swapping in different tapes to load in so many different games. Yeah the graphics were basic but the gameplay was great, then my friend did some programming on it, only very basic but in my mind i was seeing the huge huge potential of all of this ! Slowly all my other friends started getting Speccy's, I started loading up on C90's ! Eventually when i got mine about 6 months later i had a ton of games to get through ! Theres a huge nostalgia factor with your first computer but again so many of these games have tons of the playability factor, dont always need fancy graphics or tunes, its alll about the gameplay and so many of these 8 bit games have these