A History of the ZX SPECTRUM - a Retro Review by interghost

[thefezmeister]

@peddersoldchap na he didn't like vodka. Nor did he drive a lada.

[dalxo]

Didaktik M was designed and produced in Slovakia. "M" does not stand for "Moscow", it was made few years after revolution, i.e. no chance to call it "Moscow". But I understand, brain washing and stereotypes is comfortable.

[thefezmeister]

My very first exposure to the spectrum was at a mates house. He had a weird looking clone. From memory it looked a bit like an Acorn BBC ironically. I later discovered it was called a Pentagon. Think it was a russian clone. God knows where it came from given this is all in Yorkshire!

[interghost]

@thefezmeister Crazy times mate ha ha... It was a great time for computers for sure ;o)

[peddersoldchap]

@thefezmeister Maybe his father was a Soviet spy!

[oufc29]

oh my days i had a sinclair zx spectrum +2 i loved playing chuckie egg on it any one remember chickie egg and chuckie egg 2

[interghost]

@oufc29 yeah I do check out my speccy game reviews mate and subscribe ;o)

[DanePax]

Ahhhh memories x thanks man I had 128k a great machine indeed...

[interghost]

@DanePax no probs, glad you liked it, thanks for the comments ;o)

[sanathesuperflash]

I love the technology of the 80's, live long the 80's!

[interghost]

@sanathesuperflash here here!! ;o)

[rombe72]

I had ZX 81 in 1982 (I was 10), it was my 1st computer, and the next year I had ZX Spectrum, I had much fun with it, my rubber keyboard was bad for some years, then my father gave Sprectum new cover from Slovak comp called PMD 85, it had plastic keyboard, and last longer. This comp I don`t have now, I sold it to my cousin. But I still have upgraded Atari 600XL and Atari ST 1040. :)

[interghost]

@rombe72 Very cool... you cant go wrong with a good old Specrum.. and indeed a Atari ST ;o)

[janqajka]

i had Didaktik Gama in 1989...R.I.P.

[blackcountryme]

AGH Plus 2A....piece of crap i had a brand new one with a light gun but my fave game Fairlight wouldn't work, and i had the program for the magazine someone said it helped but still fairlight wouldnt have it. I should have kept my rubber keyed one :(

Only good thing about the +2A was the joystick port i made a joystick for R-Type that used both ports so i could use one stick with two buttons so i could launch the pod and recover it and still have fire with out pressing a key.

[interghost]

@blackcountryme that sounds impressive mate. Would of loved to see that back in the day! I had a mate that used to convert things to go into his Speccy... good old days! They used to smell funny when they got too hot though ha ha!

[MrVinamp]

Are you standing under the shower when this was recorded?

[interghost]

@MrVinamp Yes I was.... ;o)

[RussWWFC]

Great resource, the Timex clones look ugly. My first computer was the old rubber keys one (still looks great today), then the +2 before I got an Amiga

[interghost]

@RussWWFC Thanks Im glad you liked it.. I look back on this video now and see loads Ive missed out but hey!

I agree teh rubber key speccy is a really classic and looks great... cheers for watching ;o)

[HardWarUK]

You Tube is the only place in the media where you see the history of gaming machines and gaming!

[interghost]

@HardWarUK Its a great resource isnt it... cheers ;o)

[MrLastkill3r]

Nice vid! I'm glad to hear, that poland has got our own spectrum clone (Elwro 800-3 and the second Elwro) i known Elwro computers before, but never noticed they were speccy clones!

[interghost]

@MrLastkill3r thanks dude glad you liked it, and cheers for the comments ;o)

[nailmon]

is it only the 16k/48k that is compatible with most games or can the spectrum+ also play most games

[interghost]

@nailmon Im sure about the + mate. But the 16k isnt compatible with most games? The 48k is the best and the only games it wont play is the 128k! Cheers

[nailmon]

@interghost cheers mate

[nephildevil]

lol didnt know there were so many fakes :D

[interghost]

@nephildevil Yeah there hundreds of them, much more than what I show in the video. But these are mainly from countries like Russia, where they were made cheaply so that people could afford them. ;o)

[nephildevil]

@interghost and do they run zx software just like that? or do they have a bunch of issues and give troubles

[Etcher]

REally good vid! thanks!

[interghost]

@Etcher Glad you are liking them mate cheers for the support ;o)

[bloodywolftr]

very great history of sinclair...i had a zx spectrum 2 + ,the one with the grey cover...i am missing that machine...

[interghost]

Thanks matey. I loved the Speccy back in the day too. Thanks for watching. Go out and get one off eBay. They are quite cheap now! Or go to 'World of Spectrum' and you can play all the games online!! Cheers ;o)

[bloodywolftr]

@interghost i will check it out,if i can find a working 1,but i need a cassette player too,to copy games,all around of me dvds,cds and usbs nowadays :D

[interghost]

@bloodywolftr thats a sad state to get your slef in mate... cd's and dvd's... oh dear!

You dont need to copy the tapes anymore mate anyway! They cost less than about 20p on eBay ;o)

[seanmillerr]

i am sure i had a zx spectrum 1k back in the 80s,it had grey plastic keyboard.may be i should have kept it;(

[interghost]

Yeah right those things are worth a tidy amount of money now adays mate ;o)

[zver711]

Back when I lived in Belarus, some factory made a ZX Spectrum 48k clone called "Inter" and that's the one I had. It was made only in Vitebsk in that factory, however in Orsha some other factory made an EXACT copy of that clone, which was called "Kvant" ("Qwant"?). My Inter was a big gray computer/keyboard with spring keys, and all the sings and commands on the keyboard in English Came in a box with huge ugly PSU and a Kempston compatible ugly ass joystick (metal=sturdy) blue body and red buttons

[interghost]

That sounds cool mate... I would love to have one of those. what with my user name being INTERghost too... ha ha

Thanks for the info I will take a look for one of those now cool ;o)

[zver711]

Yeah, your name was what jerked my memory. Except I googled for clones and found only mentioning the one from Orsha and no pics whatsoever. My friend from back there still maybe owns Inter Ill ask him to snap couple of pics (and the peripherals). I remember that in order for people to play it in color (even for a color TVs) we had to call some dude who took the back cover off the TV and soldered some wires plus a button that I had to push to use the computer. Sorta switch b/w the TV mode and ZX

[interghost]

That would be cool if you could get some pics mate. I just had a look on the net too and couldnt find any pics of it?

Thats crazy that you had to go through that much trouble to play on the old Speccy ha ha funny mate. Cheers for the info ;o)

[zver711]

Wikipedia english page has no mention, but on the sidebar if you click russian they mention Kvant from Orsha that has been sold also in my city, but they also mention some other Kvant which was made in Russia, in Zelenograd on the factory there also named Kvant. Unoriginal? Yeah. But one I had looked like a commercial product and was sold in government controlled stores, and I heard rubber buttons do not withstand abuse and time, mine went on and on - spring and plastic.

[MaxSpender]

That advert at the end sure brings back memories. My first speccy was a 48k+ but I hated the fact that if you knocked the joystick interface off when the power was on, you were looking at a £40 repair bill & some very angry parents.

No such problems with the +2A I got later, except some older games didn't work. Thanks to a program printed in YS (called the ghost), I was able to play some of my older games, like Ninja, Empire & Dizzy, but others, like Sabrewulf & JSW still refused to load.

[interghost]

ha ha yeah right mate. My brother and I went through a fair few Speccys by knocking the back whilst it was on. They broke easy didnt they!

I loved the +2 with the built in cassette deck... no more fiddling about with the wire and vol and mic... cheers for the great comments again ;o)

[F0gstridEr]

I relly whana se more about Amstrad Schneider... I had this green colored screen and i played Yes set willy II on it as i know you already have made a great rewieu about. But i woud like to se more of those games that whas made to Amstrad.

Thanks for a good work dude! :)

[interghost]

Thanks for the comments mate. I didnt really play much Amstrad back in the day but I will be putting up more Spectrum classics soon cheers ;o)

[AlphaOmegaFilms]

i remember ZX spectrum! You reminded me the title from my childhood. Thanks my friend

[interghost]

No problem mate, glad you liked it.. cheers for watching and why not check out the spectrum game reviews I have done on my channel and subscribe as there are lots more to come cheers ;o)

[bastardtubeuser]

a small side note to this, is that in russia there seams to have been a "do it your self" manual for building your own spectrum 48k/128k, and therefor there are potentially hundreds of unique spectrums there.

there are a couple of vids on here somewhere , where people have shown there D.I.Y speccys !

[interghost]

Cool mate. I will have to check that out. I would love to try building my own Speccy that would be a cool project.. maybe with a built in screen like a laptop?? Hhuummm so cool!! ha ha

Also, the ZX80 and ZX81 did come in kit form when they first released them so you had to put them together your self which seems weird today... ;o)

[bastardtubeuser]

That would be lovely to have a zx128K + with a built in screen, wish i could find the video on here of the girl and her homemade spectrum , she was playing some ULTIMATE games on it, err i think.

as always thanks for the nostalgia interghost.

[Noyjeetut]

Good to get more information on this underrated system.

[interghost]

Thanks mate. I just loved it as a kid and wanted to share a bit more info with my subs as it deserves the Spot Light! Cheers ;o)

[braineaterknux]

I agree with DoubleLwithWarzone, you should do a full Spectrum retrospective. Great video anyway, I've been meaning to get a Speccy (ideally one of the later ones) for ages now.

[interghost]

Yeah, will have to do some more of these!

If you are going to get one I would opt for the Zx Spectrum +2 with built in Tape Player. You dont have to mess about with the leads and stuff then! (Not the +2A though as some older games didnt work on it!!) cheers mate ;o)

[DoubleLwithWARZONE]

very cool video, since I live in the US I Didn't know to much about the zx spectrum, you should make a series of these History videos or a part 2 talking about some of the classic Zx spectrum games

[interghost]

Cool thanks mate. Yeah that was the main reason I made this for you guys over the sea that didnt have these great computers!

I will probs do another video like this at some point, good idea thanks... ;o)

[venger]

Ah I remember getting the 128k +2 for christmas one yer. Think it was around '88. I was in the second year of comprehensive school.

I loved my speccy and it brought me many hours of entertainment.

So many cool games. 'Target renegade', Exolon', 'Robocop', 'Batman the movie', 'Fantasy world dizzy' and many many more.

[interghost]

Yeah me too.. it was a good xmas that year for me. My brother and I shared it but I used to use it the most! It was a great computer and I spent way too many hours on it.. ha ha!

All those great games, and so little time to review them all.. cheers ;o)

[mrgamer1]

cool vid dude but wich ones did u have?

[interghost]

Thanks mate...

Well I had a ZX81 (but only got that a couple of years ago!)

I also had a rubber key 48k when I was a kid and several 48k hard key ones (as they kept breaking!)

But my fav was the ZX Spectrum +2 that I got for Xmas one year as a kid and remains today as one of my fav computers EVER!! Cheers ;o)

[bsg7]

Nice vid dude... but you do realise that now I have to go and hunt down _all_ the clones for my collection... and it's all your fault :-D

[interghost]

ha ha.. nice mate.. glad you liked it but I wouldnt hunt down ALL of the clones as there are hundreds of them, and a lot of them are VERY hard to get!! But if you do try GOOD LUCK mate ;o)

[alistaro]

u sound diffrent and there is a hissing noise

[interghost]

Ive got a really bad cold at the moment and Im all stuffed up... so that mine be why?? ;o)

The hissing is the Mic, might have had the recording volume turned up to high or something? Cheers for watching mate ;o)