Did you get your Spectrum at the right time?

[PeteProdge]

Here's one for those of us who follow Ray Bradbury's killing-a-butterfly-when-time-travelling principle, depicted in A Sound Of Thunder...

I got my 128K Spectrum +2 (my first ever computer) in Oct 1987. For me, the experience was perfect. I had been longing for a home computer ever since I got to play (by proxy) on a BBC Micro at infants school in about 1980-1 and getting to stare at arcade machines in attract mode.

Judging by the Speccy's commercial life, I was slap-bang halfway in it, getting the best of both worlds. I could play the latest 128K games, and tap into my friend's 'snowballed' collection of 48K-era curios. I didn't have to mess about with separate tape decks and the extra cables needed for that. I maintain the 128K +2 is the best model there ever was. (Now there's a forum hand grenade that's just been lobbed!)

If I had got a Speccy in, say, 1984, knowing my clumsiness at that age, I doubt the thing would have lasted for more than two years. We couldn't afford colour in those days, so most of my gamesplaying in that parallel universe would have been in greyscale.

Conversely, getting a Speccy in about 1990, as the Atari ST and Amiga were the must-have nascent machines, that would have also result in a shorter usage span, for a different reason. (And it'd have been the +2A, with its muffled sound.)

How would your experience been if you got your Speccy earlier and/or later than you actually did?

[Pegaz]

For me, Spectrum golden years are 83-86 and everyone who had it then, got the most of it.
Spectrum was a star, the games were the best, magazines full of topics, simply there was a lot of enthusiasm and it was really a pleasure to have him then.
I think I was lucky and the privileged, to get my rubber Spectrum in that period in which he left an indelible trace and kept the spirit of that time, until today.
I can say with certainty, that I would never have such a feeling, that I had it in late 80s or Early 90s.
Most of that great nostalgia, which I feel about Spectrum, is firmly tied to that early period, that is part of me, some of the nicest moments in my life...

[SteveSmith]

IMHO, the Speccy games and industry in the early eighties were the golden age, full of creativity and not quite yet mired in large corporations churning out arcade conversions. Almost anything seemed to go, and although the graphics of those early games weren't always great, people didn't let it stop them releasing games with grand ideas. It's probably linked to age as well, and as an 8-year old in 83, even the loading screens seemed to beckon a world of excitement and my lack of knowledge or experience prevented me from knowing or caring about the limitations

[1024MAK]

Oh [mention]PeteProdge[/mention] you missed out on the fun and games of trying to get just the right volume level for the various games to load…

I would say, yes, it was the right time for us. A ZX Spectrum (48k rubber key) appeared at Christmas 1983 as a joint present to us (me and my sister).

When the family colour TV was not available (because the BBC or ITV actually were transmitting a TV programme *1), I had to use the only other TV in the house, which was a small black and white TV. Actually it was not too bad for most games of the day.

We had to wait until later in the following year (to my next birthday in the summer if I remember correctly) before I got a colour TV (a Ferguson that had computer inputs).

*1 there was no morning or ‘daytime’ TV programming back then. In the morning there was either schools programming, the test card or nothing. Then the lunch time news, followed by one programme, then the test card. Until later in the afternoon when children’s programming started. And there was only BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. No Channel 4, Channel 5/five or anything else (except for those in cable TV areas).

Mark

[Guesser]

I got my +3 (not knowing anything about the spectrum) for 50p on a table top sale in the early 2000s at a point it was old junk, before it became a desirable retro computer.

I absolutely wouldn't be around these parts otherwise.

[1024MAK]

Wow, 50p

Mark

[PeteProdge]

*1 there was no morning or ‘daytime’ TV programming back then. In the morning there was either schools programming, the test card or nothing. Then the lunch time news, followed by one programme, then the test card. Until later in the afternoon when children’s programming started. And there was only BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. No Channel 4, Channel 5/five or anything else (except for those in cable TV areas).

Channel 4/S4C started broadcasting in November 1982, so that would have been around for a year when you got your Speccy!

[Guesser]

Wow, 50p

Mark

It was the most expensive part of my collection until I bought the teletext adapter on ebay a couple of years back, unless you count replacing keyboard membranes

[Swainy]

I got my grey +2 for Christmas 87 but I had been playing on my mates 48k Speccy for years before that. It served my extremely well plus I could show off the 128k extras like the throw move & extra level & ingame music of Renegade

[Lee Bee]

Most Spectrum enthusiasts I encounter seem to regard the early 80s as the true golden age of the Spectrum. I often feel like I was late to the party, since I didn't get mine till Christmas 1986 (when I was 10 years old).

So while everyone else is getting all nostalgic about Matthew Smith and Ultimate, for me, it's Ocean and Codemasters

Like Pete, I'm glad I came along a little later because not only did I have instant access to the Spectrum's back catalogue, but I was just in time for all the cool 'modern' titles like Chase HQ, Batman the movie, Slightly Magic, New Zealand Story, etc. I'm so glad they were a part of my childhood!

But I love all eras of Speccy games, including the present one!

Incidentally, before I got my Speccy, I had never even seen a home computer running. My experience of videogames had only been arcade machines, so at first I was extremely underwhelmed with the Spectrum's graphics, especially since my favourite arcade game was Paperboy, and that was the first Spectrum game I played. Seeing those monochrome graphics, I honestly thought it was broken at first! Nevertheless, I came to love the Speccy And today, I have more appreciation for it than ever.

[1024MAK]

*1 there was no morning or ‘daytime’ TV programming back then. In the morning there was either schools programming, the test card or nothing. Then the lunch time news, followed by one programme, then the test card. Until later in the afternoon when children’s programming started. And there was only BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. No Channel 4, Channel 5/five or anything else (except for those in cable TV areas).

Channel 4/S4C started broadcasting in November 1982, so that would have been around for a year when you got your Speccy!

Obviously my memory has bit rot

What’s worse is I watched quite a lot of the test transmissions (yep, being the member of the household that was the geek, it was me who tuned in the new channel on the TV) and I watched it on the day it officially started up.

Mark

[Alone Coder]

I got mine in 1991, that would be right time for Russia, but I was only 9 then, so I could only write in Basic, and I couldn't make fruitful connections until 1994.
We plan to make a game about a typical Russian Spectrum user, spanning 1990 to 2000. However, some points of the gameplay have not been solved yet (farming new software, trading, post office).

[RWAC]

Another latecomer to the spectrum, around 1987.

Like Pete, I'm glad I came along a little later because not only did I have instant access to the Spectrum's back catalogue, but I was just in time for all the cool 'modern' titles like Chase HQ, Batman the movie, Slightly Magic, New Zealand Story, etc. I'm so glad they were a part of my childhood!

I'd add to this the magazine cover tapes. I know a lot of people disliked them but getting classic games like Lords of Midnight and Wanted Monty Mole (pretty sure this was on a Crash tape) on covertapes was amazing.

[p13z]

1982 - Dad bought it home as a new toy and lost interest. Only had the introductory tape, and a C90 full of very early copied games that came bundled with it from the shop.
I was pre-school, nobody to copy games from, and no way were my folks going to buy games for me. But my Mom would buy any books for me that I wanted, and take me to the library once a week, where I found plenty of books with listings in to borrow.
I learnt to read and write on that machine, learning maths and programming along the way. The early games that we did have were mostly BASIC and hackable, too.
Had the Spectrum appeared a few years later I would have missed out on all that. Later years saw all games available, copied and swapped in the school playground, and slickly presented in unhackable, impenetrable machine code. This would have been full distraction and removal of motivation to learn how to program on it.
The early years felt somewhat magical. I feel lucky that I grew up with the Speccy. It was like a loyal pet. That little cursor flashing away, like a dog wagging it's tail, just waiting for the next command with undivided attention. By the late eighties it was a proper old dog, bit of bluetac holding the DC jack in - running out of new tricks, chewed all my old tapes to bits already. Neighbours were getting exotic new pets from Atari and Commodore, and we knew it's days were numbered.

[XTM]

Very interesting topic!

I got my first 16k Speccy towards the end of 1985 and only had the Atari 2600 we had prior to that to compare, therefore the high-res graphics in games like Jetpac and Cookie (which came with the machine on a tape full of copied games) really impressed me. I was 11 years old at the time. I'm mentioning this because I believe your age also plays a role, as you are less likely to be impressed by new technology as you grow older. Sometime mid 1986 I upgraded to a 48k Speccy and in 1988 I got a +2.

I believe I would not be on this forum if I hadn't obtained the 16k Speccy by pure chance (as we got it from a little classifieds found in our local mall) at that time. From the mid 80s on, the C64 gained extreme popularity in Germany and relegated every other 8 bit computer onto the shelf of obscurity, and in summer 1987 it even was sold at Aldi at a very reasonable price of 299 DM. I looked this up: in August 1987, 1 DM was 0.337137 GBP so this equalled roughly a mere 100 quid! This further cemented its success, so I might have either ended up with a C64 or an Amstrad CPC since my brother got introduced to them via my uncle and went that route.

[FFoulkes]

Channel 4/S4C started broadcasting in November 1982, so that would have been around for a year when you got your Speccy!

Hmm, I'm spotting Liza Minelli there,
- Kris Kristofferson and Burt Reynolds,
- Faye Dunaway
- Greta Garbo,
- Bob Marley,
- Robert Duvall, William Holden
- Richard Burton.
Anybody else?

Spectrum-wise, I got a 16K one in 1982, which was soon expanded to 48K. Got an Interface 1 and a Microdrive in 1983.
Switched to an Atari 800XL-system in 1984. And on to an Amiga 500 in 1987.
So I left the Spectrum after a while in favour of Jay Miner's designs. But the Spectrum was my first one and therefore still holds a special place in my memory (or heart if you want). Also because it was relatively easy to program it, because you didn't have to switch graphics modes or memory banks and you could produce simple sound easily without worrying about filter settings or such.
Didn't know about the 128K and AY-chip models until the 2010's, and haven't ever seen such a model in reality anywhere. I really dislike the AY-sound (also in the Atari ST or wherever), so maybe it's even better that way. Only the 48K one gives me nostalgic feelings.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I got mine in 1985. Like most people here I got it when I could, not when I wished!

Now I think it was a good moment to get a Spectrum, many good games were released then: Highway Encounter, Tapper, Saboteur, Cyclone, Commando, ... but if I could get back in time I would have got it earlier, at least one year, as I think 1984 is the first big year of Spectrum gaming.

I got my +3 (not knowing anything about the spectrum) for 50p on a table top sale in the early 2000s at a point it was old junk, before it became a desirable retro computer.

I absolutely wouldn't be around these parts otherwise.

Wow, 50p

Mark

Seconded.

And I would add... WOW!!!

[p13z]

Wow, 50p

Mark

Seconded.

And I would add... WOW!!!

It sounds crazy in relation to today's Ebay "vintage" market - but there was pretty much an entire decade in the UK where a lot of Speccies / old computers, along with their software, were heading straight for skips or just being given away. Pretty much the same time you saw cars currently selling for £30k+ being bought and sold as scrappers.
( And when I first saw this topic posted, I thought it may have have been about this )

[Juan F. Ramirez]

One of my greatest regrets about retrogaming was when, back in Xmas 1997, I knew of a shop that sold brand new +2, the police pack (including Robocop 2, IIRC) for only 2,000 pesetas (12 euros). BRAND NEW. I never thought of getting one as I had my own Spectrum + and that time I was only interested in emulation.

It seems it was a stock of some units that ended up in this shop.

*sigh*

[Guesser]

It sounds crazy in relation to today's Ebay "vintage" market - but there was pretty much an entire decade in the UK where a lot of Speccies / old computers, along with their software, were heading straight for skips or just being given away.

Yep, it's like now-desireable pentiums 15 years ago, or ugly Dell core2duos now. I don't know if those will ever become coveted but right now people just want rid of them.

[blucey]

I got mine in 1985. I had briefly played one in school. A teacher, Miss Stein, called me and my mate in at lunch and put on Jumping Jack. I was into it.

But a couple of brothers I knew got a C16 and so I asked my mum if I could get one. Thankfully the guy in Dixons set her straight and we went home with a 48+. Loads of good games around and all the really good sh*t yet to come, so definitely a good time to get involved.

[777]

i got my first zx spectrum, a zx spectrum +, in 1984. i was 8 years old. i broke it twice by plugging and pulling out the joystick interface when it was on. i took it back twice and they repaired it for free. i didnt tell them what id done. on the second time they said they wouldnt repair it again.

i then got my zx spectrum + 2 in 1987.

[Matt_B]

It sounds crazy in relation to today's Ebay "vintage" market - but there was pretty much an entire decade in the UK where a lot of Speccies / old computers, along with their software, were heading straight for skips or just being given away.

Yep, it's like now-desireable pentiums 15 years ago, or ugly Dell core2duos now. I don't know if those will ever become coveted but right now people just want rid of them.

I'm sure it's partly because most of this stuff ended up as e-waste that the remainder has become more valued.

Mind you, form and function play their part too. I can't imagine too many people reminiscing for their old office PC like they would for a home computer they grew up with, especially if it was one with striking visual design like the Spectrum.

I suppose there are people who buy old OptiPlexes and pimp them out with a Xeon CPU, an SSD, loads of RAM and the best graphics card the power supply can handle to make a budget games machine. If that's the experience of them you grew up with, you might be inclined to view them somewhat more fondly than if you'd only ever used one as an office PC. For most people though, they're going to be much more akin to the way we'd view an Amstrad PCW than a Spectrum.

[ZXDunny]

I started at school when I was about 7 or 8 with a ZX81. Our music teacher, Mr. Scruton, brought it in and nearly lost his job over it because one of the other teachers thought that the display lines/flickering when loading would brainwash the kids, so he had to get rid of it. But in the time we had it there, it fascinated me.

My Stepdad bought a Speccy in '82 when they came out and I enjoyed it for playing games, but it wasn't until he brought home an issue of Sinclair Programs. Having nothing to play but Horizons Thro' The Wall and Test Match, I leafed through the mag. Obviously I wasn't gonna type in some two-page monster, but there was a game called "Octopus" for the ZX81 which tapped in nicely. I loved it and was hooked from that moment on.

We updated to the Spectrum+ when they came out, and I was heavily into BASIC coding and gaming by that point. Later the utterly fantastic grey +2 arrived and 128k/AY goodness, but then the utterly disastrous +2a and +3 which were quickly consigned to the bin (and rightfully so, they were a travesty) as I moved to the Amiga.

So I reckon I got the most out of that period of the Speccy's life, only jumping ship when it, like Crash! Magazine, deteriorated into a pile of crap.

[jpnz]

Yeah, I think so. I was really lucky as my Mum was a teacher at a technically savvy school during the era - and I got to "borrow" some stuff over the summer holidays - including a Betamax VCR.
My secondary school was computer literate as well, with a whole room kitted out with BBC Model B's
I can't remember the exact year we got our own Spectrum at home but it served me very well, being repaired a few times - best 100[ish] quid spent according to Mum.
I'm now working with high end packet sniffers - my test machine presents 80x CPU cores, 386 GB memory and 112 TB of storage - fancy that!

If I hadn't got a Spectrum I have no idea what I would be doing now

EDIT: Added a final comment and removed the tildes - they look to much like negatives :/