Did any of you British people here own a Spectrum

[UtwigMU]

Since there are quite a few British people on this forum and Spectrum was a British product.

What is a Sinclair ZX spectrum?
'80s 8bit computer (4MHz, 48k RAM, tape storage, rubber keyboard)

Link

[ZokesPro]

Although I'm not Brittish I can still answer that!

What is a Sinclair ZX spectrum?

Answer: A really old system that's almost as old as I am!

[breezer]

I think that a spectrum had a z80 processor with hardly any ram. The extra ram was plugged into the back and usually fell off,
The waiting list for one of these machines was well over 6 months (after they took your money)

I never owned one because I thought it was a pile of shit, I always though Acorn products were better (that was before I owned one - which didn't work)

Sinclair went on and produced an egg sized car Called the C5, it was powered by batteries and ran on a hoover washingmachine motor, I can actually say a witnessed some one buying one of these in Rumbelows, Leamington Spa.

(uncle) {sir} Clive Sinclair should have stuck to what he knew best.

Sinclair was at one time a 200m£ per year turn over company which was sold for £5m to Alan Michael Sugar (Amstrad) .


This was all many year ago probably 1982, when I was still young., my memory and Sinclair went years ago.



Breezer

[Nuno]

That reminds me that I liked alternative products at that time. Instead of the popular ZX spectrum I had a Phillips VG-8010 (I doubt anyone reminds that one). It worked both on tape and on cartridges, and the cartrigdes actually had memory on board, alowing it to run VG-8020 games (a 64K model)...
It was on many ways superior to spectrum.

After that I had a Commodore Amiga 500, with a whooping 512Kb expansion card, a RGB stereo monitor and an external floppy disk drive!! (DF1: ruled )

This actually reminds me that I´m getting old!

[Agent31]

they were pioneers... even if they pioneered territory nobody ever went back to

[RichL]

Originally posted by breezer
I think that a spectrum had a z80 processor with hardly any ram. The extra ram was plugged into the back and usually fell off,
The waiting list for one of these machines was well over 6 months (after they took your money)

I think you're referring to the ZX81 there, the forerunner to the Spectrum. The ZX81 had 1k and an expansion port for an 8k memory pack. IIRC the Spectrum either came with 16k or 48k. Pretty amazing when you think modern CPUs have more memory on die than older machines used in total.

I never owned one because I thought it was a pile of shit, I always though Acorn products were better (that was before I owned one - which didn't work)

I had an Acorn Electron - great little machine. I still remember getting home from school, starting up the computer to load Elite from the tape drive, and being able to finish my Maths homework before it had finished loading .

Sinclair went on and produced an egg sized car Called the C5,

This caused considerable mirth amongst us members of the UK Citroen owning community. Evidently PSA didnt realise that their latest, greatest technological marvel was named after something that was a national joke and embarrasing failure.

[UtwigMU]

I still keep it (hoping hardware will have vintage value someday like those '30s Philips radios).

I learned great deal of BASIC programming on it when I was I kid (machine is almost as old as I am)

The initial models had 16k and 48k while in mid 80's arround switch to amstrad 128k model came out.

[Paulr]

Hell yer I owned one - Tell me one British person in their right mind who didn't!!

My very first computer was a ZX81.
As the post above says this had 1k of memory, although I did actually save up for many weeks to purchase the 8k memory upgrade pack.

I actually missed out on the Rubber Keyed version of the Sinclair, we actually had one at my junior school which was great.
I actually went from the ZX81 to a Sinclair Spectrum +
Still only 48k but we had evolved onto a full plastic keyboard.
I never went to either the +2 (Integrated tape drive) or +3 (Integrated micro-disk).

The reason I owned a Sinclair was that compared to the other machines on the market it was the best.
Sure the Commodore 64 was a nice machine, and the Amstrad models were OK, but from a graphics point of view the Spectrum was king.

The only failure of the Spectrum was the fact it could only display from a Palet of 8 colours, where as I believe the likes of the Commodore 64, Vic 20 and the Amstrads could do 16.

[Chris Blake]

Certainly did.

My first computer was a ZX81 though. Bought in kit form for about £70 I recall . I still have a scar on my wrist from where my brother dripped some solder on me when we were building it. Ah the memories...

Any ex-ZX81 owners remember 3D Monster Maze?.

vb81 - Sinclair ZX81 Emulator, cool!

The Speccy was great but the C64 was better.

[RedRed]

A fine beast!

I had one (16 K model, and an Atari 400 - the Atari was about 4 times the price and very beautiful at the time - but could get no software for it!

(harware sprites, amazing colours and resolutions supported)

The latest Amstrad web toy - phone-fax thing plays downloadable spectrum games. I wonder if its a spectrum inside (TM)!

RedRed

[SteveC]

Hey RedRed - I has a 400XL too, until it was trod on once and snapped the motherboard in two. Then we upgraded to a 130XE - now that was a cool computer. Actually, spec wise, it was better than all the other 8 bit home computers and even the IBM XT

Then I got an Amstrad GX4000 - what a mistaka to maka!

[RedRed]

I had the original atari 400 not an XL...

membrane keyboard looked like a spaceship.... all wedges....

it was a little workof art.


the atari whupped the spectrums and the commabores until the c64 came out.... even then the Atari 800 was superior, technically I feel.

Ah the days before I had a modem, even!

RedRed

[RedRed]

Specifications and information

Key Dates: Announced December 1978
Ships October 1979
CPU: 6502, 1.79 MHz
Memory: 8K
Operating System: BASIC in ROM (10K ROM pack + BASIC cartridge)
Atari DOS on diskette
Input/Output: 4 joystick ports, Atari cable bus
Bus: One cartridge slot
Atari daisy-chain cable bus, connects floppy drives, cassette drive, and Atari 850 I/O interface, which includes serial and parallel ports.
Other Items in Collection: Full documentation, Atari DOS 2.5 & 3.0, various cartridges & games on diskette


http://www.geocities.com/~compcloset/atari400.htm



Mine had a 16K upgrade, no disk but a propriety cassette recorder - which never EVER let me down. Atari Basic came on a Cartridge, and there was an assembler on a tape.

'he was a little baggy, and loose at the seams, but Emily loved him!' - Bagpuss

[RichL]

Does anyone else remember all the fun you used to have altering the tape head alignment to load those games your mate at school gave you a copy of?

[SteveC]

Introduced: 1983
CPU: 6502, 1.79 MHz
Memory: 64K RAM, 24K ROM
Operating System: BASIC in ROM
Atari XL operating system on diskette
Input/Output: 2 joystick ports, Atari cable bus
Bus: Atari daisy-chain cable bus, connects floppy drives, cassette drives, printers
Other Items in Collection: Full documentation, Atari DOS 2.5 & 3.0, various cartridges & games on diskette

The Atari XL series replaced the Atari 400/800. The 800XL, with its built-in 64K RAM, exceeded the memory capacity of the 48K-maximum Atari 800. It was announced along with its little brother, the 600XL.



And then the 130XE - http://www.geocities.com/~compcloset/Atari130XE.htm

I didn't realise how much better these two were than their earlier incarnations. I used out 130XE for years too! Between my dad and I we made some great programs.