30th Anniversary of the ZX Spectrum

For those of us that remember it, personally I spent way too much time writing code into the tiny little machine only to get to the end of 3000 odd lines of code for the game not to work and then spend hours checking and amending code in an endeavour to get a game going where the best you could expect was a 6 pixel character doing not much in a block landscape.

Having said that, it was brilliant and I loved my 128k Speccy. 

For those who remember it, those who wondered what it would of been like to play a sh*te game or those who want to realise how far we've come in 30 years of gaming since the speccy head over here and have a play:

http://www.zxspectrum.net/

Personally I'd recommend having a game of 'Football Manager' from 1982 where a certain Kevin Keegan is our lowest priced player at £5,000 and I drew my first game against Blackpool 2-2, luckily the gate receipts were £5,000 so we're covered.

Oh how simple life was before bloody sky stuck their noses in.

Happy birthday Spectrum, great thread!

Loved it myself, made a thread yonks ago, here:

http://www.lfcreds.com/reds/index.php/topic,11518.0.html

Happy birthday Spectrum, great thread!

Loved it myself, made a thread yonks ago, here:

http://www.lfcreds.com/reds/index.php/topic,11518.0.html

Yeah! One typing error and nothing worked!

I think I had quite a few that did animations, like hundreds of spiders falling down the screen or running around! Took ages but was worth it (when it worked! ).

10 PRINT "Spectrum was ace"
20 GO TO 10

 

 

Only had a little 48k myself as well, amazing to think they could even make games at all with so little memory!

I couldn't put Manic Miner down and then they brought out Jet Set Willy with the colour coded card that was supposed to stop piracy and it was hit or miss if you ever got it to accept the code and you had to listen to it load all over again.

In the forum awards is there a 'nerdiest thread of the year' award?

I couldn't put Manic Miner down and then they brought out Jet Set Willy with the colour coded card that was supposed to stop piracy and it was hit or miss if you ever got it to accept the code and you had to listen to it load all over again.

In the forum awards is there a 'nerdiest thread of the year' award?

The music on Manic Miner, and that flipping keyboard playing at the start!

The Menagerie, Eugene's Lair, all kinds of mad levels, loved it!

Jet Set Willy was just too hard for me though, though Spectrum games were generally rock solid, I found.

Lose your three lives, even if you get all the way to the end of the game, and you're right back to the start!

Let's not talk about the loops in some levels when you'd fall and he just looped into falling over and over again so you had to reset and start again.

Me and my brother played The Hobbit which by todays equivalent would be Skyrim and it was text based with the occasional picture and you had to choose your next action to move to the next page, we even drew a bloody map so we knew where we'd been.

Game save? What game save? We were hardcore.

Liked those text adventure games as well, though as with a lot of Spectrum games, some were very weird!

Obviously created by 70's stoners, who came up with great kid's cartoons as well, none of the sh*te you get nowadays!

Used to love getting the magazines to read the reviews, but of course the "cheats", and maps hand drawn by other obsessed kids like we were!

Great days!

For those of us that remember it, personally I spent way too much time writing code into the tiny little machine only to get to the end of 3000 odd lines of code for the game not to work and then spend hours checking and amending code in an endeavour to get a game going where the best you could expect was a 6 pixel character doing not much in a block landscape.

Having said that, it was brilliant and I loved my 128k Speccy. 

For those who remember it, those who wondered what it would of been like to play a sh*te game or those who want to realise how far we've come in 30 years of gaming since the speccy head over here and have a play:

http://www.zxspectrum.net/

Personally I'd recommend having a game of 'Football Manager' from 1982 where a certain Kevin Keegan is our lowest priced player at £5,000 and I drew my first game against Blackpool 2-2, luckily the gate receipts were £5,000 so we're covered.

Oh how simple life was before bloody sky stuck their noses in.

I am old enough to remember the Spectrum and I had one. I also had a Sinclair ZX81 prior to that and I was also a coder.

I also played football manager to death. One thing I remember was that the player ratings reversed at the end of the season, so that players who had a rating of 1 became a rating of 5 the following season and vice versa - that was down to programming limitations.

I also remember the hassle of programs which had bugs and also those that had loading problems.

I had a quick game of football manager via the link you posted and also drew my first game with Blackpool 2-2.



Brilliant memories, thanks for posting. I had no idea it was the 30th anniversary.

Loved that game!

Also had an American Football one in a similar style that I wasted many happy hours on!

I had a quick game of football manager via the link you posted and also drew my first game with Blackpool 2-2.



Brilliant memories, thanks for posting. I had no idea it was the 30th anniversary.

Couldn't help but laugh at the match highlights when they popped up, I'd totally forgot them.

My pleasure.

Couldn't help but laugh at the match highlights when they popped up, I'd totally forgot them.

My pleasure.

Yes, the match highlights bought back some great memories and so did waiting for the table to be calculated. One thing I had forgotten about is how a wide shot sounds like a fart.

 I played around 10 games last night and was unbeaten. 

The Menagerie, Eugene's Lair, all kinds of mad levels, loved it!

Eugene's Lair used to do my head in! haha. It was funny though because my grandad's middle name was Eugene so we used to say it was his house.



Look what I just found 
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/manic_miner_eugene_from_eugenes_lair_level_hat-148032495175813004

I had the 48k rubber key version and the snazzy 128k with the larger, plastic keyboard.

Oh the memories.......
Kids really dont know how good they have got it.
I remember countless times listening to those horrible "Loading" noises only to get the tell tale flash after about 5mins that you knew it had crashed, and then start over again.
Loved it, and there's still a little place left in me that always will.
Happy b-day speccy!!! I miss youre rubber keys btw


Opps bit late, but nevermind

You old farts.
 

You old farts.
 

The music on Manic Miner, and that flipping keyboard playing at the start!

The Menagerie, Eugene's Lair, all kinds of mad levels, loved it!

Jet Set Willy was just too hard for me though, though Spectrum games were generally rock solid, I found.

Lose your three lives, even if you get all the way to the end of the game, and you're right back to the start!

Slightly off topic, my first computer was the Amstrad 664 BUT I loved Jet Set Willly on that and didn't find it too hard.
I mapped each room out on a size of A4 and stuck them all together to make a giant map and also found a cheat so my lives didn't deminish enabling me to complete the game !

Slightly off topic, my first computer was the Amstrad 664 BUT I loved Jet Set Willly on that and didn't find it too hard.
I mapped each room out on a size of A4 and stuck them all together to make a giant map and also found a cheat so my lives didn't deminish enabling me to complete the game !

Was actually thinking you were a great gamer until that last sentence!

So, you had infinite life energy, yet didn't find the game that hard?

I tip my hat to you, good sir!

Was actually thinking you were a great gamer until that last sentence!

So, you had infinite life energy, yet didn't find the game that hard?

I tip my hat to you, good sir!

I Didn't get the cheat until much later Ayrton ! I just loved those sort of games and couldn't put it down the cheatdidn't always work and often froze the game but fortunately for me the Amstrad had a 3 1/2" disc drive so I didn't have to wait as long as the spectrum users !

I Didn't get the cheat until much later Ayrton ! I just loved those sort of games and couldn't put it down the cheatdidn't always work and often froze the game but fortunately for me the Amstrad had a 3 1/2" disc drive so I didn't have to wait as long as the spectrum users !

Was only kidding!

Maybe it's the fact that I was only a little kid when I played that made it harder, you must have been in your early-mid twenties, no?

Was only kidding!

Maybe it's the fact that I was only a little kid when I played that made it harder, you must have been in your early-mid twenties, no?

I can't really call you a cheeky young bugger because you're spot on, but then again I bet you checked my profile first ?

Ah the good old days. 

The joystick destroyer that was Daley Thompson's Decathalon.

The sheer lunacy of Rockstar Ate My Hamster.

The hours wasted on assorted footie games, Tracksuit Manager, Footballer of the Year II and one I don't recall the name of, but was just square blocks for players you controlled with the numbers and 'S' to shoot being my favourites.

Or the annoyance when I thought I'd completed Ninja Scooter Simulator, only for the levels to loop back to the start again.

I couldn't sleep today so grabbed the laptop and played Manic Miner for ages. Still as brilliantly frustrating as it used to be.
I also played Commando, another old favourite I'd forgotten about. How ridiculously hard is that game?!

I also played Commando, another old favourite I'd forgotten about. How ridiculously hard is that game?!

Loved Commando, another I must have spent many hours on!

The joystick destroyer that was Daley Thompson's Decathalon.

Was a "keyboard warrior" myself, so exploded the keyboard exery time I played it! In the end, after the hammering they got, a few of the keys wouldn't work any more.

Anyone have the fun of trying to play two players, both keyboard controlled?

Me and my brother in law used to play Daley Thompsons Decathlon together, I'd do one run button and he's do the other and getting the angle for the long jump and javelin bang on at 42 degrees was a challenge.

It's amazing that after not playing Manic Miner for so many years how quick the way to do the levels popped back into my head.

I got some old nintendo and master system stuff for the girls wii, don't get me started on Alex Kidd. Epic.

I couldn't sleep today so grabbed the laptop and played Manic Miner for ages. Still as brilliantly frustrating as it used to be.
I also played Commando, another old favourite I'd forgotten about. How ridiculously hard is that game?!

Commando brings back memories. 

I'll have to give that another play sometime. 

Just picked a game at random to play - Dictator from 1983.

Not a bad little game, scored 79 points in the end. No idea if that is good or bad.

This was BOSS