The Spectrum Show EP142

Welcome to episode 142.

I get my hands on an Opus Discovery 1.
I play the Tengen Trilogy - Cyberball, Klax and Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters.
I look at Area 51 a new game and also Eddie Edwards Super Ski.
I also chat to Geoff and end with a type-in.

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[TheClassicsCoder]

Love your videos. Simply the best for Speccy

[adamweishaupt]

Excellent suggestion to add improvements to the type in games. And I also enjoyed seeing the many copyright infringements that the Area 51 game somehow managed to get away with 😁

[ClassicRetroByte]

Nice Video. always had a soft spot for anything Speccy 👍

[tailzer]

The Opus Definitely works with multiface interface as that was my setup back in the day, but I always used between the Speccy and opus rather than thru port. Would load tape games and save a snap, then create menus to choose games.

[OverDriveOnline]

I remember saving up for the discovery back in the day with my 128K toast rack speccy, but by the time I got the money together, the Atari ST had dropped to £299 and had better MIDI implementation, which was what I wanted at the time. The ST was in, the opus was out and within a few years I was making some money with the ST in music.

[theceruleandolphin]

Oh man, I always lusted after the Discovery back in the day, the holy grail of drives that I would never be able to afford but would often day-dream about owning. Learning that it's slower than a damn Microdrive though is a real shocker. Just glad I never spent 200 quid to find that out the hard way.

[nellyfish]

Klax and Escape from the Planet were some of the few games I had on the Sam Coupe.

[TimelordUK]

Id love to see some videos of machine code games. Back in the day I used to spend hours typing in the BASIC commands, but I never understood how I was supposed to input machine code, and to this day I do not know what those self type machine code games looked like

[TomMannCenturia]

'murican football is 10 yards in 4 downs (or plays). The Canadian version is 3 downs. I quite liked Cyberball bitd but your criticisms are all valid. I had the Tengen collection from the same place, and got a lot of hours of fun out of it.

[LOTPOR]

Expensive, more than the original computer

[mdwellington]

From the Multiface 1 manual: "OPUS MULTIFACE sits between Spectrum and Discovery. The through connector on the side of Discovery cannot be used, it is non-standard. Discovery is housed in two different cases – go for the higher one, if you can. "

[KevReillyUK]

You definitely got unlucky with that Discovery and its quirks. I bought a twin-drive unit from a friend around 1990ish and it worked flawlessly, breathing a couple of years of extra life into my venerable 48K before the lure of the Amiga took over.

I can't remember if it was an upgraded Discovery 1 or a Discovery 2, but it was definitely compatible with Multiface 3 because it came with one hanging off the side port and I spent the first couple of weeks of ownership transferring all my games from tape. I wrote, as I suspect did a lot of users at the time, a custom loader for selecting one of up to four games from each disk (more if they were 16K). I was at least as impressed by the physical space saving over cassettes as I was by the increase in loading speed and reliability.

It was also a boon for development (or "programming" as we called it back then). No more spooling back and forth through a collection of increasingly dense and badly labelled C-15s looking for the latest version of a work-in-progress.

I had no use for the mono composite output so I removed the socket and routed the Spectrum's RF cable through the case and out at the back. I may have had to cut a matching hole in the front, but I can't remember clearly. I think it's still in the loft. Now you've got me wondering whether it's worth trying to resurrect it and get it on eBay.

[jaysmith]

Klax on the Atari ST used to cause me to have migraines. The version I and my friend played was part of that same collection.

[MrAoldham]

With my opus, I replaced the left original drive with a Double density drive and on the right I fitted a gotek, which makes it much more lexible as you can get the software on via usb!

[hazy]

Definitely Jane Badler from the original V at 25:03

[Kenneth-cndx]

I was a spectrum kid late 80s, I was late to the show and didn't fully understand everything and I received a hand me down +2 when my cousin moved on to the amiga.
I love watching your videos mate, alot of the time I haven't a clue what you are talking about sometimes especially with coding and interfaces and stuff but I still enjoy watching. Amazing content

[mcloudegaming]

Last vid I saw from you was 10 years ago. Welcome back dude ❤

[anatolykosychenko]

Hi Ya & best wishes. Thanks for work. Be Happy. Sevastopol/Crimea.

[Dev_olution]

Another great show, really enjoyed the update to the type in game

[pebbleschan]

You might need access to an oscilloscope to see what’s up with your Opus Discovery. The Opus is a very simple device and is easy to debug.