Update, unboxing and win a copy of Delta's Shadow for the ZX Spectrum Next

What I've been up to and what to expect

Subscribe to the Retro shed;

Subscribe to tj ferreira;

[neilbeaumont]

we got our rubber keyed 48k for christmas 1984. the amount of time playing thro' the wall, Daley Thompsons Decathlon that holiday was great and the whole family was involved, later we'd take it to our grandparents and after dinner we'd play 3D painter, the screams of laughter from all were great. Fantastic little machines

[DizzyAstro]

Back in the 80s TV was a read-only medium. To be able to manipulate the sound and picture on the screen - it's hard to describe now what it was like. Magic. It was almost like seeing the words change on the page of a book.

As for now... the Spectrum reminds me of society and life as they were then. Money was more scarce, and the Speccy was cleverly built to a low budget. On the other hand, it always seemed people had more time, and those clever developers put so much of themselves into pushing the Spectrum to do things it had no right to be able to do. The Spectrum has heart. It's software and peripherals encapsulate the passion and ingenuity of so many enthusiastic people.

[TomMannCenturia]

Nice to see another vid. I bought my Spectrum, 2nd hand from a shop that was next to the newsagent where I did my paper round. I passed by it for nearly a year before I could afford it. I still own it, and still use it.

Some of the games my late mum and dad got me mean the world to me. Laser Squad, whilst being a great game, is worth so much more to me because I remember the year my parents got me it.

[RichardHallas]

My Spectrum story has two main aspects to it. The first is how much I loved the machine and learnt from it. The second is the degree to which it saved me from a thoroughly miserable school life.

I would have got my Spectrum for Christmas 1982, I think. Oddly enough, I don't recall getting it as such, though I do clearly remember the long period of excited anticipation when I'd just gaze at the life-size picture of it on the front of Sinclair's advertising leaflet. I must have spent hours looking at that, memorising all the colourful keywords and their locations on the keyboard. The look of the machine was incredibly appealing to a 13-year-old boy. I also recall that I discovered where my parents were hiding the machine before Christmas, and I sneakily opened its box just to admire it!

I was moving up from a ZX81 at the time, and although the Spectrum was clearly a much-enhanced version of the same machine, it was a massive step up; it just did so much more, and was so much better in every way. It looked far more appealing, with the rubber keys (which I always liked) and all the colour on it, and I also really liked the sort of 'fizzling' sound it made when it was turned on. I can still remember the feelings of excitement it gave me in those early days; wonderful thrills that I can still remember now, but that I only ever experienced as a child.

Of course, I loved the games, but I wasn't only interested in those, and I also learnt a lot about computers from it. It was the first machine on which I really learnt to write substantial programs in BASIC, and although I didn't have time to get properly into machine code, I learnt enough to be able to do a bit of hacking, which was fun too. I devoured the magazines (Crash and Your Sinclair); my favourite was actually the original Your Spectrum because of its more technical content (I liked Your Sinclair, but never as much as what it had been when it was Your Spectrum).

I actually had a few computers in my teens and I liked them all to different degrees, but the 48K Spectrum was my favourite. I upgraded it to a Spectrum+ when that machine came out, by buying the optional £20 case/keyboard upgrade, but to be perfectly honest I felt that the Spectrum+ case removed a lot of the machine's appealing character. Somehow that case suited the Spectrum 128 (which I got in 1986) better, and I think I put my 48K back in its original rubber-key case eventually. Anyway, the Spectrum entertained me and educated me and became my primary and favourite hobby.

On top of that, it also saved me from a truly miserable school life. I went to what was supposedly a good school, with an excellent reputation… but the place didn't suit me at all. I absolutely hated my entire decade there and was thoroughly miserable throughout my time. It was a very sports-oriented school and I hated physical sports with a passion; I was useless at them, didn't enjoy them and simply wasn't physically cut out for them. On top of all that, I was interested in unfashionable things like music (e.g. I was the only person in my year doing that subject for ALL of my O-level and A-level years), and basically I was victimised and bullied endlessly throughout my time at that school – not only by other pupils but even by some staff members too.

Had I not had SOMETHING to make my school days marginally less awful, I don't know what I'd have done. I occasionally contemplated throwing myself off the school roof; maybe I'd actually have done it. But happily, the Spectrum came along just around the time I entered Senior School and remained with me throughout my time there. It was my lifeline on many levels. It gave me something fun and exciting to think about and take my mind off the awfulness of school life, and it even managed to give me a little circle of similarly enthusiastic friends to talk to and swap games with.




Anyway, aside from being the wonderful thing that it was, I'll be forever grateful to the Spectrum for making my awful teenage life at school tolerable. It provided a marvellous distraction from the day-to-day horrors, it gave me an interest and an escape, and it also gave me a few friends – even leading in one case to a collaboration that eventually produced a game (albeit a decade later!). The Spectrum wasn't the only computer I had (I was also later a BBC Micro owner and fan), but it was the most important one to me during my school days and it did me an immeasurable amount of good. I shall always be grateful to it for that – and it also gives me a way of remembering the 1980s with fondness, rather than as the horror that they otherwise were for me in most ways.

My Spectrum saved my sanity.

[SEGAZombie]

My first memory of the spectrum was after a bad day at school on the way home my mum said Dad has something that’s going to cheer you up, I got home having no ideas what I was about to see...
A spectrum 48k and my dad playing 3D deathchase from that moment on my imagination of gaming was captured, I absolutely love my speccy and still collect to this day nothing beats the buzz than getting another game to load up

[rustyjames_shortfilms]

I had my Spectrum when I was 12 - I know it took an age for games to load - but I loved the fantastic artwork on the loading screens - I did have a bit of time off school with respiratory issues but I could manage to play the odd game which really took my mind off being poorly. I love the Speccy to this day - it's such a fantastic looking machine and I will be adding to my collection in August when my Spectrum Next KS2 arrives - thanks for the video Bazza!

[Corrus]

I got my spectrum 48k for Xmas 1983, along with a few games - Atic Atac, Football Manager, Jetpac and, of course, the Horizons cassette. The next 6 or 7 years was a fantastic period of purchasing and playing some classic games. In 1989 I decided to upgrade to an ST and a succession of other machines followed (Amiga, PS1, PC, PS2, PS3, etc). However, I never lost my passion for my first love - the speccy! When the kickstarter for the Next issue 1 came out I bought a dev board which now resides in a lovely repro transparent case with a silver keyplate. I also bought into the 2nd kickstarter for a cased Next which I am looking forward to getting my mitts on later this year. Long live the Spectrum!

[ArtyFishal]

Thanks for keeping this channel gong Bazza. I do like to watch your vids when time allows. I know what you mean about work, I'm in a similar situation but just grateful to have a job at the mo. You asked for memories.... My first one is when I thought I had broken my beloved rubber keyed speccy shortly after receiving it for my birthday back in 1984. I remember tinkering about on the keyboard in basic when all of a sudden it started typing by itself. In a panic I disconnected it from the power and reconnected. To my horror the same situation continued, I thought I'd broken the most expensive present I'd ever received! Turned out a couple of the rubber keys had just got stuck underneath the metal facia. Little did I know I'd go through about 3 keyboard membranes within the same number of years! Decathlon and Hyper Sports being largely to blame 😂

[AlessandroGrussu]

Ordered and received this, a bit expensive for what you get when compared to the digital download, honestly, but the game is absolutely ace in both of its incarnations. I chose it as Spectrum game of 2020 in my Annual.

[stevemahoney]

That unboxing was more suspenseful than a Mission Impossible film 😬😬
I'll get Tom Cruise to watch this to give him some ideas for the next film 😆😆

[davidretrogamesplayedbadly]

The next isn't for me either mate, great competition but utterly useless to me 😆.
For me the spectrum was a means of escape, I had a pretty lonely childhood and would've probably gone insane or ended up being a serial killer without my beloved spectrum 😍.
i have a ql also, to be honest it never comes out of the box.
Nice to see you back on the tubes mate, stay safe 👍.

[isorokueightbit]

I am waiting for a comparison of 8 bit games.

[retrotechnerd]

Please buy a box cutter and a pair of scissors before your next unboxing. I’m worried about your fingers!