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Spectrum Vega: A Blast From the Past
mikejuk writes A new games console is being launched based on the classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum from the 80s. Within days of the start of its Indiegogo campaign all of the 1000 Limited Edition Spectrum Vegas had been claimed but there is still the chance to get your hands on one of the second batch. The Sinclair Spectrum Vega is really retro in the sense that it plugs into a TV, thus avoiding the need for a monitor, and comes complete with around 1,000 games built-in. Games are accessed through a menu based system, and once selected load automatically, taking the player directly into the game play mode. This is very different from the original Spectrum with its rubber-topped keyboard and BASIC interface. If you have existing Spectrum games you'd like to play, you can use an SD card to load them onto the Vega, though the current publicity material doesn't give much clue as to how you go from ancient cassette tape to SD card. As for programming new games, there are ZX Spectrum emulators for Windows that are free and ready to use.
Not having a keyboard (onscreen keyboards suck), and being required to load an emulator onto your PC to program make this an item for people who want to have a bit of nostalgia without actually reliving the past.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
there are ZX Spectrum emulators for Windows that are free and ready to use
There are quite a few of them, on a number of platforms. There's even one that runs in a browser.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The article is light on technical details, so I wonder if it's an emulator like the NeogeoX, or a reimplementation like the C64 DTV. The price also seems a bit steep since it is now possible to re-implement a full ZX Spectrum on a user-friendly FPGA board which loads games from sound files dumped from tapes. Compatibility is still worked on but you get many other systems as an added bonus, and the HDL code for all of it is open source and available online.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
While early computers had very limited graphics and usually no sound, the arrival of colour and sound (er beeps) resulted in a large number of games and kids at the time clamoured to get a spectrum, C64 or whatever because it was a games machine and nothing else to them. Sure, you could program them but very few did. I started on a Commodore Pet (horrible BASIC) and went through the Sinclairs, the BBC Micro and then onto UNIX machines skipping PCs entirely (at least until Linux came along) and what I appreciated about all these was the ability to program them (same goes for Linux) but I was a minority.
The sad thing is once you got to PCs and GUIs, programming was largely a thing of the past. My son just got interested in computers and asked me to teach him to program so I pulled my actual Spectrum out and gave it to him. Sadly, age hasn't been kind to the hardware so the modulator failed and wouldn't display a picture. I bypassed that and got composite video out but in the process the keyboard membrane cracked so I had to order a new replacement (yay for retro computer fans) and it works again. He's getting on well and hasn't really shown interest in games on it. I did load up Manic Miner for a laugh but it was awful. I forgot how precise you had to be.
I just wish this was a real Spectrum with a keyboard. As it stands, meh. Emulators are also hard work without the real keyboard.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Some of the emulators even allowed you to load directly from tape with a simple interface.
As far as I'm aware, the Vega *is* effectively just a cheap ARM-based computer running an emulator anyway (as opposed to a logic-level reimplementation of the original circuitry like the C64 Direct to TV was), supplied in a parodically cut-down mockery of the original Spectrum keyboard.
If I was a Spectrum fanatic, I'd want something that was either a "true" reimplementation of the original Spectrum and/or something that looked and could be used like the original Spectrum- possibly with additional features or connectivity, but retaining the original features.
This is- in some respects- better than Elite's "relaunch" of the ZX Spectrum (reported as such in many places) as a Bluetooth keyboard (i.e. they designed a Bluetooth keyboard that approximates the old Spectrum case and works with some crappy proprietary Android app). But that's a pretty low bar... the Vega is still just an emulator in a nostalgia-exploiting case that won't properly replicate the experience anyway, so why bother? I've no doubt it'll still sell, though.
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The thing though is - and maybe the GP was trolling and I'm falling for the bait - as far as the rest of the world that is not North America (and maybe Japan too) was concerned, the Spectrum *was* a world-wide phenomenon. He could have used the argument that the C64 was technically superior, and then there would be few people to argue that. But market-wise, as you correctly pointed out, the Spectrum beat the shit out of the C64, and not only on the UK, but most of the world.
Case in point: I'm from Brazil, we didn't have legit Spectrums here back then, but we had locally-made clones, which amounted to the same thing and ended up getting exported to all of South America, and you know what? The only way anyone on Latin America knew the C64 actually existed was that it was often mentioned on computer magazines, and that was it - I never knew anyone who even heard about of the C64 around here, let alone owned one. We heard a lot about the TRS-80, Apple II (or rather its clones that were produced locally), MSX and so on, and it wasn't uncommon to find users of such systems, but the C64? Nada. I understand the C64 actually managed to chew a bit more of the market on some parts of europe, but the Spectrum was still far more popular. IIRC, on Russia the situation was similar to South America, in that they had Spectrum clones, and the C64 was a computer only the US cared about.
I grew up in Serbia and Spectrum meant the world to many kids in my generation, even though we had no direct connection with the UK market whatsoever -- no magazines or TV programs or anything really. So it is fair to say that Spectrum was a cross-European phenomenon. C64 was (almost) equally present, though everyone I knew who had a Commodore just played games, whereas lots of Spectrum folks dabbled in programming, at least a little.
In the USA and Canada, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum did not exist.
In the U.S. I had a Timex-Sinclair 2068, which was basically the Spectrum but with some improvements.
It was a lot nicer to use and program for than the Timex-Sinclair 1000 (ZX-81), really a pretty solid machine and nice to program for.
It absolutely was a classic in every sense that the C64 was, just for a smaller group of people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll be interested to see how many rights holders agree to contribute their games for free, especially when the unit itself is being sold for such a tidy profit. I can't imagine it would be very many.
Or maybe they plan on shipping the games of 'uncontactable' (ie those who don't reply) rights holders and 'remove' them if they later turn up and complain? Kind of shifty if this is the case.
Is it going to have "R:Tape Loading Error"?
That was always my favourite.