TI first played on a ZX Spectrum in Stockport branch of Debenhams which in 1983. had an impressive home computing section that quickly became a sort of free nursery for bored 13-year-old boys. You can hang there for hours typing crude Basic programs into multiple machines while annoying staff rush around trying to stop them from working. However, some of the computers ran games for customers to try out – and this is where I came across Manic Miner, the legendary platformer with its weird flashing visuals and surreal enemies. Speccy games looked completely unique thanks to the machine’s idiosyncratic way of limiting 8×8 sprite maps to two colors, which meant that moving objects on screen were usually collections of colored pixel mosaics, leading to an effect known as attribute collision. It was somehow both ugly and beautiful – and still is.
Unboxing the Spectrum, the latest piece of modern retro hardware from Retro games Ltd, is an amazing nostalgic experience. It looks exactly as I remember the original machine: a black plate with rubber keys, each displaying not only a number or letter, but also a basic program command. “Rem,” “Rand,” “Gosub,” the mystical words of the home programming era. There’s a USB plug-in cable (though you’ll need your own USB plug) and an HDMI cable, but no joystick. The machine is compatible with most USB gamepads – you just need to configure the buttons yourself, which takes a little time, but is worth it if you can’t use those rubber buttons to control your games.
Loading it up, you get a modern home screen showing a carousel of built-in games. There are 48 to choose from, ranging from classics like The Lords of Midnight, Head Over Heels, Manic Miner and The Hobbit, to modern titles created by modern programmers in the Speccy fan scene. These are fascinating projects, including top-down sci-fi blaster Alien Girl: Skirmish Edition and Tomb Raiding Romp Shovel Adventure. If you run out of built-in power, you can also download Spectrum game Roms from a PC onto a USB stick, plug it in and run them here – but if you’re looking for classic Speccy titles rather than modern open-source fan-made games, then you’re in shady legal territory territory.
As always, there’s a bunch of screen settings, so you can add a CRT effect to give a more authentic 1980s TV experience, though frankly nothing will cut the wild confusion of playing Horace Goes Skiing on a 55-inch LED display. What amazes me is how these games still carry so much visual charm. The students and teachers who roam the halls of Skool Daze are full of character, from the clumsy bully to the grumpy history teacher. Sandy White’s Ant Attack retains its stark beauty, geometric walls and slithering giant ants providing the same old sense of alienation and horror. Ocean’s relatively complex isometric adventures The Great Escape and Where Time Stood Still pack so much detail into their mostly monochrome worlds. Great to see them again.
As with most other retro consoles, there are modern game additions like save points (a bit finicky to work with, but they do the job) and a rewind feature that takes you back to seconds before you inevitably get run over by a car in Trashman. But I also like the fact that every time you select a game, you get a few seconds of the original illustrated loading screen; these pictorial delights were a key part of the original experience, as you’d stare at them for up to five minutes while you waited for your bar to finally load – importantly, they’ve been preserved.
The original computing capabilities of the ZX Spectrum are also retained. If you choose classic mode, the console switches to ye olde worlde home screen and you can actually program it. This is a feature I took full advantage of.
who’s it for Obviously the target audience is people like me who were there at the beginning and remember playing a lot of these games 40 years ago. Of course, there are free Spectrum emulators available online if you know where to look – and don’t mind risking a malware infection every time you search a Rom site. But part of the nostalgic gaming experience is seeing a reproduction of the machine you remember sitting in front of your TV; and with The Spectrum you also get those legendary rubber buttons, feeling them squish under your fingers as you press the foot cleaner button in The Way of the Exploding Fist.
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In the digital age, we sometimes forget how much memory is involved i feel. Many of these games were designed with keyboard control in mind, as joysticks were an added extra and out of the price range of many families in the early 1980s. The Spectrum enjoys the tactile appeal of this basic computer and its springy buttons. It will remind you how weird Speccy games were and how they forged their own path beyond Japanese arcades and shiny American home computers. The days of hanging out in the computer department of Debenhams all Saturday afternoon are long gone, but games and how we used to play them are here again. You can come back at any time.
