Old Tech – New Tech – SX Spectrum

The mighty ZX Spectrum…no other ‘Home Computer’ has ever been this successful…well, ok, maybe a few others, but this was a great machine when ‘we’ got it. This was when gaming got good…

I’ll take you back to 1983 (the picture wobbles and you hear the sound of a Harp)…ahem! Here I am at the age of about 12 and the Spectrum had been out for almost a year. It was my Brother’s Birthday and he got the Spectrum. Now picture this…if you wanted to play a decent game back then, you had to go to maybe your local Video Shop or an Arcade in town. There were a couple of video consoles around, but they were pretty crap and of course, you had to buy the games…not anymore!

Now, please note, I don’t advocate piracy in any form, but because the Spectrum was so popular, all you needed to do was borrow a game off a mate, get two cassette recorders, play on one and record on another (these were even traded at School) and there you go…Jetset Willy for the next 2 weeks!

My Lazer computer was crap by comparison because they went out of business and apart from the game that resembled some ‘guy pissing down into a Bucket’, there wasn’t much choice…or you could program your own and well…bugger that!

There were so many games available that we had hours of fun with it. Granted by today’s standard, the graphics were rubbish but the gameplay was pretty good, with Attic Attack being my favourite. My Brother preferred Manic Miner and he was very good at it…it was all about “What sheet are you on”…not level or anything…”Sheet” WTF!

Of course, if you want to see what all the fuss was about, you can play these games now:

http://www.zxspectrum.net/

Ahhh…memories! Sadly, this was to become my last interaction really with Home Computers until several years later. Though, around this age 12/13, my destiny was before me (or so I thought at the time). In 1983 Michael Jackson showed the world his Moonwalk. Hip Hop, Breakin’ and Body Poppin’ was coming in…and if I say so myself, I was pretty good at it.

Next up…Sonic Beat are born!...(That's me to the right)