If you had asked me, could someone turn an advert for a case into a your momma joke. I would have said, "yeah Dudley probably could", and I would have been right in this highly improbably fictional scenario.
The spectrum plus was technically my first machine (it caught fire on boxing day), it was replaced by an Acorn Electron. Which set me off on my nerdy journey.
No it doesn’t, that’s 35 for the interface and 10 for the cable. You were not getting a printer for anything like that in 1984. It’s page 17 if you want to check. archive.org/details/your-spectrum-magazine-10
Some of the additional stuff did filter into Imperial Phase YS though - Program Pitstop was a perennial feature for hex-based utilities, and I remember in the latter days of the magazine that Jon North did How 2 Hack, which showed you how to take apart multiple copy-protection routines.
I'd be kinder and suggest something early on in commercial aviation. It was the best they could do to a price at the time. To be respected but not to be pretended it was better than later solutions.
I've got one of those Saga Emporer keyboards! Maybe one day I'll finally get round to fitting the bugger to one of my machines, but given that I have two other sinclair machines (a zx81 and a 48k Speccy) currently sat inside DKTronics replacement cases I suspect it'll stay boxed on my shelf until I've carked it and they all end up in landfill. Along with me. And in similar expensive-rarely-used-tat news, I've had Deus Ex Machina for the C64 since 'back in the day' as we're all so prone to say and can count the amount of times I've played it on one hand. Not counting my thumb.
A corker of an episode, Dudley! One of my new faves. I remember reading about Deus Ex Machina in an early Retrogamer issue and had completely forgotten about it until this ep. Very much seems to be the kind of experimental mega-game that Imagine wanted to do with Bandersnatch but one that actually came out. And yeah, that really drove home about the speccy rubber keyboard just how minor a thing it was in the grand scheme of the machines lifespan. By the time I was old enough to have friends with speccys, they'd all got +2s so that's my mental image of a ZX Spectrum. Same with the C64. Got no nostalgia at all for the breadbin model and it looks kinda weird and dated to my eyes compared to the C model.
I've written code in Basic (thank you C64 user's manual), Cobol, C++, Hypercard, HTML, Perl, DOS Batch, and Powershell. Never Assembler. Assembler frightens me, and I've been in IT professionally for almost 25 years.
Sure, assuming you mean the background of the magazine sections. They are all Spectrum versions and are, in order. Metabolis The Great Escape Chuckie Egg Chuckie Egg 2 Thanatos Jet Set Willy Chequered Flag Nosferato Fat Worms Blows a Sparky Pyjamarama Braxx Bluff Potsworth and Company Then in the next section, starting after the Mechtrum Q10 Tankbuster 2088 Frogger (Cassette 50) Munsters (Cassette 50) Search World of Spectrum or Spectrum Computing and you'll find them.
Thank you, that is great. I got my first computer, called CHIP 03 (a Romanian clone of Spectrum) in 1993, when i started the high-scool. My parents saw a x86 machine but "it was too expensive and to big!":)@@Yesterzine
Rubber key retro revisionism? Intriguing that all the evidence suggests that it wasnt as beloved as modern day retrospectives would have you believe. Shutting up about the keyboard now, Deus Ex Machina looks absolutely mind blowing for the time, certainy tops playing Outrun on C64 and playing the music through a cheap Alba stereo
The Spectrum Out Run came with a cassette for that too, I nearly mentioned it :) But yeah, I'm obviously playing it up for comic effect but the fact the rubber keys weren't even sold for 70% of its life and the sheer size of that replacement market tells me it was a cost saving to get the machine out for a hundred (much like the 16k version if we're honest) and it was always a compromise. Which is fine but I do see people saying they genuinely loved it and THAT bit seems like revisionism.
I had a pirated version of deus ex machina without the audio tape. odd experience that. I did like the final screen where an old man looks at the sunset just before dying, pretty heavy stuff for the speccy. The modern reboot/sequel is terrible btw. Your spectrum had great coding tutorials. My favorites are the type in that added a new screen to jet set willy and they absolutely poked apart jetset willy 2 on release. They did really nice maps of games using screenshots as well. And oh god, transylvanian tower, probably the worst game I owned. It was so unbelievably slow to redraw the screen I got bored before getting very far.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply magazines changed all for the better when they lost that sort of stuff. I'm resigned to the fact I will eventually have to play Transylvanian Terror.
Jet Set Willy does suck lol i know its loved but it caused a whole genre of giant map exploration platformers that were bad to play then other than the 'joy of discovery ' and are bad to play now
Rosie's "Shut up about the keyboard!" gave me a surprise snigger.
I felt I needed to kill the running joke at that point and no-one kills a joke like Rosie!
No wait.
Thanks for the mention, I just set the shop to accept pre orders while I gather new parts for the Mechtrum.
Superb, pinning this for everyone to get on.
I was not expecting to hear Jon Pertwee say “sphincter” today.
Somewhat caught me by surprise too. As did a section unused in the episode where Ian Dury says "I'm a fertilising agent".
If you had asked me, could someone turn an advert for a case into a your momma joke. I would have said, "yeah Dudley probably could", and I would have been right in this highly improbably fictional scenario.
It was the first and only choice in this episode :D
The spectrum plus was technically my first machine (it caught fire on boxing day), it was replaced by an Acorn Electron. Which set me off on my nerdy journey.
Did the keyboard last all the way to boxing day?
The printer advert shows £35 for the printer and £10 for the cable not £45 for the cable 😂
No it doesn’t, that’s 35 for the interface and 10 for the cable. You were not getting a printer for anything like that in 1984. It’s page 17 if you want to check. archive.org/details/your-spectrum-magazine-10
Ah yes, "fluffykiwis". That. That was the code in all released versions. Definitely not anything else about kiwis.
Yep, used as a recognisable example of a code and one that was definitely constant in all pressings of that game, right from the start.
I'm still sniggering like a kid at "jet set willy" how have i never heard of that before 😂
For those playing along at home, I did just send ShadowFalcon a picture of Fat Worm Blows a Sparky.
Still scared
Some of the additional stuff did filter into Imperial Phase YS though - Program Pitstop was a perennial feature for hex-based utilities, and I remember in the latter days of the magazine that Jon North did How 2 Hack, which showed you how to take apart multiple copy-protection routines.
Yeah I mentioned Phil's phone in as another. You can see an immediate design step change in YSin but some of the stuff did indeed continue.
17:09 I'm just realising now that the first ZX Spectrum was pretty much the equivalent of a Ryanair flight 😮
I'd be kinder and suggest something early on in commercial aviation. It was the best they could do to a price at the time. To be respected but not to be pretended it was better than later solutions.
Fantastico! And that issue of Your Spectrum was the one that dropped "and QL User" from the title, bless it.
Huzzah!
If this one wasn't perfect I was tempted t go for an older one just to borrow a sample of you doing "And QL User" and use it every time.
Sent you the relevant MP3... @@Yesterzine
I've got one of those Saga Emporer keyboards! Maybe one day I'll finally get round to fitting the bugger to one of my machines, but given that I have two other sinclair machines (a zx81 and a 48k Speccy) currently sat inside DKTronics replacement cases I suspect it'll stay boxed on my shelf until I've carked it and they all end up in landfill. Along with me.
And in similar expensive-rarely-used-tat news, I've had Deus Ex Machina for the C64 since 'back in the day' as we're all so prone to say and can count the amount of times I've played it on one hand. Not counting my thumb.
The Saga looked the least objectionable of them at least, I don't know why they were mostly that ugly.
A corker of an episode, Dudley! One of my new faves. I remember reading about Deus Ex Machina in an early Retrogamer issue and had completely forgotten about it until this ep. Very much seems to be the kind of experimental mega-game that Imagine wanted to do with Bandersnatch but one that actually came out.
And yeah, that really drove home about the speccy rubber keyboard just how minor a thing it was in the grand scheme of the machines lifespan. By the time I was old enough to have friends with speccys, they'd all got +2s so that's my mental image of a ZX Spectrum. Same with the C64. Got no nostalgia at all for the breadbin model and it looks kinda weird and dated to my eyes compared to the C model.
I somehow hadn't knowingly heard about it. You have to admire the ambition.
I've written code in Basic (thank you C64 user's manual), Cobol, C++, Hypercard, HTML, Perl, DOS Batch, and Powershell. Never Assembler. Assembler frightens me, and I've been in IT professionally for almost 25 years.
Pretty much same, not happening.
30:15 Sounds like a Sinclair product!
"For your convenience the J key is safely stored under the sofa or inside the cat"
What an odd and interesting game, might have to check out the modern versions of it
It's well worth the £4 for the remaster but I'd still say keep it in Spectrum mode.
They spent all that money on Jon Pertwee and can't even get his name spelt right...
I entirely missed that!
hi. can you tell me from what games are the recordings you have used? thank you.
Sure, assuming you mean the background of the magazine sections. They are all Spectrum versions and are, in order.
Metabolis
The Great Escape
Chuckie Egg
Chuckie Egg 2
Thanatos
Jet Set Willy
Chequered Flag
Nosferato
Fat Worms Blows a Sparky
Pyjamarama
Braxx Bluff
Potsworth and Company
Then in the next section, starting after the Mechtrum
Q10 Tankbuster
2088
Frogger (Cassette 50)
Munsters (Cassette 50)
Search World of Spectrum or Spectrum Computing and you'll find them.
Thank you, that is great. I got my first computer, called CHIP 03 (a Romanian clone of Spectrum) in 1993, when i started the high-scool. My parents saw a x86 machine but "it was too expensive and to big!":)@@Yesterzine
Rubber key retro revisionism? Intriguing that all the evidence suggests that it wasnt as beloved as modern day retrospectives would have you believe.
Shutting up about the keyboard now, Deus Ex Machina looks absolutely mind blowing for the time, certainy tops playing Outrun on C64 and playing the music through a cheap Alba stereo
The Spectrum Out Run came with a cassette for that too, I nearly mentioned it :) But yeah, I'm obviously playing it up for comic effect but the fact the rubber keys weren't even sold for 70% of its life and the sheer size of that replacement market tells me it was a cost saving to get the machine out for a hundred (much like the 16k version if we're honest) and it was always a compromise.
Which is fine but I do see people saying they genuinely loved it and THAT bit seems like revisionism.
I had a pirated version of deus ex machina without the audio tape. odd experience that. I did like the final screen where an old man looks at the sunset just before dying, pretty heavy stuff for the speccy. The modern reboot/sequel is terrible btw.
Your spectrum had great coding tutorials. My favorites are the type in that added a new screen to jet set willy and they absolutely poked apart jetset willy 2 on release. They did really nice maps of games using screenshots as well.
And oh god, transylvanian tower, probably the worst game I owned. It was so unbelievably slow to redraw the screen I got bored before getting very far.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply magazines changed all for the better when they lost that sort of stuff.
I'm resigned to the fact I will eventually have to play Transylvanian Terror.
Jet Set Willy does suck lol i know its loved but it caused a whole genre of giant map exploration platformers that were bad to play then other than the 'joy of discovery ' and are bad to play now
It’s a shame it’s probably too late to apply for a job on YS.
Nonetheless, worst game of 1984?
I expect the bug was still in it then. Still a marvel of a game for the time even if it did break Mr Smith. @@Yesterzine