It's Back (Sort Of)
March 16, 2016 8:39 AM Subscribe
No flat CRT? No Microdrives? Tsh.
Interesting that it's got the original Sinclair logo, which had gone to Amstrad. Amstrad effectively freed the ROMs for anyone to use a while ago, so I guess it's either sold the logo and residual IP to the new company or just signed off on that.
posted by Devonian at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Interesting that it's got the original Sinclair logo, which had gone to Amstrad. Amstrad effectively freed the ROMs for anyone to use a while ago, so I guess it's either sold the logo and residual IP to the new company or just signed off on that.
posted by Devonian at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
When I saw this, I thought it looked cool. Then my next thought was that it wouldn't be too difficult to build one of these (minus the pretty case) using a Raspberry Pi and easily available software and games.
posted by veedubya at 8:49 AM on March 16, 2016
posted by veedubya at 8:49 AM on March 16, 2016
This thing is most likely an IP nightmare, TBH.
posted by Artw at 8:50 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:50 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
I can't/won't get started but the Speccy is deep, deep in my personal wheelhouse. It is good to see multiple competing revivals of it, just as the C=64 Direct-to-TV was a fun, great, clever way to revivify the 8-bit computer gaming era. Nintendo hold no sway over my childhood, dagnabbit! (OK, maybe that SMB arcade machine I threw 10ps into).
High-fives to anyone who owned an Oric, Dragon 32 or the rest on general principle. Bet there are some great lost games/concepts out there. OK, rambling, ranting, stopping. Steadfastly ignoring urge to change name to Zxomealongpole.
posted by comealongpole at 9:01 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
High-fives to anyone who owned an Oric, Dragon 32 or the rest on general principle. Bet there are some great lost games/concepts out there. OK, rambling, ranting, stopping. Steadfastly ignoring urge to change name to Zxomealongpole.
posted by comealongpole at 9:01 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
Waitaminute - why's he announcing a ZX revival?
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE C6 HE PROMISED?
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:01 AM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE C6 HE PROMISED?
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:01 AM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
The IP side of old Speccy games has largely been sorted out, at least for the library in the Vega Plus (which I guess is the same as in the already-available Vega.
I used to have quite a collection of obscure 8-bit home computers - anyone remember the Elan? All gone now, and I'm fine with playing with them in museums or in emulation. But the one I regret not managing to keep is the Jupiter Ace, because really - how many Forth-based home computers have there been?
posted by Devonian at 9:11 AM on March 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
I used to have quite a collection of obscure 8-bit home computers - anyone remember the Elan? All gone now, and I'm fine with playing with them in museums or in emulation. But the one I regret not managing to keep is the Jupiter Ace, because really - how many Forth-based home computers have there been?
posted by Devonian at 9:11 AM on March 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
See also the Coleco Chameleon debacle. Duct tape, fake product prototypes, that story was a trip and a half.
posted by kmz at 9:30 AM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by kmz at 9:30 AM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
My first PC (well, my Dad's) was a ZX81. It was good, although the keyboard broke sometimes. Then my Dad upgraded it, and got a 16kb RAM pack!
I am ashamed to admit that I don't remember what games we had with our black and white screen, but I certainly played them, sometimes even when I could play with our new Amstrad CPC 664.
posted by YAMWAK at 10:32 AM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am ashamed to admit that I don't remember what games we had with our black and white screen, but I certainly played them, sometimes even when I could play with our new Amstrad CPC 664.
posted by YAMWAK at 10:32 AM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Frankly, I was thinking it was one of those USB plugs that's not much bigger than the plug itself.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:34 AM on March 16, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:34 AM on March 16, 2016
Kids these days and their fancy 'colour' displays and over 1 KB RAM.
A real man only needs a ZX81.
posted by signal at 10:46 AM on March 16, 2016 [5 favorites]
A real man only needs a ZX81.
posted by signal at 10:46 AM on March 16, 2016 [5 favorites]
There's plenty of speccy games out on the interwebs re emulators and flash versions etc... so you can play 'This Is Sodding Impossible', 'How The Hell Did Anyone Have The Patience For This?' and 'Christ, You Can't Even Do The Infinite Lives Poke With This!' to your heart's content. For added realism, play this before every game.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:56 AM on March 16, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:56 AM on March 16, 2016 [6 favorites]
Here's the (finished?) Indiegogo campaign, which talks more about this all, including utilizing a manufacturing site in England.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM on March 16, 2016
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM on March 16, 2016
Not seeing the use-case here. Serious retro fans have had myriad other solutions for years, encompassing multiple platforms. Casual gamers have no interest. Modern handheld console players won't want to play often janky games made before they were born. So that leaves non-gamers old enough to have owned a Spec. Will they spend the money? Doubt it.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:53 AM on March 16, 2016
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:53 AM on March 16, 2016
I would love to see a Commodore 64 equivalent of this (with screen, danger controls, tape/disk image loading, and the option to use it as a full C64 with the addition of a USB keyboard). The tantalising thing is that the groundwork has already been laid down, in the form of Jeri Ellsworth's C64 DTV (a TV-dependent C64-in-a-joystick game console designed to be convertible to a full C64 by soldering a keyboard connector to tags provided).
posted by acb at 12:36 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 12:36 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sod the Speccy; what I want is a Cambridge Z-88 with e-ink display, SD card slots, bluetooth, and a slot for a Pi Zero as coprocessor. I'm pretty sure you could make it a bit less than the original's inch-thick design, and the four AA cells should run a modern implementation off-grid for more than 24 hours ...
posted by cstross at 12:44 PM on March 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by cstross at 12:44 PM on March 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
The headline sounds very ominous, it has that going for it at least.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 12:50 PM on March 16, 2016
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 12:50 PM on March 16, 2016
The one of these i keep wanting to see is a dirt cheap handheld windows 95/98 system. Stuff like this(which never got a real US release but has languished on alibaba for many years) but with... even less. The display only really needs to be say, 800x600. And the CPU and everything could be way crappier than that. All i care about is the best possible battery life, an ok screen, and cost. I bought a few clunkers like the OQO for cheap used to play around with this idea, but they always had something hampering them, like an awkward 800x480 display that broke some games and was generally awful. And most of all, awful battery life. Every single one of them ran for like a damn hour and a half.
Where's the kickstarter for something like "Pocket diablo II machine!". I know other people would flip over this. Get the lowest power atom or whatever chip in there. You only need maybe 256mb of ram. You don't need wifi. You need at most an SD slot for the boot disk. Bonus points for a second slot with a cd-rom emulator included. The guts could practically be an intel rasberry pi.
Like, this would be perfect with a screen and a big battery.
See also the Coleco Chameleon debacle. Duct tape, fake product prototypes, that story was a trip and a half.
Someone on a local to me retro gamers web group has the shell one of those slipped over their N64, logos/stickers and all. Where they got it, i have no idea, but some amount of actual hardware was produced even if it was just a few chassis full of rolls of pennies and styro.
What an amazing story though.
posted by emptythought at 1:07 PM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
Where's the kickstarter for something like "Pocket diablo II machine!". I know other people would flip over this. Get the lowest power atom or whatever chip in there. You only need maybe 256mb of ram. You don't need wifi. You need at most an SD slot for the boot disk. Bonus points for a second slot with a cd-rom emulator included. The guts could practically be an intel rasberry pi.
Like, this would be perfect with a screen and a big battery.
See also the Coleco Chameleon debacle. Duct tape, fake product prototypes, that story was a trip and a half.
Someone on a local to me retro gamers web group has the shell one of those slipped over their N64, logos/stickers and all. Where they got it, i have no idea, but some amount of actual hardware was produced even if it was just a few chassis full of rolls of pennies and styro.
What an amazing story though.
posted by emptythought at 1:07 PM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
...Retro Computers Ltd, a Luton-based start-up...
Silicon Lea Valley?
posted by rh at 1:14 PM on March 16, 2016
Silicon Lea Valley?
posted by rh at 1:14 PM on March 16, 2016
I would love to see a Commodore 64 equivalent of this (with screen, danger controls, tape/disk image loading, and the option to use it as a full C64 with the addition of a USB keyboard).
Yeah ... but it'd take a big speaker to emulate the 1541 floppy disk drive rattatat rattatating to make sure the game wasn't a copy! Altho a SID chip emulator would be worth the price of entry.
posted by Twang at 1:48 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah ... but it'd take a big speaker to emulate the 1541 floppy disk drive rattatat rattatating to make sure the game wasn't a copy! Altho a SID chip emulator would be worth the price of entry.
posted by Twang at 1:48 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
As someone who had a first generation Spectrum (16K, later upgraded) and spent the majority of his pocket money on games like Jet-Pac, Manic Miner, Daley Thompson’s bloody Decathtlon & their slightly more sophisticated successors, and passed hundreds, or perhaps thousands of hours absorbed in playing them, this ought to be right up my street: but it isn’t. I rather wish now I’d have spent at least some of those hours reading more books, or listening to more music, or even (perhaps a bit ambitious for 14-year-old me) interacting with other people a bit more. It seems churlish to not wish this venture well, but I find it hard to imagine it finding an eager buying public.
posted by misteraitch at 2:44 PM on March 16, 2016
posted by misteraitch at 2:44 PM on March 16, 2016
Sod the Speccy; what I want is a Cambridge Z-88 with e-ink display, SD card slots, bluetooth, and a slot for a Pi Zero as coprocessor. I'm pretty sure you could make it a bit less than the original's inch-thick design, and the four AA cells should run a modern implementation off-grid for more than 24 hours ...
Then make one - I'm sure Rick Dickinson, the original Sinclair Research industrial designer, would be happy to take the case on if you can raise the dosh, and the electronics is trivial these days.
Do you actually want to run Pipedream specifically (mmm... BBC Basic with inline Z80 assembler!), or would any functional text editor with the right bits do the job? I'm still jonesing for a Model 100-a-like, because that keyboard... but a proper writer's slate would do perfectly well. And not that hipster apparition that appearaed on bngbng a few days back.
posted by Devonian at 2:54 PM on March 16, 2016
Then make one - I'm sure Rick Dickinson, the original Sinclair Research industrial designer, would be happy to take the case on if you can raise the dosh, and the electronics is trivial these days.
Do you actually want to run Pipedream specifically (mmm... BBC Basic with inline Z80 assembler!), or would any functional text editor with the right bits do the job? I'm still jonesing for a Model 100-a-like, because that keyboard... but a proper writer's slate would do perfectly well. And not that hipster apparition that appearaed on bngbng a few days back.
posted by Devonian at 2:54 PM on March 16, 2016
→ Do you actually want to run Pipedream specifically…?
Protext! Like on the NC100. You could do this as cheap as chips.
Damn, I miss my Z88.
posted by scruss at 6:41 PM on March 16, 2016
Protext! Like on the NC100. You could do this as cheap as chips.
Damn, I miss my Z88.
posted by scruss at 6:41 PM on March 16, 2016
Does it have HDMI out? Been playing a lot of Lunar Jetman on my XBox One since getting Rare Replay. It is a fucking difficult game, as are so many of the old Spectrum games. Loads of fun though. Playing them on a big TV is great, compared to the tiny old b/w tv I used to play them on and I'd be in if this hooked up to my tv. Either that or someone needs to release Skool Daze and Back to School for the Xbox One
posted by IanMorr at 6:50 PM on March 16, 2016
posted by IanMorr at 6:50 PM on March 16, 2016
Another ZX81 fan signing in. 3D Monster Maze and Flight Simulation with 16k is something to behold. I spent hours upon hours programming that thing.
posted by readyfreddy at 12:52 AM on March 17, 2016
posted by readyfreddy at 12:52 AM on March 17, 2016
I rather wish now I’d have spent at least some of those hours reading more books, or listening to more music, or even (perhaps a bit ambitious for 14-year-old me) interacting with other people a bit more.
Most British boys probably spend their early teens playing and watching football, so it could have been worse.
posted by colie at 1:09 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Most British boys probably spend their early teens playing and watching football, so it could have been worse.
posted by colie at 1:09 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Scruss - bet you could build a Protext machine around an FPGA with an x86 soft core, driving an e ink display - not quite sure you could do it in just the one chip, but very teeny and low-power, and possibly very cheap.
If Amstrad could build the PCW with four chips in the mid-80s...
And, my goodness, you could build it on actual slate.
posted by Devonian at 4:43 AM on March 17, 2016
If Amstrad could build the PCW with four chips in the mid-80s...
And, my goodness, you could build it on actual slate.
posted by Devonian at 4:43 AM on March 17, 2016
See also the Coleco Chameleon debacle. Duct tape, fake product prototypes, that story was a trip and a half.
Someone on a local to me retro gamers web group has the shell one of those slipped over their N64, logos/stickers and all. Where they got it, i have no idea, but some amount of actual hardware was produced even if it was just a few chassis full of rolls of pennies and styro.
The shell they were going to use for the Coleco Chameleon was a repurposed Atari Jaguar casing. As to where your acquaintance got one, well considering the quality of the product that Atari released I'd imagine that there's plenty of broken Jaguars on the market from which to salvage.
posted by dances with hamsters at 8:00 AM on March 17, 2016
Someone on a local to me retro gamers web group has the shell one of those slipped over their N64, logos/stickers and all. Where they got it, i have no idea, but some amount of actual hardware was produced even if it was just a few chassis full of rolls of pennies and styro.
The shell they were going to use for the Coleco Chameleon was a repurposed Atari Jaguar casing. As to where your acquaintance got one, well considering the quality of the product that Atari released I'd imagine that there's plenty of broken Jaguars on the market from which to salvage.
posted by dances with hamsters at 8:00 AM on March 17, 2016
I bought a TI-99/4a (SLYT) used (for like $15) and it gathered dust for years because no games! Didn't get the Bill Cosby commercial either!
posted by Twang at 4:34 PM on March 18, 2016
posted by Twang at 4:34 PM on March 18, 2016
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Commodore 64 was better, obvs, though the Speccy is at least proper working class not like the posh kid BBC B.
posted by Artw at 8:44 AM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]