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The ZX Spectrum was better then C64


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Indeed an argument had in every playground across the UK in the 80's. Myself and my mates were firmly in the speccy camp as it's what our parents could afford so clearly it was better. Think it was 129.99 back in the day with the C64 being considerably more.

I remember going round a friends house who's family had a lot, he knew it and rubbed in our faces. Payed Beach Head and was impressed you could have more than two colours in a 8x8 grid, also when you got shot it said 'medic' really well. Didn't matter the speccy ruled and he was still a knob.

Edited by Pook
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I was also firmly in the Spectrum camp....   eventually....     All my friends had the Spectrum, I was unlucky the previous year.  My mam and dad got me a Vic20....   I was the laughing stock at school, even the teachers laughed in my face (not really).  It didn't matter, I really wasn't into computers prior to this, my parents didn't know what they were buying to be fair, they'd been rumbelow'd.   :)   

The Vic20 was probably the same price as the ZX Spectrum I reckon, I'm sure the Vic20 was £139.99 or something like that.   I did have some fun on 'Blitz' and a short time later I asked (made) my mother buy me a 16K expansion pack, so I could get Perils of Willy and a game called Wunda Walter, both were excellent games actually.

J

 

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44 minutes ago, A:E said:

I was also firmly in the Spectrum camp....   eventually....     All my friends had the Spectrum, I was unlucky the previous year.  My mam and dad got me a Vic20....   I was the laughing stock at school, even the teachers laughed in my face (not really).

At least you did not have the Oric !

I never did, but I have strong memories of Oric pictures being plastered in the room we did computer studies in - I pity those kids that ended up with that !

I always think it amazing that everywhere sold games - I mean you could go into boots for insect repliant cream and buy a copy of Pssst or Ant Attack.

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Ohh the oric, was that the one when you could type 'ping' and 'bang' and it would make the noises? I remember a computer shop called syntax where we would type random noise words into it, must've drove the staff nuts.

Couple of friends of mine had vic20s and regretted it when the spectrum spead throughout the school. One mate got a TI99 which from what I remember didn't do a lot.

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sport of kings on the speccy! had a c64 myself with a action replay and around 500+tapes also had a multiloader copier where you plugged 2 data cassettes in and could do stuff like california games and last ninja 2! :P also bought a data cassette called load it and it had a tracking knob with some lights and you twisted it untill you had optimum data load haha! under the tag line of play even games that normal ones cant load anymore :P suffice to say my original of way of the exploding fist still did not load :P but to be fair it was a good loader :D

 

 

mwahah this is it :P

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On 01/11/2018 at 13:46, A:E said:

Yeah boots was the place that had all games.  I didn’t buy many games as my mates dad used to get pirated tapes from his work every other week.   Was s bit naughty but when you’re a kid it seems ok.

J

my girlfriend worked in wellworths  Friday and Saturday as a schoolgirl job and they sold zx speccy and all the other home micro games.

she would bring me a load of them home to copy then bring them back in the next day :)

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I never owned a zx speccy only the commodore vic20/64,a friend had the zx spectrum I found them to both be very similar if i'm honest.As a kid I was fascinated with blocky graphics,coloured rolling loading screens and slow load times,which made the anticipation of playing even better.loved computers since then and never looked back :D still here,although when the first PC's came out it was classed as nerdy to own one,now virtually everyone's a nerd lol :D

Edited by bungle

 

 

 

 

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I am definitely in the C64 camp. We used to play Daley Thompsons Decathlon to death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_Thompson's_Decathlon

I also had this 2 player game with moving lines on about 4 or 5 levels, and you had to collect things without falling down the gaps. I wish I could remember what it was called? But it was the best 2 player game ever!

My mum wanted a C64, so she sent my stepdad out to go and buy one..The idiot came back with a Vic 20..... He never lived that down.

 

 

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Speccy 4 me.  Never owned a c64 not did I ever want one.  Played my sisters once and thought it was crap.

I'm pretty sure the Speccy was resposible for getting me into programming.  I spent hours keying in bits of BASIC code from books and went on to simple machine code, most of which I've long forgotten.    I also had a multiface where you could freeze the program and tweak various things which led me to write an infinate lives POKE for a Dizzy game

One of my all time favorite games was Star Raiders II

 

Might even get the old girl out and see if she still works ;)

 

 

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Let me know if you want the composite video mod doing Dad, did it on all my Spectrums, fairly easy, just means you can plug it into a modern TV that doesn’t have an analogue aerial ;).

Also I’ve repaired a few with blown ram if it doesn’t work I can fix it for you ;)

J

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The speccy had good detail in the graphics , but the colours mixing ( clash lol ) was a pain , the commodore didnt have the detail , but the colours were better . I remember it was important to have instructions because some games were random , my favourite randoms , were , gift of the gods , NOMAD , frostbyte , mailstrom , and my fave random was , ti na nog , a weird game ,

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ZXSpectrum for me.

Most of my friends at school had a speccy, not many had the c64. You could end up with a huge library of games through trading and copying games.

Some of the games were extremely playable (Ant Attack, Attic Attack, Sabre wulf (only played this a few days ago!) Jet Set Willy and loads more!)

Oh and Starquake one of my all time favourite games.

They were also some terrible games too! Especially a lot of them you typed in from magazines (all that typing and you would only play them once!)

 

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1 hour ago, A:E said:

Let me know if you want the composite video mod doing Dad, did it on all my Spectrums, fairly easy, just means you can plug it into a modern TV that doesn’t have an analogue aerial ;).

Also I’ve repaired a few with blown ram if it doesn’t work I can fix it for you ;)

J

Thanks :)

When I get a mo' I'll dig it out and test it.  Pretty sure the last time I tried it had some issues.

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