ZX Spectrum - Brought Back to Life

Perhaps not really RPG news, but it is capable of playing quite a bit of RPGs. If you are old enough to have known and used the ZX Spectrum, this might be an opportunity to play some of the 14.000 games again, that were created in the time, by participating in the Indiegogo campaign, which has been started featuring the ZX Spectrum Vega.

The Vega has been developed by Chris Smith, a former ZX Spectrum games developer who is the world's leading expert on Sinclair Spectrum technology and author of the definitive technical book "The ZX Spectrum ULA: How to design a microcomputer".



Retro Computers Ltd is making arrangements with the owners of the software rights to Spectrum games to donate a combined software royalty to a charity – Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. The company’s Chairman, Dr David Levy, had his life saved by the hospital when he was diagnosed with meningitis as a 3-year-old.



The development of the Sinclair Spectrum Vega is complete, and we have a fully working prototype waiting to go into production within the UK. We are making contact with thousands of the original Spectrum game developers in order to secure their permission to use their games on the Vega, for which a combined software royalty will be donated to charity ‒ Great Ormond Street Hospital for children.

Once the first 1,000 Limited Edition Vegas have been manufactured and shipped, and we move on to the next 3,000 units and thereafter to batches of 10,000 or more, the retail price of the Vega will reduce. But even at £100 the cost of the limited edition Vega, with its 1,000 games built-in, represents a huge saving over the cost of the original product plus the cost of 1,000 of the original Spectrum games. What cost thousands of pounds back in the 1980s is now available for around 1 per cent of that amount.

More information.

That's a little bit TOO retro for £100. I think I'd rather send the cash straight to the children's hospital!

Gum keyboard is back?

Sadly I'm not interested much… Global graphics whoring took me too and now just couldn't play old ZX and C64 games any more.

Damn, I feel so old I had one of these, growing up in the 80s. I think it's still in my parents loft somewhere. A great machine for the time, though I'm not sure there were really any RPGs on it.

Doomdark's Revenge!

Originally Posted by Ripper
Doomdark's Revenge!

I had Lords of Mightnight, but could never get my head around it. All my games were pirated back then (blame my dad) and never had the instructions. That was back when games NEEDED instructions.

I just remembered this RPG as well: Swords and Sorcery!

Count yourselves lucky, at the time I didn't even know RPGs existed.

Originally Posted by Arhu
Count yourselves lucky, at the time I didn't even know RPGs existed.

If I recall properly, I don't think they really did; certainly not in the form they do today. It wasn't until I got a Commodore Amiga and played titles like Eye of the Beholder and the first Elder Scrolls game that everything changed.

Originally Posted by Kyrer
If I recall properly, I don't think they really did; certainly not in the form they do today. It wasn't until I got a Commodore Amiga and played titles like Eye of the Beholder and the first Elder Scrolls game that everything changed.

In the early days of ZX Spectrum they didn't, but by the mid 80s SSI strarted to launch a series of AD&D games. I wouldn't call them really RPGs, but they were adaptations of pen & paper games, so…

It ran such lovely games and had a nice sound!

Temple of Apshai predated the spectrum by something like three years, and Telengard came out at about the same time. RPGs were most certainly around in the early days of the Spectrum.

Man, Temple of Apshai. That brings back some memories….

Originally Posted by MigRib
In the early days of ZX Spectrum they didn't, but by the mid 80s SSI strarted to launch a series of AD&D games. I wouldn't call them really RPGs, but they were adaptations of pen & paper games, so…

The Bard's Tale was on the Speccy. That was a pretty fully fledged RPG.

I never played those games; I could have been playing RPGs all those years Still, I certainly made up for it later.

http://youtu.be/mbumzCdw4Ts

…and then, if the tape wasn't chewed up, and the planets were in alignment, a game would sometimes appear!

I played the odd Goldbox game on the Spectrum, but not that many RPG's, mostly I got into them in the Amiga era.

Wonder how it'll work for games that need keyboards?

Daniel.

I got into rpgs in the late 80's on my 8086 but I did play some of the early Ultima games before that.

I'll just remember the Spectrum from back in the day and save myself a few bob.

Google emulator, it's fun and a damn sight cheaper.