Spectrum Computing

ehm, some people are crazy ...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sinclair-ZX- ... 1438.l2649

Wow, that's a good profit!

Watched the video and I have to say I cannot believe RCL sent these devices out. The packaging alone is unbelievable - what a load of tosh calling it ethical! As for the device itself - total junk and an insult to Rick Dickinson's original concept and memory. I cannot believe I fell for this one and gave RCL my money. Still, lesson learned. To be honest, you would be better off with a Nintendo DSi and ZXDS.

Paddy

I wonder how it feels when you wait for something for years, when you have some crazy big hopes about it and when it finally comes, it's total crap.

If I understand correctly:
- no instructions
- things rattling losely in the box
- no power cord
- scratched screens
- foils falling away
- very limited choice of games
- unplayable, buttons have to be pressed very hard

plus probably much more.
Genuinely it seems like they are sending the failed prototypes to people.
Maybe it's finally time to close this saga.

Ralf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 11:16 am - unplayable, buttons have to be pressed very hard

Yeah, that's the point for me. We can discuss the quality of the thing and the presentation, but those buttons are prototype-level. No one in the company cared enough to bring a prototype home and play with it, or do something about the problem.

Incredible! Credit where it's due - it takes steel balls, a titanium jaw & a brass neck to unleash that monstrosity, and they've created a new wellspring of Speccy folklore that makes SQIJ look positively decent. It'll be a collector's item too, you won't be able to buy one for love nor money!

I stopped following this saga a long time ago, so I'm not sure why my games aren't on the list as I gave permission years ago and never retracted it. Seeing the finished product I should be thankful...

Clearly your games are not as attractive as 19 different versions of Egghead!

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:29 pm Clearly your games are not as attractive as 19 different versions of Egghead!

Thinking about it those crappy buttons would be the perfect solution to Stamp Quest's oversensitive key response. It might even render Rally Driver playable!

Laughable, and another clear attempt at delaying...they'll take the criticism and use it as an excuse not to ship the other 4000 units till they've addressed the concerns.

The way that screen is mounted with the mounting tabs and what looks like leaked glue (at the topped corners) is childlike. Obviously these are prototypes as others have said/suggested.

I stopped following this saga a long time ago, so I'm not sure why my games aren't on the list as I gave permission years ago and never retracted it.

Was it a handwritten paper with lots of legal paragraphs? I guess no

I suppose at this moment they take "trust no one" stand and so decided to include one stuff by Jonathan Cauldwell who seems to be maybe the biggest friend of this project.

Ralf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:27 pm

I stopped following this saga a long time ago, so I'm not sure why my games aren't on the list as I gave permission years ago and never retracted it.

Was it a handwritten paper with lots of legal paragraphs? I guess no

I suppose at this moment they take "trust no one" stand and so decided to include one stuff by Jonathan Cauldwell who seems to be maybe the biggest friend of this project.

And from what I saw half his games don't actually work on it.

druellan wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:13 pm

Ralf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 11:16 am - unplayable, buttons have to be pressed very hard

Yeah, that's the point for me. We can discuss the quality of the thing and the presentation, but those buttons are prototype-level. No one in the company cared enough to bring a prototype home and play with it, or do something about the problem.

They obviously knew about this problem. In a previously released official video, they were clearly trying to hide this issue.

The truth is, producing a playable device wasn't their goal. The actual goal was delivering the cheapest possible device, regardless of how crap it was. They hoped this would prevent Sinclair Research from intervening (and it worked!), since they can now claim "We have now delivered it as promised, it's not our fault that a few trolls are complaining about it!"

Also it's easy for anyone to sue them for not delivering anything. However "unplayable crap" is a somewhat subjective evaluation, much harder to prove in a court of law.


PS: Dammit! I decided a while ago I would never waste my time again on either RCL or WoS issues. There goes my decision...

beanz wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:06 pm what looks like leaked glue (at the topped corners)

There was a tube in of glue in one of their videos, that they didn't even bother to move out of shot. Narcissistic psychopaths.

beanz wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:44 pm

Ralf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:27 pm Was it a handwritten paper with lots of legal paragraphs? I guess no

I suppose at this moment they take "trust no one" stand and so decided to include one stuff by Jonathan Cauldwell who seems to be maybe the biggest friend of this project.

And from what I saw half his games don't actually work on it.

I will be surprised if more than 1 game works. The prototype had a bug that prevented it from recognizing multiple keymap files, that probably wasn't fixed.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:25 pmI stopped following this saga a long time ago, so I'm not sure why my games aren't on the list as I gave permission years ago and never retracted it. Seeing the finished product I should be thankful...

I never retracted my permissions either. On the contrary, I actually spent time over a year ago contacting developers to obtain more permissions for them, to help compensate the ones they lost.

Denying permissions wouldn't have helped anything. It would have only reduced its usefulness for end users, and it would give them a reason to delay the release indefinitely. Also I was hoping they would have to pay the proper royalties eventually, which in my case (and almost everybody I contacted) would go to GOSH charity.

Now I'm glad they didn't use any of my games, or anybody else's. I wouldn't want to see them running (but not really working) on this piece of crap. I feel sorry for Jonathan...

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:47 pm

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:25 pmI stopped following this saga a long time ago, so I'm not sure why my games aren't on the list as I gave permission years ago and never retracted it. Seeing the finished product I should be thankful...

I never retracted my permissions either. On the contrary, I actually spent time over a year ago contacting developers to obtain more permissions for them, to help compensate the ones they lost.

What happened was a representative from Sky, the licensor of the Sinclair and ZX Spectrum brand names, asked RCL to show they had the permissions for the games they had on the device. That's when RCL panicked and decided to offer a blank version of the Vega+ with no games.

It looks like RCL haven't kept track, or keep it up-to-date, as to what titles they've had permission to, and so it was easier for them to just remove them all. The 17 odd games on the device are probably then, those RCL can definitively claim they have permissions to use.

Those eBay prices..! I guess people are looking to get their hands on a small piece of retro-reboot history. If it's unlikely to be a mass production affair, it just screams 'limited edition'...

I've got a DS lite and occasionally play games ZXDS games which I find pretty good... But let's face it, a lot of Speccy games were hard. And crikey, they're so much harder on a small screen. Getting through those lifts in Cybernoid was difficult back in the 80s. I don't think I've managed it once playing on ZXDS emulation, and that's with good responsive buttons.

Those guys bidding on it don't want it for playing. It will probably become some collector's item to put on a shelf, just like a foiled game

I suppose the total count of these devices may be very low, after all if they are prototypes then these guys didn't manufactured thousands of prototypes, rather tens.

Mike Davies wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 6:15 pm

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:47 pm I never retracted my permissions either. On the contrary, I actually spent time over a year ago contacting developers to obtain more permissions for them, to help compensate the ones they lost.

What happened was a representative from Sky, the licensor of the Sinclair and ZX Spectrum brand names, asked RCL to show they had the permissions for the games they had on the device. That's when RCL panicked and decided to offer a blank version of the Vega+ with no games.

It looks like RCL haven't kept track, or keep it up-to-date, as to what titles they've had permission to, and so it was easier for them to just remove them all. The 17 odd games on the device are probably then, those RCL can definitively claim they have permissions to use.

No, I don't think so. I sent them all my written permission to about a dozen of my own games. It would have been easy to show it to Sky.

I bet they simply wanted to save time/money that would be needed to update the device to include more games. Also reducing the number of games would save on the amount they owe everyone on royalties. **

If their goal was just releasing the cheapest possible product, regardless of quality, then why bother about including more games?


** Not really. RCL promissed to pay £5 per unit on royalties for the first 4,000 Vegas, then pay £20 per unit on royalties (£10 per unit to GOSH and another £10 to either GOSH or developer) for everything else, to be split between the owners of included titles, as described here. Therefore if more than a handful Vega+ units are distributed containing only Jonathan's titles, he will be able to sue them for lots of money!

I would like to echo that ZXDS is a great portable alternative. The DS screen shares its resolution with the Spectrum (sans the border) so it's very crisp. Patrik also managed to get the display to update at 50hz (read the developer's diary on his site for some insight on how this was accomplished), I'm just guessing that the Vega uses some 60hz off-the-shelf screen. The emulator features a lot of customization and has pretty much all the bells and whistles of a good PC emulator.

The DS also features Nintendo quality buttons that are designed to take abuse and there are a lot of them available to assign (Elite and Back to Skool are a joy to play). Since the Nintendo DS is the best selling handheld console of all time (150+ millions) and if you add the compatible 3DS/2DS and their iterations on top of that, you'll have no problem finding one (now or in the future). Just choose an XL model if you need a bigger screen.

I play pretty much all my spectrum games on the ZXDS and I've managed to complete a lot of them (30+) over the last few years. There's only one game that gave me some problems, the trench lasers in 'Death Star Interceptor' are too quick for my DS lite screen and they pretty much blur into the background (a new 2DS XL should have a more modern screen and the problem may not exist there).

Edit: Oh yeah, ZXDS also has an easy-to-use virtual keyboard (touch screen).

Morkin wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:06 pm
I've got a DS lite and occasionally play games ZXDS games which I find pretty good... But let's face it, a lot of Speccy games were hard. And crikey, they're so much harder on a small screen.

3DS/2DS XL is a much better option (I first played in a DS model, it was OK, then 3DS XL, amazing, so going back to the first model was hard! )

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 11:24 pm

Morkin wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:06 pm
I've got a DS lite and occasionally play games ZXDS games which I find pretty good... But let's face it, a lot of Speccy games were hard. And crikey, they're so much harder on a small screen.

3DS/2DS XL is a much better option (I first played in a DS model, it was OK, then 3DS XL, amazing, so going back to the first model was hard! )

Yep, you have the joystick on the 3DS/2DS XL models, which makes diagonals a breeze. And the screens are bigger. Love ZXDS on my 2DS XL.

djnzx48 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 04, 2018 5:07 am Advanced ZX Vega+ Simulator

At first I believed that my emulator hang

djnzx48 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 04, 2018 5:07 am Advanced ZX Vega+ Simulator

Impressive! As responsive as the original!