The story of Your Sinclair

[5MinuteRetro]

Another of Graeme Mason's deepish dives into an old magazine. I do enjoy these. Not seen it posted here yet, so I thought I'd do the honours.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020 ... r-sinclair

(And in case anyone missed it, here's his earlier look at happenings Crash magazine: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017 ... h-magazine)

[MtM]

Never read YS, but Crash, that was _the_ mag where I lived, as was ZZAP64 later. Crash was a better name though and suited the Spectrum
itself more.

[ianace]

It was a great mag, always looked forward each month to get it! Never really found anything to replace it. Still have a few old copies tucked away some where.

[ZxSpence]

Thanks for this.

[Andre Leao]

The only mag I use to buy every month. Still have the whole collection, several numbers in binders.

Sinclair User was not bad, either.

[toot_toot]

Sinclair User was the first mag I got every month, starting in August 1985 but I still bought the odd issue of Your Sinclair, especially the ones that came with cover games like the demo of Rasputin, Road Race and Batty. But I moved over to Your Sinclair by December 87 and bought it every month until I moved onto the Amiga by Xmas 1990 (and even then I was buying Zero magazine which was basically YS for 16 bit machines and then moved onto Amiga Power). Probably because it seemed the funniest magazine, I really enjoyed the humour and the overall writing style of YS.

However, I must have bought loads of Crash and Sinclair User magazines in 89/90 as I found a load of cover tapes from that time. That really was a golden period for getting classic games, you’d check out the cover tapes and buy the magazine just for the games!

[Joefish]

I had YS. I actually had Sinclair Programs for a while, but never typed any of the listings in. I got it because my elder brother got Sinclair User, back when it was a serious magazine, and they advertised it. My parents were paying for both, but I looked around for something else with my pocket money and came away with Your Spectrum - the one with Rambo on the front and Fairlight tips in the back. Yep, that one. So after asking my Mum to ask the newsie (the local garage) to change our order, I then read the bit that said 'This is the LAST EVER issue of Your Spectrum!'

Fortunately the next month Your Sinclair arrived, and it was bigger, more colourful, and had the first ever free game demo tape I'd ever seen!

I'd seen the multi-format C+VG but it just wasn't relevant enough. And Crash I found a bit overly wordy; endless pages of nothing but adverts and reviews. While that was probably better for the Spectrum overall, as my only source of 'culture' I was far more drawn to the movies, music and arcade features and generally irreverent tone of YS. So that was it until I got an ST and jumped ship to ZERO, which was more of the same. It was multi-format, though by only really covering the ST, Amiga and PC it kept relevant. Sadly it was not to last...

[RWAC]

It was a great mag, always looked forward each month to get it! Never really found anything to replace it. Still have a few old copies tucked away some where.

For me, Amiga Power replaced YS. It was written in a similar style and had some of the same writers.

[ianace]

When and had a look in the loft, turns out I had a lot of copies and some of the tapes, had a look round and found some SU issues as well . Started loading some of the tapes, which attracted my kids to play on my games!

[MtM]

It was a great mag, always looked forward each month to get it! Never really found anything to replace it. Still have a few old copies tucked away some where.

For me, Amiga Power replaced YS. It was written in a similar style and had some of the same writers.

Yes, Amiga Power, _now_ you are talking. Funny and honest, I think at least one of the people who used to write for it
is active in these hallowed forums. They certainly championed games that were good to play over hyped up
disappointments. I bought an Anti Grav game on Steam ages ago after remembering the one they gave away
free on the magazine cover disk. The final rear cover was genuinely poignant too as I recall ...

[Morkin]

Enjoyed reading that, thanks.

Possibly explains a lot of the bizarre review ratings, the reviewers were probably hungover when they played the games...

Never particularly read YS in the 80s (mainly Crash & SU), so it's nice to occasionally flip through an edition online to see what I've been missing..