Spectrum Next Kickstarter 2 going live tomorrow Aug 11th 2020 9pm BST

[PeteProdge]

£280? Ouch!

[PeteProdge]

Fully backed past the £250K goal in five minutes, wow!

[akeley]

Early Bird sold out in 2min 10 sec.

I made my mind up earlier not to back it, then in the last 20 min prior got into the buying fever and was there at 20:59, hitting F5. But, yeah, 280 was a bit of a cold shower.

Wish it all the best, but I will stick with MiSter for now

[MonkZy]

£280? Ouch!

That ship has already sailed...300 quid now.

[Spud]

Early Bird sold out in 2min 10 sec.

When I browsed to the page the early bird still had 47 left.. by the time I'd figured out how to pledge, about 30 seconds later, it had sold out.

Pledged anyway. Can't wait for Next year!

[lister_of_smeg]

Early Bird sold out in 2min 10 sec.

Probably much quicker than that, due to lag. I reckon I had clicked through by around 20-30 seconds past the hour, but the payment processing lagged out for a few minutes, then I got a message saying the reward had already gone.

[Vampyre]

Missed out on the £280 as I dithered for thirty seconds. Bit more than I wanted to pay at £335 (went for the accelerated at £325) but I've been eBaying loads of stuff recently specifically for this (and a PS5) so I'm not too bothered. I'd have been more gutted not to have had one than an initial steep outlay.

[MonkZy]

I have pledged for a plus. It was £50 more than I expected which hurts a little, but I am happy I made a good decision. It was only a week or so ago I watched fools spending over £800 on these on eBay.

[DouglasReynholm]

It's like watching a pinball game score go up with the pledges right now, almost 1/2 a million quid in 30 minutes. Insane. Just bought a second, for the grand kids - 'in my day you had to load a tape, uphill, both ways'

[akeley]

If Spectrum was my only 8-bit love then I would get it, no doubt, even with that hefty price tag. As it is though, I need to actually downsize a bit and start using more of the hardware which I already have.

I'm very happy it's so popular though*, it will mean an influx of active new users and more quality software.

*while remaining hopeful that most of the buyers are actual Sinclair fans and not the, ahem, ebay "investors"

[Pegaz]

The initiators of the second kickstrter obviously showed respect for the original bakers, who took much more risks and waited three years for Next.
The current bakers risk almost nothing and $400+ is a fair price.

[Vampyre]

Description mentions the taxman being the biggest culprit for the price increase over last time. If that's the case and they had to personally foot the bill then it's understandable. Little bit annoyed it's cost so much in hindsight, but it's something that's only going to increase in value from the moment I get it and I was even looking at grabbing one from eBay. That is until I fell off my chair at the start prices.

[Pegaz]

A million bucks in just 12 hours. Impressive.
Obviously, the price was chosen very wisely...

[redballoon]

Kickstarter campaign just broke the 1 million GBP mark! Amazing!

Also BBC covering it https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53765852 containing a screenshot of Melkhior’s Mansion.

[TMD2003]

Today is a good day.

Two weeks ago or there abouts, I listed a few bits and pieces on eBay that I haven't needed for well over a decade in some cases, which I'd been putting off for ages as I've always been a bit suspicious of buyers who seem to hold all the aces. It was my old bass guitar equipment (not high-end stuff), some almost-working hi-fi amplifiers, a PA power amplifier... and a Tascam Portastudio 424 that had barely been out of its case in the last 18 years.

I looked around for priced of tape-based 4-track recorders, and found a couple on the other side of the Atlantic - one in the US, one in Canada - with starting prices over the equivalent of £150. So I opted for £130, thinking that it wasn't likely to sell very quickly and would have to be relisted several times. Still, eBay would let me relist it for free for now, as they had a free-listings promotion throughout August, so I was prepared to play the long game. Imagine my shock as someone actually bid on it first time round. Imagine my further shock as it climbed to £195. And within the last few minutes, while I was watching Lewis Hamilton reduce the Belgian Grand Prix to a foregone conclusion, somehow it went stratospheric.

This morning, the 424 was delivered to its new owner in Brighton, who's promised to use it to make experimental lo-fi tape-loop music with it... and it was his for £318. Even after the extra postage to cover the transit insurance, PayPal's fees and all that, I was £300 in the black just on that one auction. That, and the few other items I've sold (one bass guitar, an overdrive pedal and both mildly defective amplifiers), mean that I was in the position to buy a Spectrum Next without a further second's hesitation, rather than having to budget around it while the expensive bits waited to be sold.

So I just did. In August 2021, provided there are no delays (and the team know what they're in for this time round), I'll be joining the Next club.

Anyone else with stuff to dig out your attic and sell, now's a good time to do it.

[Ast A. Moore]

and a Tascam Portastudio 424

Hey, I used to have a 424, too! A fine machine, it was.

[uglifruit]

I had a Tascam 464! Oh the joys* of running that badboy alongside a sequencer using an SMPTE>MTC/Midiclock machine (having previously striped track 4 on the tape with SMPTE - which sounded remarkably like a spectrum loading).

*Actually woes. I'd not be eager to go back to that setup.

[Alcoholics Anonymous]

The KS is entering the final week and will close on September 10 at 20:59 BST.

[MrClump]

The KS is entering the final week and will close on September 10 at 20:59 BST.

Just announced that if they reach the £1.5m stretch goal there will be some kind of Next version of Head over Heels. Fingers crossed!

[stupidget]

As much as I tried to resist, it's become quite apparent that I have all the willpower of a very underpowered clockwork frog.

Can't wait to play the NEXT version of HoH now that they've passed the £1.5mill target

[Cosmium]

As much as I tried to resist, it's become quite apparent that I have all the willpower of a very underpowered clockwork frog.

Can't wait to play the NEXT version of HoH now that they've passed the £1.5mill target

I succumbed too! In the end there was no use trying to resist the incredible lure of a new Spectrum arriving by "mail order", just like back in '82.

And so the long wait begins (again, just like back in '82)...

[toot_toot]

The KS is entering the final week and will close on September 10 at 20:59 BST.

Just announced that if they reach the £1.5m stretch goal there will be some kind of Next version of Head over Heels. Fingers crossed!

Personally, I wouldn't hold your breath for that. While it's great to see the second campaign doing so well, the backers of the first Next - myself included - are still waiting for any the games that were originally promised as part of the first campaign like Nodes of Yesod Next, Rex Next, Dreamworld Pogie, No Mercy - I think it was called No Fate then - and the brand new Dizzy game. It's a bit annoying that all those promised game stretch goals have been mostly forgotten about now.

[PeterJ]

Gosh [mention]toot_toot[/mention],

I had forgotten about all those stretch goals.

[clebin]

I'd forgotten there were so many too. I occasionally go here to see what's new, but there's no "last updated" date anywhere which makes it hard to work where things are at:

https://www.spectrumnextgames.uk/

Rex Next has a very positive sounding quote from Jas Austin, but I have a feeling that's been there for a long time (?) Nodes of Yesod hasn't seen any updates since the beginning which doesn't bode well. Same for Dreamworld Pogie although it would be weird to get such a slick demo version out there and then stop.

No Mercy has new screenshots which look tremendous - that could be a killer app. Wonderful Dizzy has lots of new stuff although it's gone from being a Next exclusive to regular Spectrum first and possibly Next later, maybe. So those two look like happening in time. Fingers crossed for the others.

[redballoon]

I know that Rex Next is still being worked on.