C30 C60 C90 Go - what topped your local 'piracy charts'?

[PeteProdge]

Admittedly, I am on a hiding to nothing when I ask what was the most pirated Spectrum games in your area, because it can only rely on anecdotal data that likely only covers a fraction of that naughty behaviour.

I won't pretend that I never pirated anything, I had at least five C90s packed full of full-price games from the big software labels in 1987-88 thanks to a mate's tape-to-tape deck and his parents' seemingly limitless wallet letting him have the latest games (usually all automotive based).

But, for many of us, the piracy networks were definitely rooted in the school playground and although it was dying down when I got a Spectrum, I think I'm confident enough to say that Match Day 2 was easily the most demanded title. Robocop would have been up there, but if there ever was such a thing as a piracy chart, Match Day 2 would have been there for at least a year, I reckon.

Another friend had lots of copies with a bizarre flashing "M1 Loading" message with a corrupted loading screen, and it was only until months later when I got a Multiface 128 that I realised these were back-ups from his dad's friend's Multiface 1.


Naturally, the drawback with Multiface back-ups is that they turn multiloads into a playable demo! Yeah, enjoy your fun playing that first level and then when you're told to press play again, ah, your Multiface can't bring that level data in!

After a few loading errors with legit purchases, notably with the Alcatraz loader and Incentive's rapid loader, I did buy a suite of copy-protection-breaking utilities from Lerm Software's classified ads in the back of Your Sinclair. Genuinely for a back-up purpose, to have copies that could be more reliable to load. These were pretty much hit and miss at defeating custom loaders, I think I only got about three done. And the drawback there is that magazine POKE listings as well as covertape POKEs would be incompatible with these versions.

So yeah, did indulge in a bit of piracy, but I certainly bought way more games than illicitly procured ones. And I have memories of splashing out on full price games that were huge disappointments and barely entertained me. The Swindon-based Home Computer Club got a fair bit of our dosh for some of these toe-curling efforts, and years later the courts ruled that their 12-month-period of compulsory invoicing was, ahem, somewhat illegal... so I'm not feeling too much guilt.

Anyway, what games were most in demand on your network of naughtiness?

[stupidget]

C30 C60 C90 Go! Quality song there sir.

One that always sticks embedded in my memory is Wanted:Month Mole. I suppose it's because it was one of the first games to be featured on the local news, due to it's political storyline, which created a real buzz making it a 'must have' game. I remember going to our local computer club where we just spent the allotted 2hrs franticly copying W:MM before the squash club took over the hall and kicked us out.

Before that there was the obvious flurry of excitement copying JSW and thinking you could just guess the correct combination of colours to play the game. I remember borrowing the colour code chart from someone, loading up JSW and leaving my speccy on for several days so I could keep playing the frankly ground breaking game. Such simple, happy days

[Morkin]

I remember borrowing the colour code chart from someone, loading up JSW and leaving my speccy on for several days so I could keep playing the frankly ground breaking game. Such simple, happy days

...Kids in the playground nowadays could just take a picture of the code card on their smartphone....

Though it's not the same without a bit of paper and felt tip pens...

[Mpk]

Though it's not the same without a bit of paper and felt tip pens...

We just used a regular pen to write down the initials of the colours. BMMG and so on.

[PeteProdge]

We just used a regular pen to write down the initials of the colours. BMMG and so on.

Surely the numbers were the right way to go? It required responses like '1234', etc.

[Mpk]

Surely the numbers were the right way to go? It required responses like '1234', etc.

I think doing the number conversion on the fly would have introduced errors to an already dodgy process.

I just now remembered that we kept the sheet stashed in the back of a clock on the mantlepiece so it wouldn't go missing. I bet it's still there. I will look next time I'm 'home'.

[TMD2003]

My piracy charts had a population of one, i.e. me.

Hence, joint top of the chart with one entry each are: Psion Scrabble (yes, seriously!) and TLL.

That's yer lot.

[spider]

Extremely rare for me, I borrowed a lot of friends compilations but only having one tape deck (and their compilations would have a poor loading record in general) meant I never really bothered.

Sad as it sounds I was more interested in dismantling the loaders to turn them into conventional tapes in some cases.

I think the only one I partially have is part of the Argos compilation tape, the one with Strongtium Dog on it, and a (much modified by me) version of 20 Tons from the same if I recall.

Interesting topic though, I do recall on one FB group a few months ago a few 'inlays' were posted which were quite fascinating to see what people preferred to build at their own compilation, being way back you could not like now just pick "anything"

Random: Most of the tapes I did see where usually Sony or Basf (sp?) branded. The times I needed a home tape as such for saving listings and that kind of thing I used to use those yellow/black C15 tapes from Boots, despite hearing a few bad things I never really had any issues with them. I still have one actually I must see what is on it!

[Mpk]

Random: Most of the tapes I did see where usually Sony or Basf (sp?) branded.

BASF were the top rank for me, but a rare luxury.

Most of mine were green labelled 3-for-£1 C60s from the poundshop. Failure rate was high, but for that price you'd take the gamble.

Not that us kids were ever committing any piracy, of course. We were just pioneering the modern Cloud backup strategy that most businesses use today, by moving our backups off-site.

[Oloturia]

Living in Italy pretty much of our video games were bootlegs. Back then, it was almost impossible to find games besides pirated ones, so the only original tapes we had were the ones bundled with the computer or bought at the same shop where we got the Spectrum (Jawz, Speed Duel, Hungry Horace, Centipede, Horace Goes Skiing, Rocky Horror Show and World Series Basketball and eventually Ghouls and Ghosts when my brother went to London to improve his English).

But I had a few tapes, some with photocopied inlay, coming from UK I wonder how. I remember Cookie, Manic Miner, Knight Lore, Microbot, Fred and a few others. Being the only one who had a Spectrum among my friends, who had VIC-20s and C64s (and maybe a MSX) I had no one to exchange games to. This radically changed when I had the Amiga, because nearly every one had one and copying disks were easier than duplicating tapes. In Amiga times (1990-1995) there was a timid distribution of original games in VHS shops, so I started to buy original games. The distributors did most of the times an appalling job anyway.