What was the first game you loaded into your ZX Spectrum? (I guess there'll be a lot of "Thro' The Wall off the Horizons tape" answers to this from those who were there from the off, but not for everybody.
And if you answered the above with a 'pack-in' game, then what was the first game you loaded in, that you bought yourself?
Also, do you have any tales of your absolute naivety with this new-fangled computer at the time?
Do you remember the first time?
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PeteProdge
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Do you remember the first time?
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New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
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PeteProdge
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Re: Do you remember the first time?
For me, unboxing a grey ZX Spectrum +2 on my 13th birthday in 1987 from a Dixons deal (£125!) was a genuinely life-changing event, all taking place on a Friday evening. The first home computer in our household.
We had owned no games, but the pack-in games were already pretty damned impressive, as they laid on these 14 from Ocean/Imagine...
That's a pretty decent line-up (we'll overlook that Highlander and Street Hawk are there), I'd have been happy with that alone...
And then they throw in some games from TyneSoft, half of which are illegally copied games from Harry S Price, the other half are reasonable and quirky efforts (with the inclusion of the sole text adventure, Blizzard Pass, penned by the now prolific Linux contributor Alan Cox).
The first game I loaded in was Donkey Kong, mainly because it was a game I had heard of from the arcades (albeit I had not actually played the arcade version or indeed any version at that point).
Naivety? Despite the fact I had played on a ZX Spectrum about two and a half years earlier at a computer-obsessed friend's house and witnessed the extraordinary exercise of a game loading - which to me looked like the computer had gone wrong, I had totally forgotten about that and stupidly assumed that when you put a cassette in the tape deck and hit play, the game would be up and running immediately! Oh, if only.
But yeah, when I saw and heard the loading, it all quickly came flashing back to me and I had to convey the importance of this bizarre practice to my parents and little brother.
I think the second game would have been Mario Bros, for a similar reason - it's a name I had heard of.
That night I got through all of the games, up until about 1 in the morning. I was fascinated by Colin The Cleaner the most, but I think my brother and spent most time on Rambo and Green Beret. Parents were not in the slightest bit interested, ever. They never joined in. I think a while later I once cajouled my mum into playing Bubble Bobble for a few minutes but she admitted she hadn't got a clue what she was doing (true) and gave it up quickly.
Anyway, the next day - a Saturday! - I got to go into the shops and with my meagre two quid pocket money, I bought Curse Of Sherwood by Mastertronic, mainly because I was fascinated by the comic artwork on it. I'd been perusing the ZX Spectrum releases in Boots for months, knowing I was to get a Spectrum in October and always had my eye on it, even though classmates said it was not that remarkable.
I was very pleased with it, still am! Maybe it's because I had very little experience of computer games at that point, and saw it as a truly fresh amazing game concept. I'd never seen an arcade adventure like it.
Oh, and the same day I negotiated an advance on my pocket money and whizzed back down to the town centre, just as the shops were closing and bought, at literally the last minute, BMX Simulator from Code Masters. Hmm... that was my first gaming disappointment.
We had owned no games, but the pack-in games were already pretty damned impressive, as they laid on these 14 from Ocean/Imagine...
That's a pretty decent line-up (we'll overlook that Highlander and Street Hawk are there), I'd have been happy with that alone...
And then they throw in some games from TyneSoft, half of which are illegally copied games from Harry S Price, the other half are reasonable and quirky efforts (with the inclusion of the sole text adventure, Blizzard Pass, penned by the now prolific Linux contributor Alan Cox).
The first game I loaded in was Donkey Kong, mainly because it was a game I had heard of from the arcades (albeit I had not actually played the arcade version or indeed any version at that point).
Naivety? Despite the fact I had played on a ZX Spectrum about two and a half years earlier at a computer-obsessed friend's house and witnessed the extraordinary exercise of a game loading - which to me looked like the computer had gone wrong, I had totally forgotten about that and stupidly assumed that when you put a cassette in the tape deck and hit play, the game would be up and running immediately! Oh, if only.
But yeah, when I saw and heard the loading, it all quickly came flashing back to me and I had to convey the importance of this bizarre practice to my parents and little brother.
I think the second game would have been Mario Bros, for a similar reason - it's a name I had heard of.
That night I got through all of the games, up until about 1 in the morning. I was fascinated by Colin The Cleaner the most, but I think my brother and spent most time on Rambo and Green Beret. Parents were not in the slightest bit interested, ever. They never joined in. I think a while later I once cajouled my mum into playing Bubble Bobble for a few minutes but she admitted she hadn't got a clue what she was doing (true) and gave it up quickly.
Anyway, the next day - a Saturday! - I got to go into the shops and with my meagre two quid pocket money, I bought Curse Of Sherwood by Mastertronic, mainly because I was fascinated by the comic artwork on it. I'd been perusing the ZX Spectrum releases in Boots for months, knowing I was to get a Spectrum in October and always had my eye on it, even though classmates said it was not that remarkable.
I was very pleased with it, still am! Maybe it's because I had very little experience of computer games at that point, and saw it as a truly fresh amazing game concept. I'd never seen an arcade adventure like it.
Oh, and the same day I negotiated an advance on my pocket money and whizzed back down to the town centre, just as the shops were closing and bought, at literally the last minute, BMX Simulator from Code Masters. Hmm... that was my first gaming disappointment.
Reheated Pixels - a combination of retrogaming, comedy and factual musing, is here!
New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
Re: Do you remember the first time?
I suspect the first game I loaded was Oh Mummy. And given that I had 90-odd others packaged with the +2 and a whole new world of programming to explore first, it was a while before I thought of buying any more games... and I have no idea what the first one was. Treasure Island Dizzy, maybe?
Quite a few of my games were donations or car boot sale jobs, because by 1988 there were quite a lot of people moving off of their Spectrums and on to... whatever it was they did next. Amigas, STs, consoles, rudimentary PCs...
Quite a few of my games were donations or car boot sale jobs, because by 1988 there were quite a lot of people moving off of their Spectrums and on to... whatever it was they did next. Amigas, STs, consoles, rudimentary PCs...
Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
Re: Do you remember the first time?
25 December 1982...
Morning: Meteoroids, by Softek, which was AWESOME.
Afternoon: Games 5 (Star Trail), by Sinclair Research. It may have been in BASIC, it may have just been a Star-Trek clone, but it, too, was AWESOME.
Evening: Hungry Horace. Once again, AWESOME.
Night: A quick run-through of The Hobbit... on which I reserved judgement.
Morning: Meteoroids, by Softek, which was AWESOME.
Afternoon: Games 5 (Star Trail), by Sinclair Research. It may have been in BASIC, it may have just been a Star-Trek clone, but it, too, was AWESOME.
Evening: Hungry Horace. Once again, AWESOME.
Night: A quick run-through of The Hobbit... on which I reserved judgement.
Last edited by Rorthron on Sun Apr 25, 2021 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
After the horizons tape, my entry to the Spectrum world was Space Raiders, I know very predictable.
Alex
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Yeah, would have probably been the Horizons tape or Space Raiders. I think Horizons first but Space Raiders probably stayed on the longest (though Thro' The Wall was oft loaded after that).
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Horizons tape was the first and most memorable, but the first two commercial games I had were Backgammon (Psion) which was ok, and PSSST (Ultimate) which blew me away.
A few weeks later I bought one of the first Spectrum games released in Yugoslavia, the graphic adventure Kontrabant 2, which was also great in a very professional package with big box, bucklet and break dance music on side B as a bonus.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... ntrabant_2
A few weeks later I bought one of the first Spectrum games released in Yugoslavia, the graphic adventure Kontrabant 2, which was also great in a very professional package with big box, bucklet and break dance music on side B as a bonus.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... ntrabant_2
Re: Do you remember the first time?
I went into Dixons in the '80s looking to buy a Commodore Vic 20 or something because that is what my best mate at the time had.
The guy in there - let's call him Mr. Superb Hero - talked my mum into buying a Speccy instead and that was that.
First thing I played was some sort of Pengo clone I think. My brother had a torrid time setting it up though. I should have known then that I'd be his personal IT support guy for life.
The guy in there - let's call him Mr. Superb Hero - talked my mum into buying a Speccy instead and that was that.
First thing I played was some sort of Pengo clone I think. My brother had a torrid time setting it up though. I should have known then that I'd be his personal IT support guy for life.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
This was in 1985. There was a "classifieds" board in our local shopping mall where people could flog stuff they didn't want anymore. Someone was offering a computer for 100 DM which was fairly cheap. Turned out to be a 16k Speccy with a single tape full of copied games. The first game on the tape was Jetpac. We used a walkman instead of a proper tape recorder.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
My first Spectrum was a Timex, and in the box there was a compilation of games by Quicksilva, I don't quite remember the first one we tried, but might be Mined-Out, Bugaboo, Astro Blaster or Fred. I remember the Bugaboo intro quite vividly, so might the be first one.
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DouglasReynholm
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Re: Do you remember the first time?
My Xmas 1983 ZX Spectrum didn't get played until I got home from our Xmas trip to Bournemouth (yeah we were posh, it went downhill from there I think) that year, and was via a trip to High Barnet WH Smith.
I chose Paul Owens KONG by Ocean Software as my first title, and with time it's aged poorly of course, but at the time I had Donkey Kong at home, and it was AMAZING.
Except it wasn't, '0 Live left!' IIRC
2nd title a week later was 'Mined Out', then things got better..
I chose Paul Owens KONG by Ocean Software as my first title, and with time it's aged poorly of course, but at the time I had Donkey Kong at home, and it was AMAZING.
Except it wasn't, '0 Live left!' IIRC
2nd title a week later was 'Mined Out', then things got better..
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1024MAK
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Re: Do you remember the first time?
On the run up to Christmas 1983, my parents took me to Rumbelows because they had an offer of a ZX Spectrum 48k and you could choose a number of games to go with it from a selection in store, at no extra charge.
Alas, I can’t remember how many you could have (it may have been ten), or which titles I chose
I do now know, that without thinking about it, I selected mostly 16k titles...!!!
I think I got Space Raiders, one of the Horace titles (most likely Horace goes skiing) and Tranz-am. Maybe 3D-Tanx. My memory is too hazy to remember any more...
Anyway, because I had played Space Invaders on a arcade machine in various pubs (while with my parents), Space Raiders is very likely the first game that I would have played.
Gosh, that was a looong time agooo...
Mark
Alas, I can’t remember how many you could have (it may have been ten), or which titles I chose
I do now know, that without thinking about it, I selected mostly 16k titles...!!!
I think I got Space Raiders, one of the Horace titles (most likely Horace goes skiing) and Tranz-am. Maybe 3D-Tanx. My memory is too hazy to remember any more...
Anyway, because I had played Space Invaders on a arcade machine in various pubs (while with my parents), Space Raiders is very likely the first game that I would have played.
Gosh, that was a looong time agooo...
Mark
Standby alert “There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
I wish I had started using a Spectrum as early as most of you. My first memories of actually using a 48K Spectrum are from summer 1987 at my cousin's apartment, but I didn't get my own until 1988 or 1989. It's sad that I can't remember the date, but it wasn't Christmas or birthday or any special day. My parents surprised me one day with a grey +2 and a Neptun 156 monitor. I had no idea I'd ever have my own and I remember the experience as being surreal. I entered the living room (which was also my bedroom) and there it was, waiting for me. I remember the first two games I got were Spy Hunter and Bosconian. I think I loaded Spy Hunter first. By the time I started learning what I could do with it, my friends and family had moved on to gaming consoles, Amigas, PCs, Macs, etc. I don't regret it. I remember being made fun of when people knew my computer was a Spectrum, but I didn't care. I also remember being made fun of each time I took my computer to high school, to give presentations made in Basic and loaded from the Timex FDD. Same thing, I didn't care. I had a lot of good memories and still do.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Mine was Luna Crabs from MicroMega:
Having upgraded from a Dragon 32 it was a real eye opener seeing the high-res graphics of the good old speccy.
Having upgraded from a Dragon 32 it was a real eye opener seeing the high-res graphics of the good old speccy.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Mine was Embassy Assault Christmas day 1982 or 1983 (Can't recall exactly, sorry).
Things could only improve from there!
This thread makes me feel very old....
Things could only improve from there!
This thread makes me feel very old....
Re: Do you remember the first time?
During the summer vacations of 1985, a Spectrum+ came to our home, bought with the pocket-money savings of my brother and me, and with a little financial help from our father. Purchase price was 24000 greek drachmas, after a loooong market search to find the best offer.
Just for you to make the calculations, an average monthly salary (e.g. ~1000 euros today) in 1985 Greece was about 100000 drachmas...
There was also the simple 48k available for 18000, but we went for the Plus. The purchase price was very good compared to others we saw, but it came without any extras and with a 3-months warranty (I think that all dealers were giving 3 months warranty for the Spectrums, as opposed to 1 year or more for most other brands of home computers). The warranty is still in the original box!
The first ever tape to be loaded in that machine was Horizons, due to lack of anything else. But a couple of days after I purchased Pheenix by Megadodo Software, as I was (and still am) a big fan of the original Phoenix arcade! This game was in fact a copy which was sold to me as a "cheap original" by some computer shop in Athens. It was at first a big disappointment compared to the original arcade Phoenix, but then I loved it, because I realized that I could play as much as I liked for free, and it's not a bad game, after all...
At first we were using a retired, big B/W TV which came out of our storage room, as dedicated "monitor" in our living room and an old Grundig tape recorder of our father for loading (it needed a special cable as it had a 5PIN DIN socket for sound I/O)...
A couple of months later we purchased a nice Timex 12'' Green Phosphore monitor for 12000 and a Rotronics Data Recorder for 4500 drachmas, so our Speccy Plus was complete for our purposes. We never went for joysticks or interfaces of any kind, just the plain Spectrum+...
Until next year, we were swapping tapes with schoolmates who already had Spectrums and we also discovered our local pirate software dealers, who were selling mostly games compilations in C-60 cassettes (10-15 titles on each), copied with Multiface 1...
N.B. that in Greece all software copying and swapping back then was considered very "normal", despite the laws about copyright. Even most central computer shops were selling copies in plain sight, along with some originals, of course...
So with very little or no money we ended up with a very big software library and first-class titles like Bomb Jack, Commando, Hyper Sports, Lords of Midnight, Zorro, Pole Position, Green Beret, Mikie, Questprobe Spiderman, Match Day and lots more... All were copies without (of course) instructions etc. but we were always managing to find out what was to be done in these games, in a magical way!!
Just for you to make the calculations, an average monthly salary (e.g. ~1000 euros today) in 1985 Greece was about 100000 drachmas...
There was also the simple 48k available for 18000, but we went for the Plus. The purchase price was very good compared to others we saw, but it came without any extras and with a 3-months warranty (I think that all dealers were giving 3 months warranty for the Spectrums, as opposed to 1 year or more for most other brands of home computers). The warranty is still in the original box!
The first ever tape to be loaded in that machine was Horizons, due to lack of anything else. But a couple of days after I purchased Pheenix by Megadodo Software, as I was (and still am) a big fan of the original Phoenix arcade! This game was in fact a copy which was sold to me as a "cheap original" by some computer shop in Athens. It was at first a big disappointment compared to the original arcade Phoenix, but then I loved it, because I realized that I could play as much as I liked for free, and it's not a bad game, after all...
At first we were using a retired, big B/W TV which came out of our storage room, as dedicated "monitor" in our living room and an old Grundig tape recorder of our father for loading (it needed a special cable as it had a 5PIN DIN socket for sound I/O)...
A couple of months later we purchased a nice Timex 12'' Green Phosphore monitor for 12000 and a Rotronics Data Recorder for 4500 drachmas, so our Speccy Plus was complete for our purposes. We never went for joysticks or interfaces of any kind, just the plain Spectrum+...
Until next year, we were swapping tapes with schoolmates who already had Spectrums and we also discovered our local pirate software dealers, who were selling mostly games compilations in C-60 cassettes (10-15 titles on each), copied with Multiface 1...
N.B. that in Greece all software copying and swapping back then was considered very "normal", despite the laws about copyright. Even most central computer shops were selling copies in plain sight, along with some originals, of course...
So with very little or no money we ended up with a very big software library and first-class titles like Bomb Jack, Commando, Hyper Sports, Lords of Midnight, Zorro, Pole Position, Green Beret, Mikie, Questprobe Spiderman, Match Day and lots more... All were copies without (of course) instructions etc. but we were always managing to find out what was to be done in these games, in a magical way!!
Re: Do you remember the first time?
After Horizons? Tranz Am.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
I think it is/was considered pretty normal everywhere. Our Speccy was bought new in the UK 1982, and came complete with a C60 full of copied games from the shop. I don't think anyone, anywhere has ever heard of someone being arrested, questioned, charged or cautioned for personal copying.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Except for Horizons, I think one of the following must have been the first game I loaded: Jetpac, Pssst or Chequered Flag. I'm not sure though, it was a long time ago 
My first home computer was a Spectrum 48K that I bought together with my father. I paid half of the price and mowed the lawn for two summers to make up for the rest
My first home computer was a Spectrum 48K that I bought together with my father. I paid half of the price and mowed the lawn for two summers to make up for the rest
Last edited by Stefan123 on Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Ah, the good old times of the flashing "M1 LOADING" text. One of my best ever C60 copy tapes was full of Multiface copies which I had never seen before that tape. Amongst the games on it were Renegade, Bubble Bobble, Zynaps, Bomb Jack, Driller and Thundercats ... imagine a real compilation tape with games of this caliber.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
I’m afraid I was somewhat behind the pack here.
The very first computer game I played was Hungry Horace Goes Skiing, at a house I remember pretty well but I no longer know why we were there or who the people were. I was probably six.
My older brother later got a +2a in 1988 and I remember a lot of Twin Turbo V8 not too long afterwards but probably the first title he bought was Butch Hard Guy. He very much enjoyed the mind control joke on the title screen.
I got my Sam Coupé in 1990 with Defenders of the Earth, and even then I recall that listening to the title music and thinking about the possibilities it implied were a lot more fun than the game itself, which was a bit of a throwback to the infinite-things-entering-a-screen stuff that looked a bit prehistoric in the age of Robocop and Chase HQ. That and the mid-stage bosses almost all being a matter of holding jump and fire, and hoping for the best.
The very first computer game I played was Hungry Horace Goes Skiing, at a house I remember pretty well but I no longer know why we were there or who the people were. I was probably six.
My older brother later got a +2a in 1988 and I remember a lot of Twin Turbo V8 not too long afterwards but probably the first title he bought was Butch Hard Guy. He very much enjoyed the mind control joke on the title screen.
I got my Sam Coupé in 1990 with Defenders of the Earth, and even then I recall that listening to the title music and thinking about the possibilities it implied were a lot more fun than the game itself, which was a bit of a throwback to the infinite-things-entering-a-screen stuff that looked a bit prehistoric in the age of Robocop and Chase HQ. That and the mid-stage bosses almost all being a matter of holding jump and fire, and hoping for the best.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Are you sure it was Timex? The Polish-made green phosphor Neptun 156 was very popular in Portugal and Europe and was commonly sold at Sinclair dealers, but I've never heard of a monitor made by Timex, either here (United States) or anywhere in Europe.
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Wottt??? You are perfectly right, it is the black Neptune 156, you just revealed a scam after 35 years!
I shall claim to have my money back, hahahahaha!!!
They sold it to us as TIMEX, I clearly remember that, and IIRC they were also advertising this as TIMEX on local computer magazines... We purchased it from a big, central and well-respected (then) shop of the centre of Athens, the very same that sold us the Spectrum+... I also remember noticing (and it was a bit weird) that NOTHING about TIMEX or ANY brand at all was written on the enclosure, but who cared back then? I absolutely loved that monitor, it was a nice pair with the black Speccy on my desk and the picture quality was really nice, even though... green!!
Perhaps they didn't know? I doubt it...
Re: Do you remember the first time?
Vividly remember mine. Best Christmas Day I ever had, heck one of THE best days of my life, and it's a cherished memory. Xmas Day 1983, when I'd just turned 11 the day before.
The previous Christmas my cousin (same age) had a ZX81 (no Rampack) and when we visited on Boxing Day I was absolutely fascinated with it. I couldn't believe how much fun they were. Over the next year I dropped less-than-subtle hints to my parents and scoured the Argos catalogue dreaming of having a computer. I wasn't dreaming about the Speccy or the ZX81 - but a Vic-20 that only 10 year old me could answer why now.
Cut to Christmas Day and I flew downstairs at some ungodly hour and started ripping things open. There was an extreme look of amusement on my Mum and Dad's faces. Present after present, no computer, opened one present and it was one of those "50 Games To Type In" books. Fair play to my mum's presence of mind here but she snatched it off me and said "oops, that was supposed to be in Dan's (cousin) Christmas box". Opened up everything left and no computer.
I can't remember how stroppy I was, being a kid probably very, but I was never really an ungrateful little turd. After about half an hour of messing with gifts my dad said go and put his hi-fi on. Walked into the dining room and on top of the hi-fi is a bunch of unopened presents and also an old TV of my grandads. Ripped open the biggest one and there in all its glory was my brand new Speccy 48K. The rest of the presents were some games - stuff like Gobbleman, 3D Quadracube and the crowning-glory, Jetpac.
After setup first went on the Horizons tape and I had a jolly couple of hours messing with that. Then about 10am I loaded Jetpac - so that is my first ever game (that I count anyway). I played and played and played that game until I was forced to come off it to have some dinner. Wolfed that down and was straight back on Jetpac for more hours.
Then at tea time my mum handed me another bulky-ish present. Inside was a cassette holder crammed full of copied games - C15s, C-60s - at least 20 cassettes. My dad had got a young work colleague (Lee Tucker of West Bromwich, Sandwell area, if you ever read this I owe you many, many beers) who was a young gamer to make copies of loads of his games (this is why I ended up with a Speccy rather than a Vic-20). The Hobbit, Atic Atac, Tranz Am, 4D Time Gate are just some of the gems I can remember. I played on that computer until about 2am until I collapsed from exhaustion.
That day began a life long obsession with computing and gaming.
The previous Christmas my cousin (same age) had a ZX81 (no Rampack) and when we visited on Boxing Day I was absolutely fascinated with it. I couldn't believe how much fun they were. Over the next year I dropped less-than-subtle hints to my parents and scoured the Argos catalogue dreaming of having a computer. I wasn't dreaming about the Speccy or the ZX81 - but a Vic-20 that only 10 year old me could answer why now.
Cut to Christmas Day and I flew downstairs at some ungodly hour and started ripping things open. There was an extreme look of amusement on my Mum and Dad's faces. Present after present, no computer, opened one present and it was one of those "50 Games To Type In" books. Fair play to my mum's presence of mind here but she snatched it off me and said "oops, that was supposed to be in Dan's (cousin) Christmas box". Opened up everything left and no computer.
I can't remember how stroppy I was, being a kid probably very, but I was never really an ungrateful little turd. After about half an hour of messing with gifts my dad said go and put his hi-fi on. Walked into the dining room and on top of the hi-fi is a bunch of unopened presents and also an old TV of my grandads. Ripped open the biggest one and there in all its glory was my brand new Speccy 48K. The rest of the presents were some games - stuff like Gobbleman, 3D Quadracube and the crowning-glory, Jetpac.
After setup first went on the Horizons tape and I had a jolly couple of hours messing with that. Then about 10am I loaded Jetpac - so that is my first ever game (that I count anyway). I played and played and played that game until I was forced to come off it to have some dinner. Wolfed that down and was straight back on Jetpac for more hours.
Then at tea time my mum handed me another bulky-ish present. Inside was a cassette holder crammed full of copied games - C15s, C-60s - at least 20 cassettes. My dad had got a young work colleague (Lee Tucker of West Bromwich, Sandwell area, if you ever read this I owe you many, many beers) who was a young gamer to make copies of loads of his games (this is why I ended up with a Speccy rather than a Vic-20). The Hobbit, Atic Atac, Tranz Am, 4D Time Gate are just some of the gems I can remember. I played on that computer until about 2am until I collapsed from exhaustion.
That day began a life long obsession with computing and gaming.
ZX Spectrum Reviews REST API: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/