How long have you been part of the Speccy Retro Scene?

[Daveysloan]

Lost interest in about 1990 when I got my Megadrive.

Rekindled my interest in about 1996 when I discovered the internet and emulators, haven't looked back since. (or have kept looking back I suppose! )

[firelord]

If WOS registration means something, I joined July 2005. I was using emulators long before that . I remember I was "browsing" the forums long before I registered.

I think the first emulator I used was JPP.

Before the internet I stopped using the real spectrum when I got my Amiga. The mebrane stopped working and it was difficult/expensive to to find a shop to fix it. My spectrum is still not fixed but I have found some local spectrum enthusiasts that might help me.

[Lee Bee]

My timeline…

1986 Got my Speccy +2 and enjoyed it for 6 solid years
1992 Got my Amiga, but still continued to play (and make) Speccy games for another 3 years
1996 Went off to uni, started using Mac and PCs, mostly forgot all about the Speccy

[14 years passed]

2010 Found myself getting quite nostalgic for Spectrum graphics and audio, and playing around with them again
2015 Started watching lots of RZX videos and making lots of AY music
2019 Made my official return to the scene by becoming a regular member here

[stupidget]

Lost interest in about 1990 when I got my Megadrive....

Same here. What surprises me is that I've nowhere near the same level of interest in my MegaDrive (yep, I've still got it) compared to the level I have about Spectrum stuff. I was going to say it must be because I hold so many glorious memories of spectrum games from the 80's, but if that was the true then I'd only be playing old games, and that's not the case as some of the new games are genuinely stunning and far more playable than some games on my PS5.

[Daveysloan]

Same here. What surprises me is that I've nowhere near the same level of interest in my MegaDrive (yep, I've still got it) compared to the level I have about Spectrum stuff. I was going to say it must be because I hold so many glorious memories of spectrum games from the 80's, but if that was the true then I'd only be playing old games, and that's not the case as some of the new games are genuinely stunning and far more playable than some games on my PS5.

Absolutely! A prime example of this is Gluf. Absolutely astonishing achievement on the Speccy & also pretty impressive on the MD. I've played it once on the MD but absolutely loads of times on the Speccy!

[ANDREWRYALS]

I've been around since 1982, thats more than 40 years! I don't think I ever went awat despite going through various Amiga's, consoles, PC's etc. Can't remember my first hack, probably not long after I got my first rubber key speccy. First game(s) I owned was a atic atac/manic miner I also seem to remember having some of the early vortex games. I topped out with a +3 which had a SoftRom, Citizen 120D+ printer and a Multiface 3. Happy days. Now I'm sighted, going bald, and I have the reflexes of a pissed slug (extremely slow), so now I stick to text adventures.

[SteveSmith]

I'm probably the last person to know this, but I didn't realise that comp.sys.sinclair is actually still going (under Google Groups) and people are still posting to it. https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.sinclair . It seems to have most if not all of the old archive.

I even found the post from August 1995 where I announce that the Spectrum Games Database that I started already has a massive *6* entries! And if you wanted them, I had to email them to you, until I could organise ftp access. Ah, simpler days...

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.si ... -w9i9gDWEJ

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I even found the post from August 1995 where I announce that the Spectrum Games Database that I started already has a massive *6* entries! And if you wanted them, I had to email them to you, until I could organise ftp access. Ah, simpler days...

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.si ... -w9i9gDWEJ

Ah, the Spectrum Games Database, very often in the old days! Some included the original instructions and/or useful comments. I loved them.

Nowadays there are still some games with these txt files.

[PeteProdge]

I stuck with the Speccy even when my +2 blew up in 1993, and so got a replacement +2A.

Still, even then as a hardcore Sinclair evangelist, I realised the Spectrum scene, commercially, was going to fade out, just like the machine's former rivals (BBC; Acorn Electron; Dragon 32; MSX, etc). The Amiga and the ST were dominating things by then.

Anyway, when Your Sinclair died, that was really the end, so my move to the Amiga (a platform a lot of my college/school friends had moved to) was imminent. It'd be relatively painless, thanks to a feature in the penultimate YS showing how you could still have a Speccy on your new machine...



Spectrum Emulator v1.2 on my brand new Amiga 1200 was about 80-95% as fast as the real thing and had to remain in 48K, there was no 128K option. Oh, and these are the days of snapshot files, like .z80 and .sna, you wouldn't have .tap and I don't think .tzx had even been invented by then, so it was like when someone made a Multiface'd 'back up' of a game for you. Multiloading games such as Gauntlet, Renegade or Out Run were right out, unless you didn't mind them feeling like a playable demo! This would suffice... for now.

I can't remember if it was the fast RAM upgrade or the eventual progress of Spectrum Emulator v2.0 that enabled me to play Speccy games at their natural speed. And then came along ZXAM, that could handle .tap files! Somewhere along the line there was an emulator that could emulate the 128K models, not sure what it was called.

Anyway, with the Amiga came the ability to hook up to this new-fangled internet thingy via a dial-up modem, and by 1996 I was paying £10+ a month to Demon and a telephone bill of around £70 a month (ouch!) to cable provider ComTel. I was seriously addicted to Usenet, and so I was on comp.sys.sinclair from that time to about 2000, when Sky broadband made it pretty tricky to remain on there (by which time web forums had pretty much taken over).

Conclusion? I haven't really left the Speccy retro scene since having my first Speccy in late 1987.

[dvduk]

Errr - in one capacity or another probably about 40 years?

Probably about 41-42 if you include my ZX81 starter.

[Timmy]

Wow, that's a hard question...

So I looked it up, and it seems Heart Stealer was from 2010. That means more than 10 years ago!

Of course, I have been lurking for many years on css and the old wos forums for many years before being really active in there.

Never felt needing to be active until I figured out how easy it was to make games. That's why it took me much longer than I thought.

The last couple of years were a bit slow, due to some of my health problems. But hopefully it gets better now.