Winner Announcement: Ben Heck's Portable ZX Spectrum!

I got my first spectrum for my 10th birthday in 1984, I was a bit surprised as I'd asked for some A-team toys. Luckily my Mum and Dad decided to introduce me to the world of Home computing instead, which I am glad they did!.

If I remember correctly in England we had mainly had the choice of the Sinclair Spectrum, the Commodore 64 or if you were a bit weird the Amstrad 464 (I'm sure other systems were available but you had to look for them). Once I had gotten used to Sinclair basic I had fun learning some basic programming skills although like most kids at the time I mostly used it for games (They were a lot cheaper in those days, a budget game would be 1 or 2 pounds) or hacking into games (to either change them so you couldn't get killed or to just see how the program worked). After amassing a collection of games, a couple of years later I got the +2 spectrum with 128k memory and a decent sound chip. It was also a wonderful computer although the games that were optimised for the extra memory took ages to load (10-15 minutes!).

Although I moved onto the Amiga in 1991 I kept all my spectrum stuff (Games, magazines you name it!) and 32 years later I am still very fond of it and will never get rid of it.

By the way, we mainly called it a speccie in England (We never really bothered with the ZX bit). So don't have to worry about calling it a Zee X spectrum! (We weren't all offended, I thought it was quite funny!).

Best of luck everyone!

Well, I probably have a story like thousands.

From my early teens I looked at electricity and thought that it was great. This is what I wanted to work with when I grew up. An older friend of the family sold my father a zx. I was in heaven but did not have talent for programming. So instead I had to learn harder on everything. Later I became an electrician in Holland, where I live. I owned loads of computers and stuff but never, NEVER received the same satisfaction like when I typed in my first FOR k......NEXT k..... and saw my name slide 100 times over  the CRT!

It was not a big thing in holland like in the UK, but for me it WAS a big thing. It changed MY world. And thats what counts, does it not?

Was I influenced by the Spectrum?  Going to school in the Southwest of England during the 80's was a nightmare, my friends and I would attend school not knowing if we would be alive at the end of the day, not knowing if and when the 'Spectrum kids' would ambush and attack us 'Commodore Kids' in the playground.  Yes blood would flow and the odd bone would break all in the name of who had the better Computer System; but I can look back now at those days with a warm feeling inside and smile on my face, so yes I was indeed influenced by the ZX Spectrum.

I still have my spectrum and it still works, my favourite games were the Horace series plus jetpac. I remember getting a magazine and programming in the games they supplied then having to go through it all when it didn't work to make sure I'd typed it correctly. It taught me patience and kept me out of my mums way for hours.

ZX SPECTRUM, NEVER HEARD OF IT!

I was fortunate to play the ZX Spectrum visiting a friend in England one time, and I wished that it had been more popular in the states, as I was not a huge fan of a lot of PC games in the 80s, but I would've definitely had a great time with this device if I even knew it existed back then.

After watching  a lot of guru Larry and ashen I see why a lot of people loved this system. It is a hidden gem that we never got over here.. it reminds me of my first computer experience with the Atari 400. though they did get stuck with some quirky ports of games. So want to try robocop on that system.

Growing up in the States, I did not have exposure to the Spectrum, but my first computer was the Spectrum's little brother, the Timex Sinclair 1000. It had a horrific membrane keyboard that decided when to register a keypress seemingly at random, a painfully monochromatic display that could be described as grey and slightly less grey, and extremely sensitive audio IO to a cassette recorder where if you didn't set the volume perfectly either wouldn't load the game or worse wouldn't save hours of work keying in a program... but I loved it! I taught myself to program with it at a young age and won two gold medals in my town's "computer olympics" when I was still in grade school, beating out non-age-separated highschool and community college students, and sparking a life long interest in technology of all kinds and a desire to build my own programs and electronic projects to this day... all thanks to that stubborn little bit of plastic with all its quirks and 16k of memory (that is IF you had the relatively huge expansion cart!). Thanks for bringing back the memories!

As an American I had never heard of the ZX Spectrum growing up, what a sham. My brother in law is British and I've listened to him wax nostalgic about it many time. We tried looking for it a few times in his mom's storage with no luck. I should try and find him one, he'll drive the kids crazy with it...

  While I cannot relate to the memories of yesteryear, as so many here have warmly shared, I would like to create some new memories with this. I have been composing .MODs for many years, and would one-day love to put some of my music into a commercial video game. So rather than this simply being a cool piece of art, I should like to install Chip Tracker and create a few tracks with this so that I might share the fruits of your labour with everyone else. =) Aesthetically, I really appreciate this because it feels like something that would have come from the early 80s or late 70s, given modern technology whilst maintaining the style of the period. When I make the time to compose something, I need to feel a particular mood to be able to hammer something out - and this beauty sets a mood of anticipation; veneered wood panels, orange suede chairs, and enough Aqua Net to create a useful skateboard helmet.

  I had always fancied the computers of the 80s, though my family never could have afforded one, and this makes me feel like I can make-up for that lost experience and no longer feel envy towards my buddy's cassette-driven Atari.

Thanks, awesome work, and much respect to whomever does end up with this!