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Winner Announcement: Ben Heck's Portable ZX Spectrum!

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element14's The Ben Heck Show

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Congratulations to and !

 

You have been selected as winners of Ben's ZX Spectrum Portable!

 

 

 

 

We're giving away two Portable ZX Spectrum builds from the Ben Heck Show.  Tell us what the ZX Spectrum means to you in the comments below for a chance to win.

 

The ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit personal computer from Sinclair Research Ltd., is a beloved retro computer from the 80s. While it didn't gain a lot of traction outside of the UK, especially in places where it was undercut by the Commodore 64, it did more to define British gaming culture than any dedicated gaming console. Much like the color used in Apple's old logo, the word Spectrum highlights the machine's color display.

 

Since launch, over 24,000 software titles have been released for the ZX. Not including clones, it sold in excess of 5 million units worldwide.

 

 

 

{gallery} ZX Spectrum Slideshow

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In 1983, the video game bubble formed during the golden age of gaming burst as the market became flooded with too many consoles and poorly designed games. Atari, the most popular video game console before the crash, reported $537 million in losses for 1983. Atari had the dubious distinction of releasing the poster child for this era when it rushed to market the highly anticipated E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game. It's widely regarded as one of the worst games ever and is frequently cited as a contributing factor to the video game crash of 1983. The game was so bad, all remaining unsold versions of it got buried in the New Mexico desert.

 

Around the time dedicated gaming consoles became widely regarded as a passing fad, home computer gaming continued to thrive. Low cost machines like the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum proved to be popular alternatives to dedicated gaming consoles.  While it didn't have the same impact outside the UK, its influence on gaming in the UK is undeniable. In its day, a British game publisher would develop for the ZX Spectrum and begrudgingly port to other machines later.

 

 

The low cost of the machine, a catalog including thousands of games, and cheap distribution of games thanks to cassette tapes factored into its continuous popularity in the UK. The ZX Spectrum was widely adopted as a gaming platform despite its lack of built-in joystick ports, primitive sound generation, and color support that was not optimized for text display.

 

Ben Heck's ZX Spectrum Part 1
Ben Heck's Portable ZX Spectrum Part 2
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Enjoy games on the ZX Spectrum? 

 

Tell us what the ZX Spectrum means to you.

 

If you were influenced by the ZX Spectrum let us know what makes the ZX Spectrum special.  Tell us about what games you enjoyed or what made the system stand out. Feel free to share images, an achievement such as a high score, or anything you can think of related to the ZX Spectrum.

 

If you haven't had a chance to experience the ZX Spectrum then feel free talk about a rival system such as the Commodore 64 instead.

 

 

Directions:

Step 1:  Log in or register on element14, it's easy and free.

Step 2: Post in the comments section below and share your experience with the ZX Spectrum. Videos, pictures and text are all welcomed forms of submission.

Step 3:  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!  We will accept entries until 3:00pm CDT Aug 1st, 2016 and announce our winner August 5th 2016. If you need something to do between now and then make sure to check out what is happening This week on element14 Community, or watch more Ben at element14.com/TBHS.

Attachments:
imageGiveaway_TC.pdf

  • Never had a ZX spectrum, never even operated one, because I was born after it's time. But my dad used to have a ZX 81 and told me about it. I am looking forward to getting my hands on ZX 81 or a ZX spectrum one day, to be able to write some code in basic on it, to experience programing like it was back then.

  • Unfortunately I have never been able to fully experience the zx spectrum as I have only emulated it on my psp which is less than perfect as it has no keyboard and I quickly found out unlike commodore 64 games don't usually default or even use joysticks

     

    At this point I am tired of emulation

     

    I originally stayed away from the spectrum just because of the colours of the games but after loading up manic miner I found out that other than the worst ever menu song the game was really great!

     

    The reason the zx spectrum portable is so cool is because it is the closest thing to a commodore 64 which in my opinion is the best system of all time with old ms-DOS and of course the zx spectrum not far behind with great games such as stunt car racer, exile, mayhem in monsterland and a homebrew called super bread box you should really check out

     

    Oh and by the way a portable commodore 64 has to be made on the show!

     

    The only questions I have about the portable zx spectrum Is how long the batteries would last and would I be able to load a spectrum tape off my walkman just for fun

  • We never had a ZX Spectrum, but in the late 1980 my dad had owned two MSX machines. A Philips MSX and a Sony MSX2 ( or vice versa.. I don't know). I couldn't remember much of it, because I was at a very young age. I can only remember that I've once played a game on such an machine back then. My first owned computer was an 486 PC with 16MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive at an age of five.

     

    I've started to show interest in older systems since I've tried my grandfather's 386 PC (picture below)in my teenage years. That system wasn't been used for a long time since my grandfather's death.

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    Any possibility for an portable version of an MSX system in upcoming shows? image

  • I was born many years after this and such computers went out of style but watching videos about people playing these consoles is one of the things I spend the most time on.

  • Im from the UK and moved down from London when I was 5 to live in the seaside town of Poole, where, at my new school I met a dear friend of now 26 years, who was also in to computers, I had an Amiga 500 and he had the ZX and I always felt a little bit more superior because of that, we would both go to each others houses and play each other computers and to this day he still loves the ZX. We started building a Pi3 based arcade machine together and have now one each, but it seems like this project is over and I would love to give this ZX handheld to him, in the hopes that that will inspire him to think of new things for us both to make, here's to hoping image
    Thank you Ben Heck for these amazing videos! They are always inspiring me.
    Thanks again. Dan

  • Well I was born too late to get a ZX Spectrum whet they where sold, but I'm fascinated by old computer/console technology !! I have an Apple ][ and two Redstone computers at home, on which I learn and try to understand how people did back in the days with the equipment they had ^^

  • For many years i have always adored the ZX Spectrum. I have used it for years and still use it sometimes. I love the ZX Spectrum.

  • I never had the opportunity to experience the zed x. I was playing with a commodore 64 and later a tandy at the time.  Someday maybe I'll get the chance.

  • I love The ZX Spectrum I got my first one at a garage sale recently and I've done corruptions on it and I would love to have a more portable version of it.

  • Unfortunately I didn't have a ZX Spectrum in the 80's, but i did have a Videoton TV-Computer. It is a Hungarian 8-bit home computer. Is specs are similar to the Speccy's but they are not compatible. However some titles (for example Heartland, Deflektor, Elite) were ported from similar platforms, often from ZX-Spectrum. This porting was binary-only. Crazy stuff...

     

    Ported games were annoyingly slower, than the original, because the slowe CPU (3.125 MHz) and the less effective video-RAM organization. (With one byte you can modify 8 pixels on the Specy, but just 4 pixels on the TVC.)

     

    Btw I still have this old computer and with a friend we have made a series of Youtube videos about it. It is in Hungarian...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmmmWkz0xok

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U96pwfWHzGc