Classic Computers: The Sinclair ZX Spectrum

If you grew up in the United States, you've probably never heard of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but for kids growing up in the Eighties in Britain and most of Europe, this was the home computer par excellence. Released by Sinclair Research in 1982, the Spectrum was the third in their ZX series of 'micros' (as the industry charmingly called computers in those pre IBM-PC days), and it sparked a wave of programming and gaming that still has repercussions today.

The design was radically different from other home computers of the time, which invariably resembled the Commodore 64 or VIC-20: A beige or tan plastic box about twice the size of a modern PC keyboard. The Spectrum was tiny in comparison, about a quarter of the size, incredibly compact, and with a rubberized 'chiclet' style keyboard that would be incredibly hard to get used to nowadays. And it was very tough and reliable. A friend of mine dropped his and watched it bounce down every step of a staircase; not only did it still work, it didn't even notice. If they make, say, a laptop that can stand that sort of thing nowadays, I'd very much like one.

The Spectrum was my very first home computer. I was twelve when I got one in 1984, and I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say it changed my life. The Spectrum's specs look laughable nowadays -16Kb of RAM (48Kb if you bought the deluxe version), 16 colours, although trying to use more than two of them in the same 8-bit sprite would make the colour bleed everywhere, sound provided by a digital watch speaker... And I just didn't care. No-one who owned one did. For one thing, that was state of the art in those days. No-one knew any better.

For another, what people did with those puny specs was incredible. For nearly everyone who owned a Spectrum, this was their first exposure to a computer of any kind, and it was common for games and software to be written by one person, in their bedroom or spare room. An explosion of creativity took place not unlike the boom that occurred when the World Wide Web came in in the nineties; a lot of people became very rich overnight. Some of the companies that started as software houses for the Spectrum still exist today: Psion, who originally wrote versions of chess and scrabble for the Spectrum eventually became one of the leading hardware and PDA companies in the UK, and Rareware, famous for a string of incredibly popular games for various Nintendo consoles, started out as 'Ultimate: Play The Game', turning out games for the Spectrum in a back room in Ashby de la Zouch.

Part of the popularity of the Spectrum, I suspect, was the ease one could get hold of software for it. Stores everywhere stocked games for them, which sold for anything from 1.99-9.99 GBP, and they were loaded onto standard audio cassette tapes. Approximately eight minutes after the launch of the Spectrum, it occurred to someone that hey, if I hooked two tape recorders together...

Piracy was rife.I remember half the kids at school carried list of games they had around with them, and swaps were conducted. Social clubs and bars held copying nights, were folks dragged their Spectrums and a portable TV to a rented room and copied each other's tapes. It was uncannily like the bit torrent communities of today, only with far more heavy lifting involved..

The Spectrum remained popular through most of the eighties, going through a series of sleeker, less rubbery-keyed incarnations, before it was eventually eased out of the market by the advent of the sixteen bit home computers like the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST. There remains to this day a strong emulator community, however, notably at www.worldofspectrum.org, where many of the original games, and emulators to run them, are available with the permission of their creators.

For my own part, I'll always have a soft spot for the 'speccy'. It was the computer I'd ever owned, and the first video game system I'd had beyond the mock wood panelled Atari VCS consoles of the seventies. I've many fond memories of the games of the time, and a nagging suspicion I spent way too much playing them instead of actually studying or anything. Still, I'm sure it makes for better nostalgic childhood memories. It may also be nostalgia, but I remember games somehow being more inventive and creative back then. Perhaps it was the newness of the genre, and nothing seemed jaded. Perhaps with the limitations of the Spectrum, more thought was put into pushing the limits of gameplay, or more time was spent on the game mechanics than flashy graphics. Or perhaps it was because they were generally being created by one person's vision, instead of a committee like most games companies nowadays. Either way, the era of the ZX Spectrum is of a kind we're unlikely to see again.