First console my brother played - ZX Spectrum

hey little one I'm Jazz chicken and today we will be going further into the past and looking at a console that's older than your parents this one is my brother's first console and one I would eventually play in years to come although technically it's not a console it's a home computer and its name was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum this is the ZX Spectrum a small very cheap computer that's found its way into more homes in Britain than any other now there are many many games designed for the ZX but not many quite like this one ever since some real life insects sabotage an early computer the word bug has been used to mean a problem in a program this wickedly clever little game shows what bug are all about the sentences you see are the lines of a real computer program each flashing letter marks a gap in the program micromouse is out to plug those gaps bug monsters try and walk all over him and frequently succeed there's just one letter left to fit in Go on p Go For It Go on p once the Letter's in the program's complete and it tells the computer to do something spectacular this ingenious and educational game is called micromouse goes debugging it's from MC lth laan and runs on the Z x [Music] b good hey now as opposed to one-arm Bandits and such like computer games don't normally try and make you think that you might actually win a lot of money from them but this next one not only deludes you into thinking that you've got 200 pounds but it then promptly takes it all straight back again this cheeky chaffie is honest Clive the bookmaker any resemblance to Clive Sinclair the inventor of the spectrum computers is purely deliberate you're Off to the Races you've got2 200 in your pocket and it's time to place your bets there's my AAG on the far side at number two Mr spit believe me my sons this one is a dead sirt Grand National is an unusual and exciting game from computer rentals up to five players can play and you can make the odds on the horses longer shorter or make them up it runs on the ZX Spectrum come on Mr spit go on look at him go he's catching the leader come on Mr spit come on come on nag a particularly atmospheric and absorbing game is called the skull you find yourself in a strange three-dimensional maze dotted with shimmering gold pieces green crosses and bronze coins you move on to these Treasures to pick them up and the idea is to collect as much treasure and points as you can without losing your lives oh and try and watch out for the trap doors the colorful and creepy skull is from games machine it runs on the 48k Spectrum and will be out soon for the Commodore 64 and other Home computers one thing to remember is that the skull can be deadly it's very hard to put your finger on computer games they're a bit like films they're usually fun to watch they're a bit like books there's usually some sort of plot to unravel they owe a lot to board games but they owe a lot more to Fairgrounds mazes and age-old puzzles they're something new and they're extremely hard to classify I mean what on Earth would you call anything as completely barmy as this this is the amazing manic Miner on assumingly impossible Quest The Miner has to dodge and outwit all kinds of loony nasties such as poisonous pansies those rabid toilet pans and of course the mutant telephones mutant telephones well manic Miner is a gamer's game full of weird in jokes it's also a sequence of brain teasing tests each an ace computer game in its own right and every now and then you get a terrible sinking feeling as the floor crumbles beneath you this wickedly clever game gives you three lives and at the end of your third life you get the boot manic Miner is from software projects and is available on the Commodore 64 and the zedex [Music] Spectrum for spectrum Sinclair [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] right pay attention bond this is the Sinclair ZX Spectrum plus 2 it's a fully operational computer with 128k memory but it comes with three James Bond games and a light gun that fires armor piercing shells now that's your assignment no no don't sit in that chair sorry Bond haven't perfected that yet the sinair ZX Spectrum plus two the new sinair Plus with buil-in disc drive £99 Sinclair plus 2 £139 both with free joystick and six free [Music] games once upon a time there were three bears the Three Bears lived in the wood learning box is a new exciting series of computer programs Kevin to help your child start reading and Counting get your child ready for school with learning box Rasputin from Firebird every software housee is jumping on the 3D isometric graphic bandwagon but none have been able to produce multi-action screens until now the playability and beautifully recreated playing area will make you come back time and time again to Rasputin one of Firebirds new hot range if your micro has joined the skateboard and hula hoop up in the attic now is the time to get it down dust it off and do something creative with it like making music even the Spectrum with its limited sound facilities can make a good noise provided you've got the right add-on this here is the specrum which comes from Cheetah it costs 29 95 and at the moment it's only available from boots it plugs into the expansion Port here at the back and it does need an amplifier you see there's no onboard speaker well you've just heard one of the 11 Rhythm patterns supplied as part of the software but the fun part is building up your own patterns to do that I select P from this menu page here and now I've got a choice I can either code the beats in one at a time along These Bars bit academic that or I can play it in real time which I prefer to do so real time now I've got eight different drums here to play with there's a kick which is a bass drum snare tomtom's cell high hat and so on uh and I think I'll start off with the the kick that's the sensible one so write that now it's got two bars there which it's remembered and it keeps playing them back to me and I can alter that if I if I want to but no I'm quite happy with it so I think I can add a snare on top of that here we go [Music] a bit bit messy but never mind I could tidy it up later on now I'll add something on top of that a bit of cowbell there that's voice [Music] five right it'll remember that lot I could build up more tracks if I want to you probably noticed that to a certain extent it's tidied up what I've done so you don't really need to be a drummer at all to use it in fact it's rather like a word processor for drums you can build up sequences as long and as complex as you like at the moment this is only available for the Spectrum but they are hoping to bring out a version for the amstrad early next year well yes thank you very much Ringo I couldn't find many television ads for the Sinclair but the ZX Spectrum was released in the UK on April 1982 5 years before the Sega Master System and although they are both 8bit systems it's amazing how games and systems evolved within a short short space of time it is said that the Spectrum was one of the most influential computers ever made and also one of the best selling of all time selling a whopping 5 million units however growing up I never met anyone who had even heard of the zedx spectrum let alone owned one it's only now that I'm able to browse the internet can I see its dedicated fan base from the Retro Gaming Community but even then you would rely see anyone choose to live stream Spectrum games which for me I think is actually a shame cuz there are a lot of good ones on there to be fair though with the wide array of retro games and consoles I can see why the zedx Spectrum has become more of an acquired taste with Gamers today on the day of launch there were two types of spectrums being sold one with a mere 16 kiloby of ram was shockingly sold for £ 1225 the other option was a spectrum with 48 Koby of RAM for £175 a year later in 1983 they decided to lower the price the 16 kilobyte system dropped to 99 lb and the 48 kiloby system dropped to 129 lb today in 2024 the 16 Koby Spectrum would cost anywhere from £30 to £ 1,249 99p this one looks to have been modded so it's no longer like the original vintage version the 48 kiloby Spectrum however is anywhere between £6 and 26p to 2,345 99p you could buy 144 Spectrum for that price the Spectrum was designed by a small team in Cambridge located in the east of England and was created by Sir Clive Sinclair that's right he's a sir Queen Elizabeth must have loved the zed Spectrum too because in 1983 one year after its release sir cve Sinclair was knited sadly he has since passed away 3 years ago in September 2021 the reason it was called the Spectrum was to highlight the machine's color display which differed from its predecessor at the time the zx81 now you may be wondering hey Jazz where's the console all I see is a keyboard well what if I told you the keyboard is the console right so where do you put the CDs well this is 1982 C DS had not been invented yet all right so where does the cartridge go a good question the cartridges were not used either you'd be right to think it though as video game cartridges were invented in 1976 all right Jazz stop stalling how do you play the games Zex Spectrum games ran on cassette tapes the same product used to listen to music and record messages at the same time like radio shows and podcasts like we did when we were children some models of the spectrum had a cassette player built into the keyboard but the one we had came with a separate cassette player dedicated to playing Spectrum games we tried putting a music tape in it into it a few times but all that happened was that it made a horrible screeching sound like some kind of screaming computer language you know that old cheesy mixtape your mom made growing up well maybe not your mom little one but for anyone who's listening out there any of you that have parents who who own mixtapes what if I told you her cassette was hiding a broken save file of a spectrum game it was possible to record and save your game on any cassette tape but for us it never actually worked it would record onto it fine but trying to load that save file it would never work no matter how much you adjust the volume yep you heard me correctly in order to load a game successfully each game needed to be loaded on a specific volume some some needed the cassette player to be loud While others were quiet all our games had Bits of Paper in their cases to remind us what volume to use without it you need to be pretty dedicated to load a game everyone today you you all get so upset when something takes close to a minute to load oh back in the day eh you youngsters well the ZX Spectrum would often take anywhere between 4 minutes to half an hour to load so you got no right to complain depending if you had it on the correct volume that is if you didn't it would take even longer let me show you a little comparison to give you a better idea here is how you would load a PC game today in 2024 [Music] [Music] here is a PS5 CD game PS4 the PS3 two and one sometimes when the PlayStation is not working you have to turn it upside down in order for the disc to actually work with the NES you put in the cartridge and then you have to actually push it down for it to work me driver Mass system the original Mass system had a little card slot for the older Sega games and here is the ZX Spectrum to load a game you would first insert the cassette and close the case all right so far so good make sure to rewind the cassette though if you've played it last otherwise it's not going to work ah okay the tape has come out and it's a little chewed up in the player all right so carefully remove the cassette make sure you don't break the tape get a pencil or a pen right and now you got to shove it in one of the holes and then twist it back but twist it very carefully and slowly so you don't twisted up tangled and you know messed up make sure it's all nice and flat okay and once that's done perfect put the cassette back in and Rewind adjust the game volume or make a guess what number you need if the game's booklet doesn't even tell you which they often didn't press the load key on the keyboard which is J followed by holding the shift button and then pressing P twice if done correctly the system will begin a series of long beeps followed by short beeps followed by screeching sounds followed by beeps to get the full experience I've left the game's loading time unedited for you I have however split it in YouTube though if you wish to skip it eventually it will show the game title and then soon after it will begin to print the front cover of the game on the TV screen if it all worked well then it would eventually stop and music would begin that's e e e e e the game loaded huzzah what ah now I got to do it again okay tweak the volume fingers crossed almost there okay tweak the volume you know what let's just whack it up to just under full not quite Max but just a little bit under all right how's the plug doing oh okay the plug is getting very hot that could be another cause for it to plunk yeah as a kid we never said that you know the system crashed we always said that it plunked okay so let's wrap some ice in a towel place it over the plug socket it's not an electrical Hazard at all is it h let's try again J shift PP [Music] PP how I go make a cup of tea while I wait oh a man again I only knocked the keyboard a little bit a For Heaven's Sake okay let's check everything again all right everything should be fine now it's possibly the correct volume cables are fine plug is cooling down and I'm away from the keyboard is it will it load huzzah it loaded I've been wanting to play this for [Music] ages no obviously I'm exaggerating a little but on a bad day it was a bit like pulling teeth out to get a game to load and work properly do you know with the very first zedx Spectrum consoles released or home computer there were some known issues with the Sinclair power supplies it was declared that 28,000 of them could cause electrical shocks the fault was down to the two 240 volt input track on the power pack circuit board which ran far too close to the 6V output meaning that a power spike in very humid weather could result in electrical shock Sinclair was quick on the ball with this though as he had the systems recalled fixed and restocked within 48 Hours the graphics are simple sure with only a few colors on display which often Splash into each other unsurprisingly a lot of Gamers today hate how it looks but for me I absolutely love it it it gives the game a very unique design and nowadays a strong sense of nostalgia whenever I see a spectrum game or a game with a similar style I I just I I'm a I'd become a kid again I I just love it the music and sound effects can be very primitive though so I agree with that you know with its beep it bleeps and its boops some games I mean they don't even have sound leaving the game very quiet the sound however did not come out of the cassette player but out of the keyboard instead and although it's your everyday quiry style keyboard simply known for the first few Keys the q w e r t and Y the keyboard itself was very confusing to use especially if you wanted to program your own video games that's right if you you owned a ZX Spectrum then you had the means to design and build your own video games and programs you just needed to understand the keyboard and how to input commands other YouTube creators will explain this way better than I so if interested I'd recommend searching other zedx Spectrum videos about how the keyboard is used as there are multiple functions for every key and I'm not even joking one thing I find funny though was how TV adverts of spectrum games would basically hide the game from you while saying how realistic and state-of-the-art it was welcome to match day the exciting new soccer game from Ocean blistering 3D action for your spectrum computer it's a corner oh there's a scramble and this could be trouble for the keeper it's a goal develop your football skills against the computer or in a challenging knockout competition and don't miss Ocean's other Christmas blockbusters chart topping daily Thompson to kathin and the spectacular Mega Venture gift from the gods ocean top of the league for computer software Sinclair's new ZX Spectrum action pack has a powerful 128k home computer a joystick six very different games and a deadly accurate light gun keep keep on running running keep on hiding keep on [Music] running that'll keep those Droids on the run the new slear action pack puts the zap back into computers I did also find some magazine and newspaper articles this one new Spectrum launch a spectrum with a real keyboard as opposed to a fake one I guess has been released by Sinclair research the new Spectrum sells for £179 95p I think this is the Spectrum plus one and includes a new manual with color diagrams and six items of software including tazwood 2 Scrabble checkered flag and v3d Sir Clive Sinclair says the product is aimed squarely at potential buyers of the Commodore 64 market research showed people thought the Spectrum was a better computer but preferred the commodor 64 because of its keyboard the decision to launch the package without advanced publicity was taken because of criticism over the handling of the ql launch we wanted to make absolutely sure the Spectrum plus was in the shops when it was launched says sir Clive oh that's his voice I guess otherwise nobody would have believed us and here is a Dixon's advertising greatest ever computer deals there's the Atari price crash and Spectrum plus complete outfit comes free with 10 pack of spectrum games worth 8350 comes free with the uh the tape deck so you can play the games I hope so otherwise what's the point you won't be able to play anything uh it also comes with that image makes it look like a dildo but it's actually a joystick £17.99 and all together they're selling it for £13 £39 99p uh I thought this little article was interesting they actually uh the Sinclair people worked alongside possum controls so they could create uh the Spectrum and make it usable for disabled people uh so anyone with disability was able to use the Spectrum as well this one was a little magazine article 170 plus Spectrum games free Post Service free catalog with our first order and I actually took the time to calculate all of these games that are on screen and apparently there's loads more so all those on screen now came to the cost of £490 78p if you're willing to send that to them they'll give you the catalog and every one of those games but I guess You' have to spend over £500 if you want all all of the games that you know that they they're giving away and if you did buy all of those games you could get 2 off so worth it cuz you got three C you got three or more cassettes if you got two or more cassettes you got one pound of so if you spend over 500 they'll go okay we we'll give you two off oh joy and then lastly Saturday's child Saturday's child plays hard for its living it little girls muck out stables for pleasure what manual workers spend long hours of leisure laboring in their Gardens millionaires with no need to work at all feel deprived without a telephone at hand and an office at the other end and children play with computers so what a little girl doesn't count as a child what archetypal symbols of bureaucratic routine under the impact of technology the concept of work is changing it's changed before and sometimes dramatically but this time the change is Sensational steam multiplied muscle but computers multiply thought which is why computers affect not merely the quantity of work but its quality much of the deadening drudgery we used to call work disappeared uh the more information we have and the more sophisticated the use we make of it the more exciting and effective our decisions and actions become information technology has a long and benign history the computer the telephone the telegraph the printing press the invention of writing itself all of them multiplied the immediate availability of information all of them led to increased prosperity and Universal Improvement in the standard of living studies show for example that in country after country growth that was a weird sentence in telephones per capita is followed and matched by growth in G&P whatever that means n uh porn so followed and matched by growth in green new porn the effect of computers will surely be even greater if it is Britain will be grateful to Sinclair research since 1980 Sinclair has been selling zx80 zx81 and ZX Spectrum home computers over a million of them so far as a result Britain has the highest number of computers per head in the world Saturday's child in the picture is too young to grasp the distinction between work and play for his children the distinction May simply have disappeared well I can say it hasn't it's the distinction is still pretty much the same oh yes and I had actually I was trying to find ZX Spectrum stuff and I actually found the zx81 I found little article about it 1K zx81 adult games can of worms fed up with the same old 1K games we are forget the kid stuff get stuck into our grown-up games for Jaded Minds all original animated graphics Exquisite bad taste not for the screamish amazing games such as acne squeeze horrible pimples before they infest your face uglier than in and more satisfying or how about that amazing game Royal Flush unblock the palace sewer successfully or it's brown alert and do you remember that amazing game for sick to me at the mercy of a shortsighted drunken surgeon or how about the classic Hitler infurious my fur stuff a whoopy cushion under his seat it's a gas that sounds like the most boring game ever but if these games are boring you've got smut limmerick prayer poetry in motion smart is that is or does I can't really read the image is a bit blurry and I'm saying smut is a creative writer use your own imagination and then another this one I don't why is this a game rean old Ronald dyes his hair but the gray keeps keeps on growing help him out before he starts a war you need to dye his hair otherwise he's going to start a war and kill people cuz his hair's gone gray makes perfect sense PE E's and q's unbelievably pathetic this one really does dredge the depths of bad taste why do they even advertise it if it's really bad it's like this one's crap play it and then you have doll uh what is doll election day looms unemployment and inflation rising and your majority falling over you over to you okay that one doesn't really tell you anything about the game but there you go there you have it that's all we got time for for today so thank you for coming in and learning about the zedx Spectrum it was a system that I grew up with and I got a a nice little fond place of the the system and its games in my heart although I did play after recording this I did play some games again and I was like why did I like this some some of the games I used to enjoy I'm like like wow this is actually not that great but I guess as a kid you know you have a more open mind you don't care but anyway thanks again everyone and thank to you little one as well uh remember to stay in school um give your dad uh a slap on the back um make sure you feed nuts to squirrels and I will catch you cool cats later bye [Music]

Channel: Jazz Chicken

Views: 330

Keywords: Sinclair, zx spectrum, speccy, retro, jazz chicken, sir clive sinclair

Id: 5Fs5Ux49UK8

Length: 38min 10sec (2290 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2024