Spectrum Next - First Look | The Retro Shed

that's nice in there to look kind of cool does that might look really really cool you ready how many years for three that that do become so tender between 1982 and 1983 some of us would have opened a very special box indeed it was magical and of course it meant the world to us it was of course the ZX spectrum home computer 37 years later I opened another box last weekend an equally special box because it contains a brand new ZX Spectrum home computer but is it as magical this time around let's find out [Music] the ZX Spectrum is a much-loved 80s home computer especially here in the UK of that there is no doubt over five million of these little machines were sold across this entire model range and retro gamers love it to bits to this day now for those of you who don't know in April 2017 it was announced on Kickstarter that a new enhanced update in a more powerful spectrum was going to be made called the spectrum next it was to be fully backwards compatible with the original spectrum but with a host of new features such as new graphics modes faster CPU speeds more RAM HDMI and VGA outputs an SD memory card slot Wi-Fi module real time clock and a whole lot more the look of the computer itself was going to be designed by its original designer Rick Dickenson who sadly passed away in 2018 before the next was completed it's truly gorgeous and as soon as I saw the campaign I was hooked and backed it immediately pride back a number to 981 now the bare bones were ready in 2018 and began shipping however the case was another matter entirely there have been numerous delays and the cased version has been a real challenge for the team to put together there were too many issues to go into into this video but mainly keyboard problems membrane problems and the actual plastic case itself caused all sorts of production issues and of course it didn't help that the original manufacturer of the case pulled out of the project halfway through but finally last weekend three years later our beautiful cased spectrum next Plus arrived and here it is when I open that box I can honestly say this thing took my breath away it is absolutely gorgeous and I'm just so glad the team pushed and pushed for it to be the perfect product we were all hoping it would be the keyboard itself feels absolutely stunning it's a world away from the original spectrum plus it actually feels like a high-end laptop keyboard and it's an absolute pleasure to type on this thing taking a quick look around the next you can see on the left hand side a reset button drive and nmi buttons and these access certain features and functions on the front we have two standard nightmare atari styled joysticks for those classic old Kemp's and joysticks that you may still have lying around no need to plug in a Kempson joystick interface on the back end those old joysticks plug straight in here on the front on the right hand side there's nothing but this lovely curve decorative edge with the colored inserts rear panel has a nine volt DC socket HDMI port USB ports if you have the expanded version with the PI board still has the ear mic and audio out jacks it's got a VGA port a ps2 port for keyboard and mouse support the spectrum next even supports loading games from tape if you really want to give this a try of course I've not tried it as yet but I do have loads of tapes lying around the shed so I will be giving it a go in a future video the spectrum next is roughly the same size of the spectrum plus although it does sit a little bit flatter the ways presented in its box is gorgeous and you also get this gorgeous spiral-bound manual complete with a futuristic bit of artwork that's a tip of the hat to the original zx81 and spectrum manuals we see here the manual itself is proper old-school and it covers everything from the initial setting up all the different modes and it gets into some serious in-depth stuff I will probably never use but it's great to have it there and I definitely intend to dig it out and have a read through this it would be a shame not to so much time has been put into this manual so all-in-all as a package it's stunning I have to say it is and yes for me the magic was still there opening this box it did feel like 1983 all over again I'm not sure how much endorsement Sir Clive gave to this project but he really should be proud it's got his name on it and it really does feel like a Sinclair spectrum it's definitely a worthy successor to the spectrum lineup so that's enough waffling on about it let's take a look at this thing powered up [Music] if you press based on book you are presented with this configuration screen here so you can use the up and down arrows to choose what configuration you'd like to apply to your spectrum next on boot so you've got next standard next LG 48k rom 48k 128k plus two and plus three versions of the spectrum and of course you've also got zx80 and zx81 emulation built in there as well which is brilliant I've not really had time to dig through the other versions yet and figure out what they are so for the purposes of this I'm just gonna choose the standard next configuration and let it boot up so once the Nexus booted you are presented with its next Z X OS screen and it's a couple of pages of information here if you press the Enter key you can scroll through and read a couple of pages of information or you can you can jump straight in by pressing the spacebar and you're presented with this rather familiar looking menu that we've probably seen before if you're a spectrum plus 2 or plus three owner now there are a number of different options here you've got browser command line next basic calculator and more we go into more what have we got a tape loader CPM mode ROM carts you can load in as well you got 48 K basic versions have a quick look at that we've all seen that before let's try pressing J yep and the old L key commands still work so you just do a load quote quotes and away you go I'm assuming that will allow you to load in from the tape so going into your browser presents you with it's very easy to use and navigate browser menu and this is showing you is your mounted volume so this is the contents of my SD card so if I for example due to my backup folder click games go into next there's some of the the next games that I've got loaded so to load those any of those obviously you just go into the folder and highlight the program that you want to run the browser very easy to use very nicely laid out and makes loading games an absolute pleasure so easy to use so one of the first games I wanted to show you was a particular favorite of mine from my arcade days as a kid and this of course is Konami scrambled was released in 1981 this is currently free to download and it's been coded by rusty pixels mr. Jim Bagley & Co and you can download it from the website the link is below there this is free go and get it it's absolutely brilliant it's absolutely spot-on I mean just look at it it's pixel perfect if I had this as a kid at home I've got nuts for it to be honest with you because obviously there was nothing like this at home to play on we had our versions that could scramble on the various consoles and computers of the time but there's nothing like this the BBC version actually wasn't too bad I think is called planetoid that was quite good and it looked pretty faithful to the original but this this is something else it's free going download it so this is a folder on my SD card that I created and I copied a load of classic spectrum ROM games to the SD card and let me just show you how easy it is to play a classic game so for example let's go into a one of everyone's favorites let's have a look at jet pack and it's ready to go and there you go there's jet pack in all its original glory so it really is easy to play all your old favorites on the next just copy them to a folder on the SD card load up the browser and away you go and of course should you want to put yourself through the pain of loading from tape you can do that as well another original classic favor of - is 3d star strike now this is running on 48k mode we're the clock speed on think it's 3.5 to make it hurt so what I'm gonna do show you what happens when you up the clock speed of the next so if we reboot this [Music] so at the top of the browser there you can see says three point five megahertz I'm just going to up that to seven an awful lot faster still playable I think if I weren't any faster it would be chaos and so there's this 3d star strike running at seven megahertz on the next so let's take a look at some of the new spectrum next games that have been brought out so this is a remake of a classic c64 game war fork and this was one of the first games I played on the next when it was then when it's demoed at revive or a few years ago this game was on the memory card when I unboxed my neck so I assume I don't know for sure but I'm assuming everyone that's bought the next has got this on their memory card if not I think is being released soon anyway so you can just go buy a copy well worth it it's an absolutely brilliant little blaster [Music] [Music] here's another brilliant game backers in space now I played this again at revival about two years ago now and I was sold on the next once I've played this have a look at this this is due out soon as well I think it's pre-orders are being taken right now and it's missing ship anytime soon [Music] this is a classic take on jet pack and it also has elements of the games in there as well a bit like cyber noise as you'll see in a moment [Music] absolutely great little game [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] now here's a game that I bought Oh three years ago it's been knocking around the for years I've been waiting for my next to arrive let me just show you this so you should play that ticket sack back in the day you'll recognize what this is about all right immediately lovely looking game and it's nice to actually get to play it at long last it's been sign here for ages I'm not very good as you can see so I must say that this little machine is far more than just another retro computer that plays old games it's a completely new machine and it's capable of far much more than the original lineup of spectrums could ever accomplish it's not just designed for retro gamers but for people who are hobbyists who wants a program who want to open this thing up and have a play around and I'm really excited about what is yet to come there's a load of new games being developed for the next and I think over the next year or so we're gonna see some really cool stuff release for the spectrum next so it's been a long way - yes it's been three years but it's brilliant I love it a bit thank you very much for watching and we will speak to you again soon take care now bye bye [Music]

Channel: The Retro Shed

Views: 7,749

Keywords: The Retro Shed, 8-bit, 16-bit, retro gaming, vintage gaming, vintage computers, retro computers, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Commodore, Amiga, CBM64, Megadrive, SNES, Genesis, retro games, video games, 80's gaming, 90's gaming, sinclair, spectrum next, zx spectrum next, zx spectrum, rusty pixels, jim bagley, warhawk, tyvarian, dungeonette, baggers in space, nextos, jetpac, starstrike, next

Id: jtvpdLq_Mbo

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020