The Spectrum - Swainy's Thoughts On The Announcement 

looks fantastic - rubber keys without the worry that you're using 40+ year old components potentially can fail. Ive pre-ordered. Not worried about joystick compatibility - that's the whole point of rubber keys - just how I used to play games back in the day!!! Looking forward to this one, much more than any of the other releases that's come out of the team at Retro Games.

Having a rubber key form factor that can do heaps more than a 48K model (128k, ULAPlus (extra colours) and emulation of other systems) would make it more than a gimmick I think.

Great video, hit the nail right on its head with your views. It's certainly going to contribute to the community's growth with it's easy and affordable method of getting a nostalgia kick.

I can't wait for this one mate 😎 Great video.

Interesting take, thanks for sharing. This is going to be absolutely massive because, as you say, it’ll bring 100s of thousands of 80s gamers back to the scene as it’s relatively cheap and easy to install. Retro Games Ltd better have the production line rolling…

While I own a number of real hardware systems, I really enjoy Retro Games' emulators (especially the full-size ones), for four reasons: 1) Their loving attention to visual and tactile detail. This especially goes for the C64 maxi, with its keyboard, and I expect it will hold true for the Spectrum as well. 2) Convenience and ease of use. Sometimes you just want to play some games on your HDMI telly. 3) Built in save states. Easy and fast. 3) Perhaps most importantly, they cover several systems in one: The C64 lets you play VIC 20 games and Commodore 64 games that need REUs (Sam's Journey, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc). The A500 covers all OCS, ECS, and AGA graphics. The 400 Mini lets you run Atari 2600, 7800, 400, 800 and 800XL and XE software. And, the Spectrum will run 16/48/128kb software and ULA+ colour schemes. That, to me, suggests good value.

Great points ! we can all emulate every system , nut the feeling of having it is too difficult to resist ! well said in all of your points btw !

RGL have never used the original company names on their products, Commodore, Atari and now Sinclair. They also prefix "The" to the computer model name. That's just their branding style. The problem with the Spectrum is the word 'Sinclair' was a very prominent part of the case design, so they put Retro from their own name on it. I have heard that it may also be something to do with the ZX Spectrum Next having the rights to use the Sinclair name.

I had zx spectrum 48k from 1982 - 1990 had great time with friends now I have Xbox series X old skool gamer

I was going to ask if you know whether BASIC programming would be possible on it, but then I saw the clip you included of the trailer which confirms it. I should have watched the trailer, really. 😂 I'm kind of like yourself with this machine. I have a Next so I'm not really interested in buying one of these, but it's nice to see a mainstream, affordable modern Speccy experience made available to just buy off-the-shelf. I think this is going to do really well.

The VIC20 comes with a C64 mode too

Nice one sir, I think these are great for people who haven't played a computer since the 80's and want to re-visit their youth. It's a no-nonsense solution working on modern TVs with no faff. Whilst I have the itch to buy one just because, like yourself I have other options to play Spectrum games so think I'll leave it. I do have both C64's and find the joystick bundled horrible to use .

I wonder what people are going to do for Joysticks. Maybe a modern Atari replica might work?

I hope it's more powerful and has added extra gfx modes and features. That way best chance of new developers and scene.

That is a mean looking arcade machine in the background. Mean and intimidating. _Il n'y a pas de trop._

Looking forward to this been waiting for a Speccy to be cloned for sale. Shame it doesnt have the ear and mic sockets as this would let you collect the original games on tape and get around the tap images that are not available due to copyright reasons.

Cool video. I love the idea of this - and I will buy it. But I was rubbish at these games back in the day and relied on the Multiface One disassembler to identify the lives counter and player energy. Proper cheating! But thats going to be difficult on new hardware.... And on that subject; why is it that we now have significantly more CPU power in these units compared to the originals yet the emulation still suffers from the flaws that the original hardware had? For example In your clip at 6:03 Head Over Heels, hits slowdown once Head starts pushing the 3 objects. Can't this be buffered? or optimised? The isometric games in particular suffered because of the original Z80As lack of beef. These days a Raspberry Pi Zero runs rings around it. Surely the emulation (software or hardware) can improve the experience?

nice but where us the a500 maxi is my qestion even if i very interested in buy the spectrum

Nice video Swainy. My major concerns would be with the usb joystick compatability. Will it pick up and use my adapter so I can use my Cruiser 🤔. Only time will tell I suppose.

What I want to know is; will it have an actual keyboard face plate like the original?

Sadly as with many hardware emulators this has no audio ports to load from tapes although somewhere in a list of features it was remarked you can load your own tapes. I have written a lot of stuff that is still on tape but need to use the PC with some software to load tapes to a TAP or TZX file. I wonder if the USB can recognize a simple USB audio card.

At 5:37 "We understand that it will be using a form of the Fuse emulator" - this is entirely incorrect, the emulator used was written from scratch by Chris Smith, and is not related to Fuse in any way.

Dean whats the situation with creepy crawlies having a game shed? are spiders a problem or do you open up your cabs daily to check its safe to play?

Please note a certain notorious person at Retro Games Ltd notoriously registers retro game titles and character names as trademarks and then goes after creators and others using these names. He was also invloved with the failed ZX Vega+ kickstarter. Now he's back at it, reproducing a ZX Spectrum blatantly copying the entire design of the machine AND the packaging while at the same time taking down a RU-vidr who made funny video's with Hungry Horace parodies. Sure, this may be a great device technically, but just so you know.

Will give this one a miss nothing better than my Spectrum Next lol

The Spectrum Next is a great machine. See no point for this.

if you're going to have a title sequence, you have to equalize your footage audio to the music/sound of your title sequence. failure to do that fucking pisses me off.

Sorry, it aint for us. We have 5 original Sinclair ZX Spectrums (which we purchased off Ebay) that were not in good working order. We repaired them, and are happy to stick with the ORIGINAL 48k machine. But many thanks for shareing your ideas. Wayne & Nina 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡❤️❤️❤️😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

In addition, most gamers are now at least 53 years old. The "modern gen" of gamers "16 years old etc", would not be even remotely interested. Programming a computer is too much hard work. Wayne & Nina 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡