The ZX Spectrum Magazine Covertape Wars (+ The Best Covertape Games) - Kim Justice 

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Least remembered? Sinclair User along with Your Sinclair (and ZZAP!) is quite literally my childhood! Reading them and the feeling I got from them are some of the best memories I have.. I never actually read Crash, until much later, on the internet. and 11:18 Moon Cresta

Here in Dubai we miss the days of UK's video games magazines from the 80s.. Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64.. etc.. mags like C+VG among others.. Its a different world we are living in right now..

Just found this channel. As a life long gamer (48 years old) this is a stroll down memory lane. Thanks and more power to you.

I remember a friend of mine getting a covertape for his Speccy, and it had Julian Gallops "Chaos" on it, the full version. We played that game probably more than any other game in history (except JetSet Willy 2 perhaps) on his Speccy. I still play it now, some 35 years on, with an emulator.

Loved this, Kim. I got a game published on a Crash covertape back when I was 14. I still remember the call from Richard Eddy offering me a hundred quid for it.

I was the third-to-last editor of Your Sinclair. The tape had no impact on our budget or page-count - that was entirely dictated by advertising page-count and sales.

I was a Sinclair User,..... erm.... user. Great mag. I still remember the demo tape with the Operation Wolf demo. Great times.

Another great video Kim! I was an SU reader because, when I started out, they'd still print programs in the magazine most months that you could type in, which to my 9 year old mind was pure wizardry. Sadly that didn't last very long, and it all become about the games and Kamikaze Bear. My departure from the Spectrum scene came abruptly at the end of 1989, just before the covertape wars really kicked off in earnest, when I switched to the C64. That didn't last long either: sold the C64 in about October of 1990 and put the money towards an Amiga 500, with my parents making up the difference and giving me the computer for Christmas.

My 8bit home computer was the cpc 464. It wasn't until later in its life that a magazine came with a cassette. In my years of using the amstrad I recall only one cassette at Christmas. Later I moved on to the 16bit machines. Before this cassette thing, I can remember booklets attached to magazines filled with type-in programs. I think I recall CVG including a booklet at some point. It claimed to have games for all the major ho.e computers. Sadly, .my computer found probably 2 listings.

you rule! All of this was a big part of my teens and knowing there is so much history to know is jawdropping.

Oh the memories.... those Crash covers, the covertapes... listening to the Mel Croucher comedy bits at the end of the tapes and it going right over my ten year old head...

I'm absolutely loving watching all your videos, it's true nostalgia heaven especially where the spectrum is involved. Keep them coming!

This episode brought a wide smile to my face.Plus, i had quite a few of the covertapes and said magazines featured in this video.Good times, and these are never coming back.We live in the digital age now.

23:00 Tir Na Nog was produced by Gargoyle Games not Hewson Consultants

wow...People from Sirius...seeing that game took me right back...unbelievable how many games i've forgotten about...seeing them again just amazes me!!! thanks for making this video...

one thing that should of been mentioned about the cover tapes was the reliability of them. buying the magazines for the cover tapes was nearly always a hit and miss affair at least for the c64 anyway. Commodore formats (future publishing) 'power pack' is a prime example with actually loading the games, in particular the full price game demo being a pain in the arse!!

This brings back a lot of memories. I even remember the time before the tapes. Page after page with text. "code your own game". Yes. Before tapes they printed basic code that you had to type yourself. Zzap 64 and the Barbarian cover... wow.

The covertape thing was amazing. I didn't have Spectrum, but on C64 side of things, Commodore Force's tapes were an absolute must. So many great classics on those (sickeningly bright) tapes.

I've just discovered this channel and it is awesome. I am struck by your knowledge of the era; you hit the nail on the head so many times. I was a Speccy owner back in the day and can't quite believe how my own experiences mirror that of your narratives. As far as the cover tapes are concerned, I absolutely detested them. As you rightly point out - and the key point of the video, I think - the magazines themselves suffered and were reduced to mere pamphlets. The disappointment of picking up a copy of Crash! for it to be only 20 to 30 odd pages and a shadow of its former self (the jam-packed, wonderful Christmas issues of past years a distant memory) - was gut wrenching. I'm not sure YS suffered in the same way with this. As far as I was concerned the cover tapes could just ***k off. I wanted my magazine back. Not only that, but I remember on more than one occasion feeling totally cheesed off seeing a game on the tape that only a few months earlier I'd purchased at near enough full price having saved up all my pocket money to get. Utter turds, those tapes in my opinion.

Wasn't the original Imagine Software working on cover tapes for a magazine back in 1982, but the deal fell through and they published them as full games or something? They never gave them back the deal money either.

I had a 48k Spectrum as a kid and can remember getting Sinclair User every month. My mate used to get Your Sinclair, never knew anyone who bought Crash.

The magazines were definitely a big part of the whole Spectrum scene. Some of the covertape games were better than full price games, and more memorable too.

incredible video. Kimb, your investigative journalism is absolutely out of the ballpark. 10 / 10 would watch again.

Props to Kim Justice, this was a great vid - really enjoyed watching it. Gotta be the only documentary online about this very specific part of the Spectrum's history. The most enjoyable war ever undertaken by mankind.

I was always super excited as a poor kid back in the day, getting all of these free games with my monthly Your Sinclair read. I've watched this doc of yours several times now over the years. Thanks for the unique content.

I don't really remember the days of cover tapes, but I understand the concept. I was into PC gaming in the 90's. And nearly all the magazines I bought had either cover disks, or CD's... And later DVD's. In fact, of the computer magazines that remain, there are still several that include cover DVD's, so the concept has been quite enduring. I got so many demos, and also a few full games that way. Quite something to a poor child and teenager... And this was an era where a magazine was $5-10 (or 2-5 pounds for the few I got in England) while the games were, where I lived, anything from $60-100 each, so it was an absolutely huge difference...

Way back in the ZX81 days, I remember getting a magazine with a cover mounted "vinyl" (actually some sort of cheap plastic) record single. I can't remember what was on it, but I do remember it was almost impossible to load.

Can’t believe how many I remember so clearly just by a few screenshots.. games I’d forgotten about..

Fantastic vid. Thanks buddy. So many memories of all those tapes. Cyclone was one I played tons. They used to do PlayStation demo disks but even that died out.I still have a CD with all the licenses unlock on Gran Turismo. Fun time to be a speccy gamer though.

I remember the June 89 Crash well. Me and my mate went crazy over it. Couldn’t believe that they’d stuck the original Monty Mole on the front. From then on, I bought Crash every single month until its dying day. Only periodically before then but after that… that was it.

OH MY GOD!!! I remember the cover tapes! EPIC TIMES!.....I think nostalgia just blew my mind! subbed

Hahaha Excellent "whistling Nick Wilson" playing in the background :)

Can't believe that I missed this vid before! Go Bear Go! I absolutely loved that game, but couldn't for the life of me remember its name until now. One of the first cover tapes that I bought. Thank you Kim! :)

Wonderful stuff! I loved this era... so many memories. Midnight Resistance Demo! Dizzy 3.5 (the only one I ever finished), Blob the Cop... Into Africa was a budget Hewson game that appeared in '91 too! Thank you!

That Micronaut One covertape blew my mind at the time. The game was amazing and to get it with the best magazine was just incredible. I still have a load of my older issues of Crash (and Zzap, even though I didn't have a C64!). I wish we still got magazines of the quality of Crash but, then again, print is much more difficult to sell these days. I'd love a digital version for modern games, though.

I can't help but notice the modern parallel between playstation and xbox with their 'free' games each month

An absolutely brilliant presentation of one of my favarite parts of the ZX Spectrums life. I am one of those that started with the old ZX-81 and then to the ZX Spectrum and it incarnations. This video has bought back so many memories of what i beleive was the best home computer of its time. To think that there are still some coders out there making new games (of which i always try to obtain for my collection,) just for the joy of keeping the ZX Spectrum in the minds of people like myself. I will certainly be suscribing to your channel and know that i am not only going to be entertained, but also will learn some things that i did not know about my beloved ZX Spectrum. Time now to fire up Johnathan Needles brillian Spectaculator and just lose myself in the history of my tenties and the good old speccy. Thank you for a great video presentation, which has wooken up this old sleeping dog. By the way along with all of my full priced games, i did manage to collect all the issues of the magazines you mention here and Sinclair Programs, ZX Computing among other mags at the time. Loved spending hours doing all those type-in programs and often fixing mistakes made by the publisher or just the bad printing of the time, especially when the characters came out squiggly and bad. Sadly the only issue that i still have is the No:1 issue of Crash.

I didn't have these systems, but the information is so in depth that it's just great to watch and learn of things I know nothing of. Nice job!

Here to rewatch the stuff I've watched only seen twice.

I used to love the Crash Powertape. There were some bloody great games on them :)

The mags (YS being my fave) were denied a lifeline when the SAM Coupe failed to appear.

As a relatively poor kid, these tapes were a lifeline, as were C-90s full of games from my cousins and Hit Squad/Codemasters budget 4-packs. This vid takes me back to the days when I could sit cross legged on the bed without losing circulation. Can anybody remember a very late tape with a digitised segment of Milli Vanilli's 'Blame It on the Rain' and a weird (Polish?) animation called Baruska about a guy who accidentally kills his pet ladybird by crushing its matchbox?

I absolutely loved 'Whole New Ball Game' on that Crash tape, level editor meant it was endless fun.

I always wondered why my fav mag 'Your Spectrum' suddenly vanished, I thought it just stopped publication. Never forget the disappointment at the time. I loved the pokes section.

I, as someone who lived in Poland, do remember the times when magazines used to include free games and stuff. It was definitely way later than the dates you list here. Some of those magazines might still exist, but I know several died out, but free games stopped being a thing way earlier, Im sure... then again from what I've heard, demos are not so popular anymore anyway

Great video, Kim. Really interesting. Cover tapes were before my time, but I have very fond memories of all the different Amiga cover disks.

Hold my hand very tightly! Classic Whistlin' Rick Wilson :)

Superb video. I have a huge collection of covertapes I got from car boot sales many years ago. Soon to be digging them out and using to try out my +2A.

Really really enjoyed this, so many games I'd forgotten about. Brilliant work. Please keep em coming!

Very interesting mention about Martec, when I was in junior school my brother and I were friends with a couple of kids who surname was martin, and his dad used to work for a games company called martec, I thought he was just an employee but looking on wikipedia it turns out he created the company - small world.

Covertape Wars were great for me, as like yourself, I was coming to the party a little late, only picking up my Speccy in 1989! Mailstrom and the Batman demo from the SU covertape were my first Speccy experience, after the Lightgun games that came with the computer!

I have one solitary cassette, taken from a mag in the UK and hauled along with my 11 year old self to the frigid tundra of 🇨🇦. It's got the soundtrack for AFTERBURNER on one side 😎

This was a great video. The magazines look awesome. Cover tape wars never happened in the USA in the 80's-early 90's. Most C64 and other computer users had a disc drive by then. I wish some magazine would have at tried one. It would have given us a reason to dig out the datacassette.

I always remembered that the 3 main ZX Spectrum magazine (CRASH, YS, Sinclair USER) always seemed to have this strange "rivalry" between themselves. Didn't really matter to me, as I used to buy all 3 of them. Mainly for their cover tapes though. Sinclair USER for me had the edge though with more content such as music demos, latest game demos, holiday specials, pokes and shit loads of free games.

Nov 1989 SU had a covertape of "Coin-op Soundtracks". I still have the tape and play it every now and then. Someone has uploaded it onto youtube too though! (Search for "Coin-op soundtracks from Virgin Games - Sinclair User free tape") Was mindblowing stuff for my little ears back then.

Another excellent video Kim, really interesting stuff. I completely missed out on the cover tape wars as I had already gone 16-bit by that time. This has helped fill-in the blanks for me from that period of the Spectrum's life.

Brilliant video Kim, you're consistency and quality never falters. I think I could listen to your talk about the ZX Spectrum endlessly, keep up the great work.

I never saw cover tapes here in the U.S., but we did get a lot of cover discs. The PC gaming mags, and console mags for the PS1, Xbox, and Dreamcast. Some full games, mixed with playable and unplayable demos. I still have a lot of these cover discs. I sometimes wonder if cover cards could have been a thing here for the Sega Master System. There were no SMS mags here, but if there had been cover cards with demos or full games would have been cool.

I'm a new subscriber after hearing your interview on the Retro Hour.. Loved this, thanks.

When crash went big on the cover tape the magazine shrunk to a fraction of its size with review shrinking from 2 pages to a quarter . That when I stopped buying, all the tech features gone, the heart of the mag ripped out

You're an awesome content creator, Kim. Please keep it up, I always find it very interesting to hear about games from a UK perspective.

i remember Crash Magazine very much the one thing i liked about it was a artwork on the front cover each month i miss my zx spectrum i had so much fun playing games like Elite and Cucky Egg for hours :(*

A slight error on Your Sinclair early on in your film. The magazine was originally published by Sportscene Specialist Press (when known as Your Spectrum) before the company changed its name to Dennis Publishing. As Your Sinclair it was sold to Future Publishing in Spring 1990. That issue aside, a fantastic video up to your usual high standards. Keep up the good work.

I remember all those cover tapes. This has brought back so many memories

Home sick from work...kim justice marathon it is!

Magnificent video Kim. Really loved this one.

17:58 1. Axel F by Harold Flatermeyer (Most people think of Crazy Frog from the title's name because the Crazy Frog remix advert would play a lot on TV.) 2. Take On Me by a-ha 3. Frankie&Johnny (At least 256 different recording of the song have been made since the 20th cenutry. No idea who sings the version in the video though but it is a popular American song) 4. Deep Blue Sea by Jimmy Dean 5. Gambler by Madonna (Well unless the song title displays as being by Kenny Rogers or Johnny Cash then the song was mislabeled by dropping the "The" from their The Gambler song) 6. UNGO MUNGO by Lloyd Russell (Never heard of it and can't even find the song on RU-vid or any information about on Wikipedia. The only Lloyd Russell that shows on Wikipedia is an American who was a Gridiron and Baseball player.)

great stuff kim, thanks. rest in peace mr. cohen.

Pretty interesting video, also noticed my name at 30:52 at the bottom right, becoming a patron for your channel is something im glad i did. Really hope you never stop making such amazing videos!

Excellent - thanks for making and uploading

Great video. I had no idea they where still making spectrum mags in 92/93. What about a video on the PS1 era cover discs. With the demos and those Net Yaroze homebrew games.

Is that the cover tape tune Hold My Hand Very Tightly by Whistlin' Rick Wilson (aka David Wilson) about the 4 or 5 minutes in the background!

Your videos are top notch entertainment. Deserve so many more subscribers imo.

5:48 clicking on this video threw my memory back to listening to Mel Croucher’s Christmas Party, lo and behold there it is.

I enjoyed this, brought back lots of memories. I would love to see an even more in depth version, perhaps the stories behind the mags as well

Thanks for this video 😀 I got a spectrum when I was 9 in '89. My cousin had a 48k rubber keyed one and I got the 128 +, needless to say I inherited a substantial library of cassettes. So very good.

Amazing, as always. Love the music too.

I actually have a cartoon published in the July 1983 Crash, with the Dun Darach cover. I was 12 when I sent it in. I loved that magazine but by 1989, the only thing i played was 'The Sentinel" and everyone I knew had an Amiga or an Atari ST. I got a Sega megadrive in 1990 and haven't pushed play on a cassette recorder to load a game ever since. I loved my speccy, but who the hell was still buying games for it in 1990?

I suppose I was fairly late to the Speccy - I got mine in 1989, a +2A with light gun, shitty Sinclair SJS2 joystick, and a load of crap light gun games. First game I bought was Batman the Movie, which was glorious. Then, it was Your Sinclair. The magazines were just finally giving up on the one or two games or demos on a tape by this point. With a few months, Your Sinclair, Crash and Sinclair User were shovelling out multiple older games on cover tapes - and I loved it. It was a great way to build up a decent game collection when you didn't have much money to spare. N.O.M.A.D., The Hobbit, Dynamite Dan, Trantor, all great games which came to me via covertapes. By about 1992, I'd moved on to the mighty Amiga 500+, and as with the Spectrum, there was plenty of magazines supporting the machine. Amiga Format, Amiga Power, Amiga Shopper, CU Amiga, The One Amiga, Amiga Computing, Amiga User International - all of which had cover floppies (or soon did have) and the were offering one full game (usually something public domain) and one complete application. But by god, it was good. Very quickly, I amassed a copy of Protext (handy for school essays), followed extremely quickly by CrossDos (allowing me to take those essays to school to print out (handy when I didn't have a printer of my own), then KindWords 3, various programming languages, good PD games, demos, etc etc. It was fantastic. Great video, Kim. Really enjoyed that.

Absolutely fascinating! I started on Your Sinclair and this remained a staple throughout my speccy life but I delved in to Sinclair User and Crash based on the cover tapes. I tend to remember SU had really decent cover tapes but not such a good read where as YS was consistently interesting to read, I never really got Crash until much later as I didn't realise from the title that it was a Speccy mag (yes I was that shallow) and by then it was all basically over. Amiga Format/Power next!

This is something I literally had NO IDEA about. Great work, as usual.

Really interesting video. I only ever bought Your Sinclair. I never realised the other two even existed.

The cover of the Crash magazine at 5:11 is a lot more kinky than the ones on Zoo and Nuts that ended up causing a load of bother among concerned parents a few years ago!

That was excellent, Kim. Thank you!!

Great vid... Just can't believe no mention of Chaos... The game so good it was covertaped twice!

Ahhhh 😊My very first gaming experience. I loved my ZX Spectrum to death back in the 80s

I'd completely forgotten about Ceasefire but that thing was great. What blew my mind about Seymour Take One was how once you started the camera rolling it would literally somehow record whatever you did on that final take, then show it back as an instant replay. Seems trivial now but sorcery in the days of games being loaded in on cassette tape

This looks like it's going to be another cracking feature, Kim - just making a start on it whilst cooking tea!

Great video, I cant remember Crash at all but I do remember Your Sinclair. I honestly never liked the cover tapes, I remember then being rubbish. My main memory is looking for upcoming games to see how close they were to the arcade.

Brilliant work!

fantastic video kim please keep them coming

It may have been good for your games collection, but I look back with sadness at the 'cover tape' wars. I got into the Spectrum at it's height of it's popularity. I'd buy 'Crash' every month, and usually one of the others too. It was sad to see the magazines get thinner and thinner as the number of games on the tape increased. In the end, it was a tape with a pamphlet attached.

There was a great tape from Crash, I think it was a Christmas special that had a great audio skit on it that made some joke about not being able to find the "any key" I've been trying to find it for years, but no joy..

Your vids are getting better and better! Cheers!

i used to have a big box full of these magazines but threw them out when i moved house. i still have the covertapes though!

An AMIGA edition I have a feeling would be done by Kim too as there are countless many around on the AMIGA's main format the Floopy disk. This is a list of all the ADF coverdisk mags I can find on the TOSEC on EAB FS let alone all the mags they haven't even equired disks for yet and the countless CD32/CDTV/ACD ones on the rarer CD Format around too. Loved the Spectrum edition and have a craving for more already especially since you are big time into AMIGA as well Kim that helps you yourself wanting to make an AMIGA followup anyway let alone us suggesting it as it probably is in the pipeline knowing you loving the AMIGA and Speccy like many of us all do. lol. 68000er (Markt & Technik AG) 880 Gamer PDF Mag (Comiga) AC's Tech For The Commodore Amiga(PiM Publications) AMIGA-Magazin (Markt & Technik) AMIGA-Magazin-PD (Markt & Technik) Agaton (Data-Tronic AS) Ami Exchange Magazine (AX Productions) Amiga Action (Europress Interactive) Amiga Blade (T&T Media) Amiga Computing (Europress Interactive) Amiga Concept (Delta Publishing Group) Amiga Down Under (Fromont Holdings) Amiga Dream (Posse Press) Amiga Format (Future Publishing) Amiga Forum (Atlantis Amiga Brukerklubb) Amiga Fun (MC Publications) Amiga Fun (CompuTec Verlag) Amiga Games Disc & Mag (CompuTec Verlag) Amiga Hack (Data-Tronic AS) Amiga Joker (Joker Verlag) Amiga Jumpdisk (JumpDisk) Amiga Magazine (Divo) Amiga Mania (MC Publications) Amiga Plus (ICP) Amiga Power (Future Publishing) Amiga Power (Markt & Technik) Amiga Review (Atlantida Publishing) Amiga Shopper (Future Publishing) Amiga Software Extra (Markt & Technik) Amiga Special (media Verlagsgesellschaft) Amiga Supergame (LOGO-Software) Amiga User International (Maxwell Specialist Magazines) Amiga User International (Headway, Home & Law) Amiga+ (Antic) AmigaAnimation (AmigaAnimation) AmigaByte (Elettronica 2000) AmigaMagazine (Gruppo Editoriale Jackson) The AmigaWorld Tech Journal (IDG Communications) Amigo! (CompuTec Verlag) AmigoTimes (Sama Software) Atlantida News (Atlantida Publishing) Best of Amiga (Best of Amiga) CU Amiga (EMAP Images) CU Amiga Magazine (EMAP Images) Commodore User (EMAP Images) Compute!'s Amiga Resource (General Media) DatorMagazin (Broderna Lindstroms forlags AB) Den Norske Hjemmedataklubben (Data-Tronic AS) Det Nye COMputer (DCA) EnigmA (GR Edizioni) Games-X (Europress Interactive) Giga (Hjemmet Mortensen AS) New Computer Express (Future Publishing) OZ Amiga (Triple D Publications) The One (EMAP Images) The One for Amiga Games (EMAP Images) The One Amiga (EMAP Images) The One Amiga (Maverick) Public Domain (Future Publishing) RAM (ARTbas) RAM Magazine (La Chaise) ST Amiga Format (Future Publishing) Secret Service (ProScript) Stampede Amiga (Jengrove Enterprises) Your Amiga (Argus Specialist Press) Zero (Dennis) I know there are a lot more but those are the ones with disks available in TOSEC so easy to get on EAB FS up to 2016 updates for. The ones wiht the names listed on the downloads are normally full game releases on a mag disk or PD exclusive for mag disks I beleive so with the TOSEC names you most of the time know what to try out first as well although there are some diamands in the rough unknown and non listed titles of the games on ones as well. Definitely some fun to be had checking out some coverdisks on the AMIGA but there might be too many brands to give 1 disk of choice a go of to be honest unlike the Spectrum which is probably the 3 you covered. #Blooming Heck There are a load of C64 ones also on EAB FS right now for download as well and probably just as many numbers as AMIGA ones

Terrific video, forgotten how many of these games I'd had.

Sinclair User swallowed Crash, Your Sinclair outlasted both magazines and almost always were way ahead of the other 2 magazines in terms of circulation. Crash went out of the races long before the other two

The first Cybernoid was also on the NES, surprisingly.