Do Americans have any interest in the ZX Spectrum?

>>3152728
naww that calculator had no love stateside, our parents bought us real gaming machines, no need to fuck with computers until the voodoo cards came out.

>>3152746
>no love

Not entirely true. Timex sold a few units.

>>3152748
and the kids that got them were disappoint.

>>3152748
Did they? I only ever had the ZX-81. I had to put it together myself because apparently it was the Brits first attempt at a PC and they hadn't learned how to solder yet. I assume they learned to solder around the same time they figured out a keyboard should have actual keys on it. And discoverd color. Although they still haven't learned how to spell that so I might be jumping to conclusions on the whole soldering thing.

>>3152769
Well, America always did have higher-end stuff in the earlier days of computing. We had Sinclair and Acorn you had IBM and Apple.

>>3152889
>it was the Brits first attempt at a PC and they hadn't learned how to solder yet.

Oh no, we did worse. Look at its predecessors, the Mk14 and ZX80. They were even more basic.

For comparison the Mk14 was released in 1977. In America the year before the Apple I was released. The Apple I had 4kb RAM and was reasonably useful. The Mk14 had 256 bytes, not KB, Bytes of RAM and a LED screen.

>>3152728
I've never tried playing any of the games but it seems interesting; it's a big part of gaming history for a lot of developers.

>>3152746
>real gaming machines
Like what?

>>3152928
Then again maybe not since the cheap, primitive TRS-80 Model I and VIC-20 were the two biggest selling computers of the pre-video game crash era.

>>3152728
i do, i never had one, but the case looks cool and i've heard/read about some of the games
manic miner and the whole story of that and the author is legendary

>>3152996
Even those were more advanced than the early Sinclairs
See my comment: >>3152939
TRS-80 and such came out while Sinclair was basically producing tiny little kits for hobbyists.

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>>3153004
Kind of. The Model I was crude, but you could still attach disk drives, Centronics printers, and RS-232 devices to it like any big boy computer. Also it had a real keyboard.

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>>3153017
Better than this though.

>>3152986
NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, and PSX.

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>>3153017
Some models also had a numeric keypad.

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>>3153027
>NES
>SNES
>N64

Why did Americans have such shit taste?

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VIC-20s were a little closer to the Spectrum though it still had 3-voice sound and a real keyboard.

Pretty deficient in the RAM department though; it had 3.5k without expander carts and then still capped out at 32k while the Spectrum had 48k standard.

>>3153032
Go fuck yourself, Australia-kun. Those are legitimately good consoles.

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>>3153036
Why do Americans defend their shit taste?

I'm pretty sure the Amstrad CPC was the first native Eurocomputer to approach our technological levels.

>>3153047
It's more advanced than the Spectrum, but it came out in 1984 after the US market was already shifting to 16-bit machines.

>>3153047
Probably. Britain didn't have many "high-end" computers and most companies died off in the 1984 crash.

>>3153062
Same here. Most personal computer manufacturers bit the dust in 83-85 and by 87, there was nothing but IBM compatibles and Crapple.

Eastern Europe was flooded to the gills with ZX-81 clones back then. Poland and East Germany had more home computers in the 80s than color TVs.

>>3153069
Yeah but Britain never had an IBM or Apple. If Chris Curry hadn't jumped ship from Sinclair then I think that we would have seen a British IBM-type company develop.

Tbh, I prefer classic Apples to IBM. I'm a sucker for GUI's.

>>3153073
>Yeah but Britain never had an IBM or Apple

Way too expensive and reliant on disk drives. At that time, only the business market in Europe had computers with floppies and expansion slots.

>>3153075
Still, there could have been something great but instead there was the inelegant Spectrum, the half-baked Electron and a dozen and one knock-offs.

That isn't to say that they aren't good machines but had British manufacturers been more sensible and American-like then we could have competed against the American companies.

Americans had Apple, Tandy, IBM, and Commodore computers.

Was the Spectrum even released stateside?

>>3153089
Why exactly did they want to make plastic toys with 2k of memory?

>>3153096
In of itself, no. The Timex-Sinclair 2068 was the closest we got to a US model Spectrum.

>>3153096
>Was the Spectrum even released stateside?

There was a Timex version but it flopped and was partially-incompatible. Aside from that none that I know of. If you fancy playing one then you'll need the computer unit, that weird screw in metal thing American TVs need for composite and a step-up transformer. Plus a tape drive.

>>3153102
>There was a Timex version but it flopped and was partially-incompatible

They did have a converter cartridge that let you run most Spectrum programs. However, the video game crash meant that the TS-2068 came and went almost unnoticed, though it was popular in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

>>3153102
>that weird screw in metal thing American TVs need for composite
Well shit, you'll also need a TV that has those types of inputs. I haven't seen one of them for like a decade and a half.

>>3153042
>he avatarfags too
and people wonder why everyone thinks europeans are faggots

>>3153115
Really? In Britain even my LCD TV has an aerial input thingy

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>>3153118
You're talking about the bottom part of this, right? Here in America they got rid of these from TVs a long time ago. I think the last time I saw a TV that used them was in the mid-90s and even then they were rare.

>>3153146
I think by the mid 80's the prong connectors started disappearing.

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>>3153146
Yup. In the UK a lot of TVs can still connect to these, though the picture is crappy

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I'm an Amerifag and would love to someday have a working Spectrum or maybe the Vega+ once it finally comes out. It had some great games, especially the ones from Ultimate. As most anons in this forum appreciate what programmers were able to pull off with limited hardware, I have a soft spot for a computer with so many good games and only 8 colors.

>>3153150
Yeah, I don't think those are even used for American TVs. For new TVs you generally get a couple of HDMI ports, one composite, and if you're lucky a set of component ports.

>>3153158
Not surprising that Ultimate would have great programmers since Ultimate was Rare before they changed their name.

>>3153158
If you had one though, it wouldn't work on American TVs. Or you'd just get a B&W picture.

>>3153167
The +2A/3 did have a monitor output so he could buy a +2 and monitor-to-scart cable.

Then again, American TVs are 60Hz aren't they?

>>3153172
The sync thing is definitely a problem, also Spectrums are RF only so they output to Channels 35-36, not Channels 3-4 like on a US-spec RF modulator.

Most HDTVs can digest PAL signals but late models may not accept analog RF through the coax input anymore.

>>3153158
>>3153161
I think one Rare intros even has footage from Jetpac in it.

They hated the Spectrum though.

>>3153203
I know; the Stamper brothers talked about how amazing NES games looked compared to the primitive, poorly-designed, hard to control rubbish on home computers.

>>3153207
why do i see this post worded exactly the same way in every thread

Yank here, interested in the Spectrum, but not interested in owning one. Emulation is fine for me. The Vega when it comes out looks cool though.

>>3153235
Does the Spectrum use any custom ICs at all?

It seems so easy to bootleg.

>>3153237
No it doesn't and Eastern Europe had tons of bootleg Spectrum clones.

>>3153246
Yeah, I was asking because it seems notorious for being bootlegged.

>>3152939
>ZX80
For some reason I picture that with a 40 column VFD display running a 16 segment curses version of some pacman knock off.

>>3152939
>In America the year before the Apple I was released. The Apple I had 4kb RAM and was reasonably useful

Apple II you mean and it could have up to 48k.

>>3153116
thread/