Re: Retro Spectrum - my thoughts

On Tue, 15 Apr 2025 09:32:06 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 14/04/2025 19:08, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 11:08:43 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
 

So the obvious question, what is it. It’s a Raspberry Pi based Spectrum
48k/128k emulator in a case pretty much identical to the original rubber
keyed wonder. They added some weights to get the right feel and also
modern features such as HDMI, USB, save/rewind games, controller support
and, shock horror, a power switch. What it’s not is say a Spectrum Next
which is an ‘emulator’ using FPGA’s to provide soft hardware and they’ve
also supercharged it. It’s also significantly more expensive, x3, and
even more so on the second hand market.
>
I missed the first production run last year but for this year’s one I
just thought why not as I’m a sucker for nostalgia and the Spectrum was
a big part of my life and the U.K. in general so at £89.99 why not.
>
I’ve played a few of the games that are included (I need to get a USB
loaded with some more of my favourite games) and my initial reaction is
it’s fun although the games are even harder than I remember. I’ve failed
to even get past the second level on the classic that is Manic Miner.
The other one, there’s something about having a physical device that
elevates it to another level. Oh and who thought QAOP was a good key
combination.
>
My overall conclusion is that it it’s never going to become, as I very
much expected, my main gaming platform but instead it will be something
I fire up now and again for a change of pace. There’s also a nice
community of old farts online (sound familiar?).
>
Could it end up gathering dust before the end of the year, possibly but
heh I can always sell it for more than I bought it for.

 
Not having any real nostalgia for the Speccy (or, really, any of the
8-bits) I can't get too excited about devices like this. In general,
I'm much happier resorting to emulation anyway, but if I did want to
run it on hardware, I'd want _real_ hardware over an FPGA hack. That's
not to dismiss the effort put into these devices, but I don't really
get the point if you're going to end up emulating anyway. I'm just of
the sort who thinks, "Just do it on the PC you already own", ya know?
 
A lot of the old-timey games aren't really very good, anyway, and once
you get past the nostalgic thrill of seeing them again, you start
seeing all the defects that forty-years of game-development have
worked very hard at improving. Ridiculous key-mappings included. ;-)
 
(although I think QAOP is better than OLZX, which I also recall being
somewhat common. And people nowadays bitch about old-school games
using the cursor keys...)

>
Yeh, without the nostalgia part* they are pretty worthless. For me the
Spectrum was about the games and not what was in the box so this is an
ideal solution as having that physical device plays into that nostalgia
and means I can kinda look past just how basic the games were.
>
In the online group I'm using there are the inevitable 'purists' that
insist that you should only use real hardware - no I'm not using my old
12" Sony Trinitron thank you very much! I'm fine if that's what floats
their boat but it's the way they act as though they are objectively
right that annoys me. Unfortunately almost every hobby has a share of
people like that.

I'm not really a purist (despite the fact that, yes, I have a computer
for DOS games, another for Win9x games, a third for WinXP...).
Emulation isn't perfect but then again, neither is running it on
native hardware. Especially on such a fragmented platform as PCs,
where you could get radically different experiences depending on what
hardware you have installed.

(I'm not an expert in any way on the Speccy, but I know 8-bits weren't
totally immune to this either, even on computers that were largely
used 'stock'. Depending on the date of manufacture (or just quality
control) the chips -particularly the PLAs and SID - on a C64 could be
different enough that games would look and sound slightly different
for different users. There was no 'pure' experience)

And the disadvantages of 'real' hardware are usually enough to
counter-balance any claims to purity anyway (assuming you can even get
it to work anymore!). I mean, the Speccy's chicklet keyboard alone
would be enough to make me go screaming into the night. ;-)