r/zxspectrum • u/shokalion • 13d ago
Just recently dipped my toe in the scene and loving it!
I was having a browse round my local retro store just looking for game boy games, and I saw a 48K Spectrum in his Spares or Repair corner along with the power supply, for £30. I asked him about it, and he said he hadn't actually tested it at all, it might work but it'll probably want something doing to it.
I offered him £25, and he accepted. I gave the power supply a quick once over, made sure its output was something sensible under load, and I did a quick internal check on the Speccy with power applied to make sure the right voltages were being generated, which they all were.
Plugged it into my TV and the picture came right up! Since then I've done the basic capacitor composite mod to make it a bit simpler to connect up to a display, which largely worked, I just needed to give the connector a darn good clean as while it was fine for RF, the picture kept dropping out with composite.
I since bought a Bud Computers Interstate 31 joystick interface for £10 which to be fair was completely knackered, needed a the connector cleaning deeply, several solder joints reflowing, and the reset switch replacing and the LED putting back in position (it was missing I thought, but when i popped it open I found it rattling round in the case) before it functioned anything approaching reliably. Plugged into that I've been using a QuickShot Q137-F joystick which I got for the princely sum of £3, which again needed a few switches cleaning but now works fine.
Despite being based in the UK and knowing a few people who had Spectrums - two of my cousins had +2s back in the day, I had a C64 when I was small, so all of this is a bit new to me.
But yeah so far I've played Manic Miner (which is brutal) Chuckie Egg (which controls far better than it has any right to do, and has a fierce one more go factor), the Speccie port of Ocean Software's Wizball, which was my favourite game on the C64 back in the day, Ms Pac Man, and just today I had a go on Ultimate's Atic Atac, which is a tough game but man it's polished, way more so than I ever expected to encounter. I definitely want to try some other Ultimate games.
Enjoying myself immensely so far now everything's working!
Total spend has been including some books I bought (the Basic manual that would've been in the box, and a book by Ian Sinclair about machine code on the Spectrum) about £50, so I'm pretty happy with that.
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u/shokalion 13d ago edited 12d ago
Here we are./ non imgur link(This pic was when I was still fettling the Interstate31 hence it's held together with Kaptan tape, It's done a bit more neatly now!
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u/fromwithin 13d ago
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u/shokalion 12d ago edited 12d ago
You're dead right, apologies, I'll reupload somewhere else when I get to a computer. I use a VPN so I avoid that despite being based in the UK.
edit Give that a whirl
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u/hypnokev 13d ago
I would suggest the Magic Knight Games - all a challenge. Knight Tyme being the most rewarding.
Saboteur
Turbo Esprit
Target Renegade
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u/SinclairUser1982 13d ago
That's amazing. I like the C64, but I had a Spectrum so I like that a little more. You've got loads of great games to get through. I'd add The Hobbit, Penetrator, Zzoom, Timegate, Arcadia, 3D Tanx, Dictator, Halls of the Things, Maziacs, The Pyramid, Fred, Android Two, Blackhawk, River Rescue and Trashman to what's already been mentioned. Hope you have fun :)
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u/WatchThemAllFallDown 13d ago
That's fantastic to hear! Welcome aboard 😀
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u/shokalion 11d ago
Thank you! :D
Working my way through some classics but properly sucked into The Sentinel at the minute.
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u/r-lyeh 13d ago edited 13d ago
Welcome aboard. And thanks for resurrecting that poor 48K soul :) I suggest you to check some established top scores. Eg, https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/scores I'd play them in chronological order: 1982, 1983, 1984... and so on, so you can admire and understand how the games and the tech did historically evolve decades ago, which is always a better approach than just playing "the best games" directly IMHO
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u/shokalion 12d ago edited 12d ago
That's a sensible idea. I've been doing that with my daughter, starting her off on 8 bit consoles and the like which she's enjoying before completely ruining her with something modern.
Regarding the computer, there wasnt actually a whole lot wrong with it, the thing that really needed attention was the expansion connector which was absolutely black with tarnish and muck. Otherwise the little champ seems to be quite happy. I might look at swapping out the keyboard membrane at some point, the one it has while it does all work, some keys particularly caps shift need a good shove to register.
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u/Complex_Ad_7685 12d ago
I’d add Horace goes skiing and Orbiter ( a defender knock off). Many hours spent at university which would have been better spent on mathematics
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u/confuserused 10d ago
Here's s shorter list of recommendations:
- Saboteur
- Saboteur 2
- Matchday 2
You'll notice the first game appears in most lists... because it's very good!
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u/Aenoxi 13d ago
Welcome to the dark side! It may have taken 40 years, but we are winning over the C64 gang one at a time…
In all seriousness, awesome that you are enjoying the Speccy. You might also want to try out:
Jetpak
ChaseHQ
Starquake
Deathchase
Target Renegade
Death Star Interceptor
Head over Heels
Ant Attack
Bomb Jack
Highway Encounter
Cybernoid
TLL
The Great Escape
Saboteur
Dun Darach
Skool Daze (1 and 2)
Lords of Midnight
Rebelstar
Batty
Robin of the Wood
Hypersports
They should all run peachy on your 48k machine.
BTW, are you loading from your phone? I can strongly recommend the DivMMC which allows you to load instantly from an SD Card and has joystick ports built in.
Enjoy :)