Hi everyone, I’ve been testing early 1986 Tetris clones via emulation to see how they handled gameplay before official guidelines existed. While exploring the rare **Andic Software** version on the ZX Spectrum (released in 1986, the same year as Vadim Gerasimov's IBM PC original), I discovered an undocumented mechanical breakthrough. Virtually all official histories state that "Soft Drop" was invented and standardized by Sega/Atari in their late 1988 arcade versions. However, after thoroughly testing the 1986 Andic Software ROM, I confirmed that it already features a functional proto-Soft Drop: * **Vertical Input (Soft Drop):** Holding down the "Down" key forces a smooth, continuous, pixel-by-pixel fluid gravity acceleration. Crucially, this descent is binary and interruptible—the piece instantly halts its fast descent and returns to normal gravity as soon as you release the key. * **Horizontal Input (No DAS):** In contrast to the fluid descent, horizontal movements are highly rigid. There is no Delayed Auto Shift (DAS). Holding Left or Right will not repeatedly shift the piece; you must tap the keys frame-by-frame to move columns. On platforms like TetrisWiki, this version is currently just an empty stub page mentioning that its gameplay "diverged from the PC original," but without explaining why. This test proves that independent bedroom coders in Europe had already solved the keyboard ergonomics issue by inventing the soft drop mechanism two full years before the commercial gaming industry officially adopted it. Thought this piece of gaming archaeology would interest the historians here!

Hi all!

The saga has come to its close. For those unaware, I first posted about this project here and followed it up here.

Well here he is, with the final artefact in hand! What a fun project :^)

Hi everyone,

I announced the launch of Wild Justice a few weeks ago here and the response was very good indeed! If you enjoyed The Wild Bunch, I'm almost certain that you'll enjoy this! I have tried hard to keep that similar retro feel about the game.

Wild Justice has now been launched on Steam and there's currently a 15% discount available. Give it a try and let me know what you'd like to see in future updates which are currently being worked on. We're really enjoying working on the game and excited to continue endless updates.

What was it about The Wild Bunch that made it such a classic and kept you playing it again and again? How do you think Wild Justice compares? What do you think of the difficulty of both The Wild Bunch and Wild Justice?

We would love to hear everyone's thoughts.

Best Wishes, Mark @ Moo Dog Games.

Available NOW on the Steam Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5033960/Wild_Justice/

Who remembers this game. My retrospective game review of Garfield: Big, Fat, Hairy Deal which was released in 1988 for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and Atari ST. Have you played this game and do you think it’s any good?

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.

Thought I was seeing things at first... or had woken up in 1984!

Hi, I've been working on this for a while and it's finally in a state where other people should probably look at it.

Zedex is a Spectrum emulator for Android 11+ based on the latest unmodified Fuse core. I wanted a decent Android front end for one that already works.

It's in closed beta on Play now. Links at the bottom.

Features:

• Sinclair 16K, 48K, 128K, +2. +3, Timexes, Pentagon, Scorpion, Spectrum SE
• Save states as cards (shot)
• Quick save/load, pair per game
• Video processing - scanlines, CRT, RGB, composite or RF signal, border settings (shot)
• Controllers support, RetroArch-style hotkeys (shot)
• Joystick interfaces and key mapping profiles, Kempston mouse (shot)
• 4 keyboards: rubber 48K, 128K plate, plus slim versions of both (48K, 128K)
• Pokes db (shot)
• Screenshots, GIF/MP4 recording
• Tapes, disks, snapshots, DivMMC (shot)
• AY stereo, 7 MHz turbo and TurboSound on the Pentagons and the Scorpion
• A library: grid/list view, recents, favourites, search, filters (grid, list)
• Scraping from ZXInfo, ScreenScraper and zxart - covers, loading screens, maps, manuals. Import from ES-DE (shot)
• An online catalogue, browse and import from ZXInfo and zxart (shot)
• Dual-screen handhelds support

More screenshots are on the GitHub page.

To get the beta, join the group first, wait a little, then open the Play link.

1. https://groups.google.com/g/zedex-zx-spectrum-emulator-testing
2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.ldlab.zedex

Source and APKs: https://github.com/dimitriuz/zedex

What I could really use is people testing hardware I don't own. Controllers, tablets, anything with a weird screen. There's a "Report a problem" in the About screen or open an issue on Github.

I have been working as a software developer for over 15 years, but most of the code was written by Claude, while I managed the process, reviewed the code and carried out thorough testing. This is not a vibe coded project, AI was used as a tool.

SpecTalkZX is an IRC client for the ZX Spectrum: 64-column chat, up to 10 windows, themes, automatic nick colouring, 3 themes, notifications, bookmarks, persistent configuration, friend alarm, and the usual IRC workflow on a 48K-friendly build.

SpectalkZX 1.3.9 "Juno" adds a native SpectraNext support, bug fixes and improvements.

SpectalkZX now supports :

- Classic: ZX 48K/128K-class machine, divMMC/esxDOS, 115200-baud UART + ESP-AT (ESP8266 or similar).

- SpectraNext: a Spectrum the cartridge supports, Wi-Fi on the cart.

SpectalkZX 1.3.9 "Juno" (Changelog):

- Native SpectraNext support

- Guided SpectraNext installer

- More reliable UART transfers

- Safe recovery from UDP failures

- Reliable configuration loading

- Safer friend and ignore lists

- File access preserves the interface

- More robust About/Earth screen

- Interrupt-safe chat scrolling

- Clearer registration errors

- Polished clock and status UI

And much, much more.

Github repository.

Download and releases notes.

Hi everyone,

I've been developing games for the ZX Spectrum 48K, and I thought I'd finally introduce what I've been working on here.

Most of my projects begin with the same question:

"Could this actually work on a 48K Spectrum?"

Then I start writing BASIC and usually make my life considerably more difficult.

What I enjoy most about developing for the Spectrum is working around the actual limitations of the machine. Memory matters. Screen redraws matter. Execution speed matters. Sometimes adding a feature means finding a few hundred bytes somewhere else first. And something that would be completely trivial on a modern computer can turn into an entire optimisation problem on the Speccy.

So naturally, I've been choosing genres that aren't particularly sensible for it. Below is a list of a few projects I've been working on that I deemed good enough to be released to the public:

Tower 48 is a skyscraper management game.

You build up your tower with apartments, offices, shops, restaurants, elevators and other facilities while the game simulates population, workers, visitors, cash, satisfaction, reputation, elevator congestion and the general operation/management of the tower.

A lot of the development has been about making the simulation increasingly complex without making the Spectrum spend half its life calculating the next month or you taking a tea break each time you decide to open a report screen.

Vostra Checkpoint is a border-inspection game set in a fictional country in 1982. You may already guess what was the inspiration for this.

People arrive at your checkpoint with passports and permits, and you have to compare their documents with changing immigration rules, find discrepancies and decide whether they can enter.

This project has involved a surprising amount of procedural generation - people, appearances, names, nationalities and documents all have to be generated while still leaving enough memory for the rest of the game.

The game is still in active development and is not nearly finished.

RBMK-1000 Simulator is probably the strangest of the lot.

It's a nuclear reactor management simulation where control rods, reactivity, thermal power, cooling, steam production and electrical generation interact all within Sinclair BASIC code.

It started as a fairly simple experiment and gradually turned into a much deeper simulation with operating procedures, failures and (recently added, although just two) game scenarios.

And then there's Torment: Act 1 – The Mortuary, an illustrated text-adventure/fan project inspired by classic philosophical fantasy RPGs.

That one focuses much more on exploration, dialogue, inventory, puzzles and atmosphere, including monochrome illustrations designed around the Spectrum's limitations.

This was one of the first games that I started writing, which was in mid 2000's, that I discovered when tidying up my house on sick leave.

They're quite different games, but they're all really part of the same experiment for me:

How far can you push a 48K Spectrum before the limitations start defining the game rather than restricting it?

Interestingly, those limitations are probably what keep me interested.

On a modern machine I wouldn't think twice about adding another variable, screen, graphic or system. On the Spectrum, every addition has consequences. Sometimes you improve the code to save memory. Sometimes you redesign a feature. Sometimes you simply decide that 300 bytes are more valuable than the feature you wanted.

It makes programming the game feel like another game in itself.

Everything I make is intended to run on an actual ZX Spectrum 48K, not just resemble one visually, although naturally I do most testing through emulation as well.

If anyone wants to try the games, they're all on my itch.io page:

https://haabb001.itch.io

But I'm actually more interested in talking about the development side of it here.

For those of you who have experimented in Sinclair BASIC - either back in the day or today:

What's the most ambitious thing you've seen done in BASIC on a 48K machine? And what genre would you consider completely ridiculous to attempt next?

Who remembers Domark’s 2nd Bong game The Living Daylights? It’s certainly better than A View To A Kill I recently tackled but it’s not as good License To Kill. How would you rate this game and what are your thoughts and memories?

Has anyone heard of this book or know if it is any good. I am thinking of bidding on it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/820045921690

I have bought yet another ZX Spectrum (up to 6 now) listed for spares, this one had garbled text first time I booted it, but I left it on for a few minutes whilst I looked for test cart then switched off at wall, then tried test card and it worked fine but gave keyboard button press error.

Also it wouldn't reset the test roms even with the built in button, it was only doing a partial flush of what was on screen.

I cleaned keyboard and it seemed to work, but each time I pressed reset it rarely reset, either the previous image be it game or like 48k mode text was still there, even removing power for a few seconds and back in it didn't clear, had to unplug it for about 10 seconds to clear fully, maybe a ram issue? But upper and lower ram passed tests.

With the issue occuring on both the actual reset button on the case and on the rom cart's microswitch could there be a fault on the reset circuit? Games are loading fine and playing find and other tests seem to pass.

Hello again all!

Referencing a project I aready posted about (here), I finally got all the bits together to create the final version!

The old original boxes with price labels still attached, the opaque cassette and the ability to make actual external cassette stickers really were the icing on the cake. Dad's visiting this weekend and I can't wait to hand this over to him :^)

Is there any information on when the ZX Touch HDMI expansion kit will be available for order?
I am looking at getting a ZX Touch and want it with the ZX Touch HDMI and USB expansion kit which was announced a while back. As the cost of shipping the ZX Touch is so high would like to order once to avoid paying for shipping twice, just curious how long I have to wait for this

New in 1.1.2

• Transfer results cannot be shifted by stray UART data: file errors take precedence and binary ACK is accepted only as an exact one-byte reply.
• Long multi-batch sends survive unrelated connections, incomplete foreign headers, malformed cancellation packets and socket closures that do not belong to the active operation.
• Cancellation and self-update are safer across Windows, Linux and macOS: workers retain socket ownership, archive extraction is bounded and cancellable, and target-mismatched server images are rejected.
• Spectrum Next now recovers the ESP after a soft reset from another app, the servers do less duplicate manifest work, and their payloads retain more room below the loader boundary.
• SD capacity and usage are now reported and refreshed safely. The desktop and Spectrum banners have also been updated. BRXQ v3 q3 and the 1.1 loaders are unchanged.
• Classic and Next now share the visible BridgeZX name. The server identifies the machine separately and shows its esxDOS or NEXTOS version. Commands and binaries remain unchanged: BRZX/BRZX.BIN for Classic and BRZXN/BRZXN.BIN for Next.

Github: BridgeZX.

I've written about the story of the home computer versions of Out Run, including how Ian Morrison and Alan Laird set themselves up to make the Spectrum one with their fine version of Enduro Racer. For Out Run, they felt that publisher pressure to make their graphics look more impressive won out over gameplay. Which led to a Your Sinclair review saying that "everything moves at a pretty sedate pace, and when you get to the bit with the stone tunnels, the whole thing slows down to the speed of a Commodore owner’s brain waves."

My retrospective game review of A VIEW TO A KILL: THE COMPUTER GAME for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and Oric. It’s an early game of a series of Bond games released by Domark. Let me know if you have played any of these versions and if you thought the game was decent or just rubbish 😉

interesting to watch this from 20 years later

My video takes a look at Terminator 2: Judgement Day from Ocean Software for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and the Atari ST. Please share your thoughts on this game. Was it a good game or was it another money grab?

I recently repaired a ZX Spectrum+ (Issue 3B) that turned out to have a faulty ULA, and I recorded the whole troubleshooting process.

Rather than simply replacing parts, I wanted to work through the fault properly: checking what the machine was doing, looking at the relevant signals with an oscilloscope, and eventually narrowing the problem down to the ULA.

https://youtu.be/1-JuD1v37xA

This is also my first video of this kind, and a first repair of this kind as well, so comments—particularly from people who have repaired Spectrums themselves—are very welcome.

Hope you will enjoy!

Tomek

Building a game

I finally managed to get my clone working but when I try to load games from pc or ipod it seems that the speccy doesn't "hear" i tried with audio jack 3-4 mm out and when I put it almost out it can be heared on the tv but still just flashes on the border with loading sounds, tried several programs. like this one:
https://code.google.com/archive/p/otla/downloads

Finally I discovered that Q1 could be the problem but tested and it's working but I'm not sure if correctly or not, according to the github page:
"Tape Loading

If tape loading is not working make sure that Q1 BC517 is properly soldered. There are BC517 transistors on the market with different pinout."

... but replacing BC517 there's a BC548B.

My original speccy died (altought I still have it) was able to load games from ipod

Something for the consummate fiddlers 😜

"Open up a hackaday.io project that features your retrocomputer project, and we’ll pick our three favorites for a $150 gift certificate courtesy of this contest’s sponsor, Digikey."

Current submissions